Guide to the Tick Engine in Guitar Hero 3

[eddyf]

Guide to the Tick Engine in Guitar Hero 3
By: eddyf

________________________________________________________________________________
Introduction
As you all know, there are many differences between Guitar Hero 3 and the earlier Guitar Hero games. There are differences in the timing window, in the way that HOPOs work, and in particular in the way that the tick engine works. I'm writing this guide because I've noticed that even though GH3 has been out for a long time now, many people continue to hold misconceptions about how the tick engine in GH3 actually works. I hope that this guide can clear up those misconceptions. Knowing the details of how ticks work can be a huge help in getting those extra points in songs, whether those points come from better tick squeezing or from dropping fewer ticks. I hope most people will learn something they didn't know before from reading this guide.

Basics
Ticks are the smallest unit of points in Guitar Hero. They come from hitting sustained notes. The basic equation is 1 beat = 25 ticks. No matter what the BPM is for the song, one beat always contains 25 ticks. One tick is equal to one point under a multiplier of 1x. Ticks are subject to multipliers just like notes. So, for example, if you are under a 4x multiplier, one tick is worth 4 points; if you're under an 8x multiplier, one tick is worth 8 points; and so forth. Ticks are the reason people's score on a song ends up differing by 8 or 12 points. There are two primary ways that those differences arise:

• Dropping ticks. This is what happens when you let go of a sustain before it ends; you stop getting points from that sustain, and the additional points that you would have gotten if you had held the sustain to its completion are called dropped ticks. Of course, dropped ticks are very bad. Many people don't realize just how bad it is to drop ticks. When you're going for a competitive score, the ticks dropped throughout the song can add up to as little as 100 points or as much as 3000 points in most cases. Needless to say, you don't want to end up 3000 points from a top 10 score just because of dropped ticks. To avoid dropping ticks, keep this in mind: no matter how late you hit the note at the beginning of the sustain, you will not lose any ticks from that. You can only lose ticks by letting go of the sustain too early. So when there are sustained notes one after the other, you should try to err on the side of hitting every note late rather than early, because that way you won't drop any ticks. I'll go into more depth about that later.
  
• Tick squeezes. There are two kinds of tick squeezes: regular tick squeezes and reverse tick squeezes.
  
  1. A regular tick squeeze occurs when, in a star power path, the very last note to be hit under SP for a given activation is a sustained note. The later you squeeze the first note of the activation, the later the SP will last, and thus the more ticks will be under an 8x multiplier rather than a 4x multiplier. Also, in GH3 only, it is possible to get even more ticks under the 8x multiplier by hitting the last note (the sustained note) as early as possible. The earlier you hit the note, the more ticks will be under SP, but ONLY if the SP lasts at least till the center of the note's timing window.
     
  2. A reverse tick squeeze occurs when, in a star power path, an activation begins in the middle of a sustain (rather than on a note). The earlier you activate SP, the more ticks will be under the 8x multiplier. Of course, when you activate SP earlier, this also means that you will have to work harder to squeeze in the final note in the activation. Also, in GH3 only, it is possible to get even more ticks under the 8x multiplier by hitting the sustained note (the one that you're supposed to activate SP after, during the sustain part) as late as possible. When you do this, the ticks that you missed at the beginning of the sustain by hitting the note late get pushed to the end of the sustain, which is under star power.
     

The Two Primary Differences Between the GH3 Tick Engine and the GH2 Tick Engine

• In Guitar Hero 2, the ticks on a double chord count for twice as much as the ticks on a single note. In Guitar Hero 3, this is not true. Ticks on a chord sustain count for the same amount of points as ticks on a single note sustain: 1 point per tick. Don't believe me? Try playing the very first note of Raining Blood on Easy, then on Expert. It's a single note sustain on Easy but a double chord sustain on expert; after subtracting 50 and 100, respectively, for the point value of the note itself, you will see that the ticks are worth exactly the same number of points!
  
• In Guitar Hero 2, ticks always start counting from the middle of the note's timing window, regardless of how early you hit the sustained note. If you hit the note late, you get the ticks from the beginning of the sustain up to that point immediately, then ticks continue counting from there. In other words, ticks in GH2 are pretty much immobile: exactly one beat after the center of a note's timing window, you will always have 25 ticks, regardless of how early or late you hit the note. The way GH3 works is drastically different. Exactly one beat after the center of a note's timing window, you will have 25 ticks only if you hit the note dead-center. If you hit it early, you'll have more than 25 ticks; if you hit it late, you'll have less than 25 ticks. Ticks start counting from the moment you hit the note, not from the center of the note's timing window. (Actually, there's more to it than that. See the next section).
  

The GH3 Tick Engine: Tick Bursts and Other Phenomena

• One annoying aspect of Guitar Hero 2 is that it's very easy to drop ticks when a note comes right on the end of a sustain. In order to not drop any ticks, you would have to transition to the next note pretty much instantaneously; transition one 25th of a beat too early and you drop a tick. Actually, you could avoid this by hitting the note that comes after the sustain late. That gives you more time to transition. Still, it seems like a design flaw that whenever a note comes right on the end of a sustain, the only way to avoid losing points is to hit that note late. At least, Neversoft thought so when they were making Guitar Hero 3. To remedy this problem, they came up with a solution called the End Burst. Here's how it works: every sustain has a certain length, which is supposed to match up with the actual length of the note in the song. This length is what determines how many ticks are in that sustain. However, in the actual game, every sustain ends 1/4 of a beat too early. At precisely 1/4 of a beat before the "true" end of the sustain, you are awarded all the remaining points in the sustain, in a "burst" of ticks. Assuming that you hit the note dead-center, this 1/4 of a beat is equal to 7 ticks. So throughout the sustain, ticks count up normally, but when you get to the last 1/4 of a beat, your points immediately jump up by 7 ticks (which is 28 points under a 4x multiplier). After that point, you are free to let go of the sustain; you will not lose any ticks anymore. So basically, at the end of every sustain, you get 1/4 of a beat of "transition time" to prepare for the next note.
  
• There is also such thing as a Start Burst. This applies when you hit a sustained note early. Right when you reach the center of the note's timing window, you will receive a burst of ticks corresponding to how early the note was hit. So, for example, suppose you hit the note early by one fifth of a beat. Then the tick burst at the center of the note's timing window will be 5 ticks. After that the ticks will continue to count normally, until you reach the End Burst, which is normally 7 ticks but in this case will only be 2 ticks (since you already got 5 ticks at the beginning).
  
• If you hit a sustained note late, the ticks start counting from 0 at precisely the moment you hit the note. When you reach the End Burst, you will be some ticks "behind" compared to if you had hit the note dead-center. These ticks will all be awarded to you in the End Burst. So, for example, suppose you hit the note a fifth of a beat late. This is equal to 5 ticks. Thus, the End Burst, which is normally 7 ticks, would actually be 12 ticks in that instance. In the end, the total number of ticks you get will always correspond to the "true" length of the sustain (if you don't drop ticks).
  
• When you drop a sustain before the End Burst, you automatically lose all the ticks that you would have gotten from that End Burst. That's why tick-dropping in GH3 is even more pronounced than in GH2: most of the time, if you drop any ticks at all, you will drop at least 7 ticks, which is 28 points, and that's from a single dropped sustain. However, I'm not sure what happens if you drop the sustain right on the End Burst. It appears to be possible, with just the right timing, to drop only half of the tick burst, for example. However, in the majority of cases, you will end up dropping the entire tick burst and losing major points (especially if you hit the note late, which means that the End Burst would have even more than 7 ticks).
  
• While ticks are counting up, in the middle of the sustain, they only count by twos. This came as a surprise to me, but after analyzing frame-by-frame versions of videos, there was no room for doubt. I've even caught frames where the score counter was "in transition" between a certain score and a score 2 points higher than that, completely skipping the value in between (this was under a 1x multiplier, of course). So in other words, ticks are awarded in groups of two. All values in between are skipped. The exception is for particularly long sustains (I tested with Kool Thing). Seemingly without pattern, every hundred ticks or so, the ticks would switch between skipping every odd value to skipping every even value, or back. However, for short sustains, ticks count by twos for the whole sustain. So then, where do odd numbers of ticks come from? Simple: tick bursts. The Start Burst can give you an odd or an even number of ticks, resulting in the ticks either skipping the even numbers or skipping the odd numbers, respectively. Similarly, the End Burst can give you an odd or an even number of ticks, since it always gives you exactly as many ticks as are left in the sustain at that point. This counting-by-two behavior explains why, for example, so many people have 362050 or 362058 on My Name Is Jonas (expert), but so few people have 362054. In the tick squeeze activation, if you hit the first note late enough, you will get the first two ticks, but it is impossible to only get one tick just from hitting the first note late. The only way to get one single tick is to hit the last note early (so that one tick is in the Start Burst) and to also hit the first note late enough that the SP lasts far enough to include the Start Burst but not far enough to include the next two ticks (which would result in a score of 362062).
  

Conclusion
Well, that's about it. Comments are welcome, of course, and let me know if there's anything important that I left out, or if you have anything to add or any corrections to make. Sea ya
_________________

Check out my freticon editor.

Guide to the Tick Engine in Guitar Hero 3


Current GHIII Goals:
700k TTFAF (current score: 661k)

[eddyf]

Guide to the Tick Engine in Guitar Hero 3
By: eddyf

________________________________________________________________________________
Introduction
As you all know, there are many differences between Guitar Hero 3 and the earlier Guitar Hero games. There are differences in the timing window, in the way that HOPOs work, and in particular in the way that the tick engine works. I'm writing this guide because I've noticed that even though GH3 has been out for a long time now, many people continue to hold misconceptions about how the tick engine in GH3 actually works. I hope that this guide can clear up those misconceptions. Knowing the details of how ticks work can be a huge help in getting those extra points in songs, whether those points come from better tick squeezing or from dropping fewer ticks. I hope most people will learn something they didn't know before from reading this guide.

Basics
Ticks are the smallest unit of points in Guitar Hero. They come from hitting sustained notes. The basic equation is 1 beat = 25 ticks. No matter what the BPM is for the song, one beat always contains 25 ticks. One tick is equal to one point under a multiplier of 1x. Ticks are subject to multipliers just like notes. So, for example, if you are under a 4x multiplier, one tick is worth 4 points; if you're under an 8x multiplier, one tick is worth 8 points; and so forth. Ticks are the reason people's score on a song ends up differing by 8 or 12 points. There are two primary ways that those differences arise:

• Dropping ticks. This is what happens when you let go of a sustain before it ends; you stop getting points from that sustain, and the additional points that you would have gotten if you had held the sustain to its completion are called dropped ticks. Of course, dropped ticks are very bad. Many people don't realize just how bad it is to drop ticks. When you're going for a competitive score, the ticks dropped throughout the song can add up to as little as 100 points or as much as 3000 points in most cases. Needless to say, you don't want to end up 3000 points from a top 10 score just because of dropped ticks. To avoid dropping ticks, keep this in mind: no matter how late you hit the note at the beginning of the sustain, you will not lose any ticks from that. You can only lose ticks by letting go of the sustain too early. So when there are sustained notes one after the other, you should try to err on the side of hitting every note late rather than early, because that way you won't drop any ticks. I'll go into more depth about that later.
  
• Tick squeezes. There are two kinds of tick squeezes: regular tick squeezes and reverse tick squeezes.
  
  1. A regular tick squeeze occurs when, in a star power path, the very last note to be hit under SP for a given activation is a sustained note. The later you squeeze the first note of the activation, the later the SP will last, and thus the more ticks will be under an 8x multiplier rather than a 4x multiplier. Also, in GH3 only, it is possible to get even more ticks under the 8x multiplier by hitting the last note (the sustained note) as early as possible. The earlier you hit the note, the more ticks will be under SP, but ONLY if the SP lasts at least till the center of the note's timing window.
     
  2. A reverse tick squeeze occurs when, in a star power path, an activation begins in the middle of a sustain (rather than on a note). The earlier you activate SP, the more ticks will be under the 8x multiplier. Of course, when you activate SP earlier, this also means that you will have to work harder to squeeze in the final note in the activation. Also, in GH3 only, it is possible to get even more ticks under the 8x multiplier by hitting the sustained note (the one that you're supposed to activate SP after, during the sustain part) as late as possible. When you do this, the ticks that you missed at the beginning of the sustain by hitting the note late get pushed to the end of the sustain, which is under star power.
     

The Two Primary Differences Between the GH3 Tick Engine and the GH2 Tick Engine

• In Guitar Hero 2, the ticks on a double chord count for twice as much as the ticks on a single note. In Guitar Hero 3, this is not true. Ticks on a chord sustain count for the same amount of points as ticks on a single note sustain: 1 point per tick. Don't believe me? Try playing the very first note of Raining Blood on Easy, then on Expert. It's a single note sustain on Easy but a double chord sustain on expert; after subtracting 50 and 100, respectively, for the point value of the note itself, you will see that the ticks are worth exactly the same number of points!
  
• In Guitar Hero 2, ticks always start counting from the middle of the note's timing window, regardless of how early you hit the sustained note. If you hit the note late, you get the ticks from the beginning of the sustain up to that point immediately, then ticks continue counting from there. In other words, ticks in GH2 are pretty much immobile: exactly one beat after the center of a note's timing window, you will always have 25 ticks, regardless of how early or late you hit the note. The way GH3 works is drastically different. Exactly one beat after the center of a note's timing window, you will have 25 ticks only if you hit the note dead-center. If you hit it early, you'll have more than 25 ticks; if you hit it late, you'll have less than 25 ticks. Ticks start counting from the moment you hit the note, not from the center of the note's timing window. (Actually, there's more to it than that. See the next section).
  

The GH3 Tick Engine: Tick Bursts and Other Phenomena

• One annoying aspect of Guitar Hero 2 is that it's very easy to drop ticks when a note comes right on the end of a sustain. In order to not drop any ticks, you would have to transition to the next note pretty much instantaneously; transition one 25th of a beat too early and you drop a tick. Actually, you could avoid this by hitting the note that comes after the sustain late. That gives you more time to transition. Still, it seems like a design flaw that whenever a note comes right on the end of a sustain, the only way to avoid losing points is to hit that note late. At least, Neversoft thought so when they were making Guitar Hero 3. To remedy this problem, they came up with a solution called the End Burst. Here's how it works: every sustain has a certain length, which is supposed to match up with the actual length of the note in the song. This length is what determines how many ticks are in that sustain. However, in the actual game, every sustain ends 1/4 of a beat too early. At precisely 1/4 of a beat before the "true" end of the sustain, you are awarded all the remaining points in the sustain, in a "burst" of ticks. Assuming that you hit the note dead-center, this 1/4 of a beat is equal to 7 ticks. So throughout the sustain, ticks count up normally, but when you get to the last 1/4 of a beat, your points immediately jump up by 7 ticks (which is 28 points under a 4x multiplier). After that point, you are free to let go of the sustain; you will not lose any ticks anymore. So basically, at the end of every sustain, you get 1/4 of a beat of "transition time" to prepare for the next note.
  
• There is also such thing as a Start Burst. This applies when you hit a sustained note early. Right when you reach the center of the note's timing window, you will receive a burst of ticks corresponding to how early the note was hit. So, for example, suppose you hit the note early by one fifth of a beat. Then the tick burst at the center of the note's timing window will be 5 ticks. After that the ticks will continue to count normally, until you reach the End Burst, which is normally 7 ticks but in this case will only be 2 ticks (since you already got 5 ticks at the beginning).
  
• If you hit a sustained note late, the ticks start counting from 0 at precisely the moment you hit the note. When you reach the End Burst, you will be some ticks "behind" compared to if you had hit the note dead-center. These ticks will all be awarded to you in the End Burst. So, for example, suppose you hit the note a fifth of a beat late. This is equal to 5 ticks. Thus, the End Burst, which is normally 7 ticks, would actually be 12 ticks in that instance. In the end, the total number of ticks you get will always correspond to the "true" length of the sustain (if you don't drop ticks).
  
• When you drop a sustain before the End Burst, you automatically lose all the ticks that you would have gotten from that End Burst. That's why tick-dropping in GH3 is even more pronounced than in GH2: most of the time, if you drop any ticks at all, you will drop at least 7 ticks, which is 28 points, and that's from a single dropped sustain. However, I'm not sure what happens if you drop the sustain right on the End Burst. It appears to be possible, with just the right timing, to drop only half of the tick burst, for example. However, in the majority of cases, you will end up dropping the entire tick burst and losing major points (especially if you hit the note late, which means that the End Burst would have even more than 7 ticks).
  
• While ticks are counting up, in the middle of the sustain, they only count by twos. This came as a surprise to me, but after analyzing frame-by-frame versions of videos, there was no room for doubt. I've even caught frames where the score counter was "in transition" between a certain score and a score 2 points higher than that, completely skipping the value in between (this was under a 1x multiplier, of course). So in other words, ticks are awarded in groups of two. All values in between are skipped. The exception is for particularly long sustains (I tested with Kool Thing). Seemingly without pattern, every hundred ticks or so, the ticks would switch between skipping every odd value to skipping every even value, or back. However, for short sustains, ticks count by twos for the whole sustain. So then, where do odd numbers of ticks come from? Simple: tick bursts. The Start Burst can give you an odd or an even number of ticks, resulting in the ticks either skipping the even numbers or skipping the odd numbers, respectively. Similarly, the End Burst can give you an odd or an even number of ticks, since it always gives you exactly as many ticks as are left in the sustain at that point. This counting-by-two behavior explains why, for example, so many people have 362050 or 362058 on My Name Is Jonas (expert), but so few people have 362054. In the tick squeeze activation, if you hit the first note late enough, you will get the first two ticks, but it is impossible to only get one tick just from hitting the first note late. The only way to get one single tick is to hit the last note early (so that one tick is in the Start Burst) and to also hit the first note late enough that the SP lasts far enough to include the Start Burst but not far enough to include the next two ticks (which would result in a score of 362062).
  

Conclusion
Well, that's about it. Comments are welcome, of course, and let me know if there's anything important that I left out, or if you have anything to add or any corrections to make. Sea ya
_________________

Check out my freticon editor.

Guide to the Tick Engine in Guitar Hero 3


Current GHIII Goals:
700k TTFAF (current score: 661k)

[mgoblue3296]

I thought I knew a lot about ticks, and yet there's so much here. It's real in depth.

One thing I would like to see is specific examples regarding each. Like give an example of a regular and a reverse tick squeeze.

Awesome.
_________________

Avatar courtesy of Sliferzom

[mgoblue3296]

I thought I knew a lot about ticks, and yet there's so much here. It's real in depth.

One thing I would like to see is specific examples regarding each. Like give an example of a regular and a reverse tick squeeze.

Awesome.
_________________

Avatar courtesy of Sliferzom

[alicommagali]

very, VERY good guide.

quite useful, i think i'll start hitting notes a bit earlier from now on

[alicommagali]

very, VERY good guide.

quite useful, i think i'll start hitting notes a bit earlier from now on

[LemonMeringue]

I generally agree with the stuff in this, but you might want to go more in-depth on normal tick squeezing. I.E. the fact that if you hit the note early, you are only awarded additional ticks if the SP reaches the beginning of the timing window, and then you receive all the ticks at the same time.

I don't think it's been proven, but Bedlam and Bj0rn both agree with this theory (Bj0rn came up with it i think), and they'd know something about tick squeezing.
_________________

nanos gigantium humeris insidentes

[LemonMeringue]

I generally agree with the stuff in this, but you might want to go more in-depth on normal tick squeezing. I.E. the fact that if you hit the note early, you are only awarded additional ticks if the SP reaches the beginning of the timing window, and then you receive all the ticks at the same time.

I don't think it's been proven, but Bedlam and Bj0rn both agree with this theory (Bj0rn came up with it i think), and they'd know something about tick squeezing.
_________________

nanos gigantium humeris insidentes

[eddyf]

[eddyf]

[DarkDucky]

There's one thing I noticed that you might want to add in...

When you hit a hold note late, and hold it right to the end, you'll see a little gray line after the note. It looks exactly the same as the line you see if you miss or drop the note, which gives the impression that you missed ticks at the end. However, I'm almost 100% certain that that line is actually the extra ticks being added on to the end of the note because you h it it late. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of this, but I've tested around with it a bit, and it turned out that the later I hit the note, the longer the line is. You might want to try this out, maybe take some pictures and throw them up there. It might be just for PS2 though, I've never tried it on any other consoles.

This doesn't affect the gameplay at all, it's just a nice thing to know, so that you don't keep thinking that you're missing ticks at the end of a held note.
_________________

My Accomplishments | Guitar Hero: Metal Edition | In the Belly of a Guide: How to FC the Beast

[DarkDucky]

There's one thing I noticed that you might want to add in...

When you hit a hold note late, and hold it right to the end, you'll see a little gray line after the note. It looks exactly the same as the line you see if you miss or drop the note, which gives the impression that you missed ticks at the end. However, I'm almost 100% certain that that line is actually the extra ticks being added on to the end of the note because you h it it late. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of this, but I've tested around with it a bit, and it turned out that the later I hit the note, the longer the line is. You might want to try this out, maybe take some pictures and throw them up there. It might be just for PS2 though, I've never tried it on any other consoles.

This doesn't affect the gameplay at all, it's just a nice thing to know, so that you don't keep thinking that you're missing ticks at the end of a held note.
_________________

My Accomplishments | Guitar Hero: Metal Edition | In the Belly of a Guide: How to FC the Beast

[zsjostrom35]

[zsjostrom35]

[LemonMeringue]

Oh my bad... FIVE THUMBS UP

About the line, i havn't had that experience, but i HAVE had the sustain itself appear longer(pops up all of a sudden). I think it's basically a visualization of the tick burst
_________________

nanos gigantium humeris insidentes

[LemonMeringue]

Oh my bad... FIVE THUMBS UP

About the line, i havn't had that experience, but i HAVE had the sustain itself appear longer(pops up all of a sudden). I think it's basically a visualization of the tick burst
_________________

nanos gigantium humeris insidentes

[eddyf]

[eddyf]

[TheThirdDay]

Wow, I didn't even know half of that, and I thought I knew a lot about ticks. Guess I was wrong.
_________________

If you're the sun, I'm a black hole.

[TheThirdDay]

Wow, I didn't even know half of that, and I thought I knew a lot about ticks. Guess I was wrong.
_________________

If you're the sun, I'm a black hole.

[schoof]

[schoof]

[0v3rki11]

Maybe now I won't completely screw up 0% or 20% paths due to dropped ticks...

Very interesting read, and very informative... thanks a bunch
_________________

Accomplishment Thread (GH2X: BatH 7*, H18 6*, Jordan 359k)
Currently not playing GH

I still need a GH game >.<

[0v3rki11]

Maybe now I won't completely screw up 0% or 20% paths due to dropped ticks...

Very interesting read, and very informative... thanks a bunch
_________________

Accomplishment Thread (GH2X: BatH 7*, H18 6*, Jordan 359k)
Currently not playing GH

I still need a GH game >.<

[teliot]

I would recommend either including pictures of the different kind of tick squeezes, or links to paths with the squeezes in them.

[teliot]

I would recommend either including pictures of the different kind of tick squeezes, or links to paths with the squeezes in them.

[zYgote]

Ok cool. I thought it was just me that drops ticks on GH2 like its my job.
_________________

The sun sets forever over Blackwater Park

[zYgote]

Ok cool. I thought it was just me that drops ticks on GH2 like its my job.
_________________

The sun sets forever over Blackwater Park

[jesse0986]

Thanks a ton for this, especially the End Burst part. I've actually wondered about this for a LONG time on Raining Blood, as I've maxed out at 874 points after the first four notes (the long GR sustain followed by the shorter B, R, and Y sustains), but sometimes got like 867 or something like that.
_________________

Signatures are overrated. Like pants.

[jesse0986]

Thanks a ton for this, especially the End Burst part. I've actually wondered about this for a LONG time on Raining Blood, as I've maxed out at 874 points after the first four notes (the long GR sustain followed by the shorter B, R, and Y sustains), but sometimes got like 867 or something like that.
_________________

Signatures are overrated. Like pants.