I already know this video will stir up a lot of discussion, so go at it! If you want to chat and debate even further, I have a discord in the description!
As long as the emulator has been approved by the community I see zero issues. Not all emulators are accurate enough so often separate categories are made for emulator runs depending on the system. The WR for SMB 1 and Pokemon Red and Yellow were both done on an emulator.
No emulator is 100%, of course if the inaccuracy is relevant is a different matter. Not to mention not motherboard revision of a given console is exactly the same as every other. Xbox drives being an obvious one as is the 1chip SNES vs other revisions. Making the relevancy of accuracy weird to say the least. As it begs the question "should it be on a specific motherboard revision? Only officially released hardware? What about rereleased system on a chip or emulated hardware? FPGA?".
Heck even the few runs ran on original Xbox (there aren't a whole lot of them) but SpongeBob Battle for Bikini Bottom comes to mind because all the xbox's are made with different parts and the Samsung A drives are the fastest loading but are also vastly more rare and most prone to crashes. So they settled for softmodded Xbox's where you can actually install the disk to the HDD because Xbox used to play from disk. This way you create an equal ground between runners. So for most games there needs to be some ground rules. But there is 0 diff between Emu SMB 1 and Hardware SMB 1
one thing i expected you to mention but you didn't is loading times, sometimes emulators can have significantly shorter load times than official hardware, especially for newer consoles, and that can make it a mess to allow emulators for full game speedruns. some communities have removed load times altogether to allow emulators but of course that makes it much harder to time runs
Yeah, loading times was my first thought. Surprised it wasn't talked about. But some emulators try to emulate load times as well so as not to cause any issues in the emulation, but I know this isn't always the case.
There definitely are a couple points I didn't think of till after, wanted to make this short and sweet. Definitely a big concern for anything in the modern disk game era
I'm sorry if this comes across negatively and I'll preface this by saying I know very little of speedrunning and am not part of the speedrunning community, but why count load times at all? even between consoles, there will be inconsistencies in load times which may give someone an advantage based on pure luck when speedrunning is a contest of skill. I don't know if Skyrim is a popular game to speedrun but the load screen from Skyrim to whiterun can take 30 seconds to several minutes on Xbox 360. if I lost a contest because of a variable I have little to no influence over, I'd be pretty upset. I am not trying to be disrespectful, I would actually like to hear some reasons for counting load time vs not counting them.
@@pmartin7548 the big reason most communities don't remove load times is because doing that for every run is a nightmare. In new super mario bros wii, the game i'm most familiar with, which isn't even the most load-heavy game in the world, the any% route goes through 16 levels, meaning there's 32 loading screens from entering and exiting levels alone, without counting those from entering pipes and doors mid-level. Accurately removing load times would require going through the footage of the run, pausing your timer on the frame loading starts, then restarting it on the frame it ends, about 40-50 times. In this game in particular the number of loads is manageable, but many games can have hundreds of loads over the course of the run, so it becomes a monumental task to go through every run you do and manually remove load times. Besides, in 99% of cases, load times are consistent enough on console that they don't need to be removed, so removing load times is rarely worth the trouble.
The only thing here I disagree with you on is that you need to be top 10% runner to have an opinion on the boards. It's possible to get enough information on a game to give a reasonable and factually based response even if you're not a top runner. Just look at this video, you did it many times. Additionally, that statement invalidates the work and effort that strat hunters put in. Just as an example we have Sockfolder1. Man has researched and found 100's of speedrun strats, but by your metric doesn't deserve a voice because he doesn't do runs.
I don’t think you should need to be in the top 10% to vote on rule changes, but you should have to be an active member of the community. If the top 10% on Mario 64 all used the frame walk and then it came down to vote if it should be legal, then they’d all say yes and the rest of the community would be stuck with it. It’s like if you let the richest people run the economy. They’re not going to do what’s best for everybody, they’re going to do what makes them benefit the most.
he still says "to show how passionate you are about the game", sure, being top 10% isn't the only way, sockfolder and glitches'n'stuff show that by researching. (he's not wrong, at least he's not exhaustive.) but many people complaining do neither.
Emulators are a great thing for the speedrun community. I started running on emulator, because the barrier was super low. The community just has to do the research for emulators running properly. I switched to OG Hardware, but that was a hell lot of hassle even though I was already rather informed about the system. Emu and console are on the same board for the games I care, no category split. What I miss is that I cannot use every controller I want, playing modifications of the game is way harder and sometimes out right impossible. Also autosplitting is much, much, much easier to implement on emulator compared to console...
Yeah some jackass who bought some crazy expensive Japanese controller which let them program inputs and pulled a WR due to it is why. One bad egg has to ruin it for everyone.
As original hardware for classic games becomes more and more rare, due to decreasing numbers and increasing demand, emulation will eventually be the only possibility. Like it or not, it is the future.
@@19Szabolcs91 I agree to a point, but you cannot sell nostalgia to people that didnt love the originals. Most gamers of today would laugh at games older people like me loved.
@@noahblevins9569 Yes but is costs almost nothing to put up old games for sale (or even free) for download. And it's nost just nostalgia, many players are genuinely curious about old classics, to see where it all came from, etc. Same as watching old movies from the 1930s or so. It's niche, but vital.
@@19Szabolcs91 You make a valid point, but we are a tiny portion of the market. And original hardware is highly unlikely to be recreated and mass produced. It would be very cool.
One of the best ways to show the “mapping one input to multiple buttons” is high level ADOFAI gameplay. Most top players use many keys for a one button game
I've always been a fan of categorising things myself. So i'm on camp 'let there be seperate leaderboards' here. I feel it's the best way to tackle things and to have as little restriction as possible.
Fantastic, well-considered take. The obvious answer is somewhere in the middle and really depends on what kind of advantages are afforded by a given platform. Split by platform is the cleanest, but for some games intermixed can be okay. It’s ultimately up to each community, and the passion and fervor around this does make sense, even if it sometimes veers into gatekeeping.
I personally never saw a problem when using emulation for speedrunning. Some games on emulator run exactly, if not, pretty close to their console versions. And if that's the case, then it should be fine for a leaderboard. But if a game runs much better on emulation, or even more have exclusive skips and glitches, just give it a separate leaderboard.
I’ve always thought it depends a lot on the game, the system, and the community. Some games like Super Mario Bros is so simple that it’s very well emulated, the NES is easy for most PCs to emulate, and emulation is very accepted by the game’s community. Plus it’s more accessible and easier to record. But for other games like Perfect Dark for example, emulation definitely needs to be a separate category, it’s impossible to emulate perfectly and gives the user an advantage from having a better controller in most cases, and even when emulated at original resolution with the most accurate graphical effects it usually runs even slower than a real N64 due to inaccuracies, which allows for unique glitches to be used. I think for the most part it should be a separate category, but there are definitely some situations where it can be mixed together.
Also as an aside, I flat out 100% disagree with the point that only the top 10% of runners should have a say on how the rules of that game are determined. Speedrunning is just as much about the community watching the runs as it is the players making the runs. Also there is the TAS community as well. Many of them do not care about (actually themselves doing) RTA running, but they are very happy to theory craft ideas and put them in TAS to help out the RTA runners. These TASers deserve a say as well. Speedrunning is a community and the entire community should have a say, not just the elite few. The folks who will never break into the top 10% but are quite content to play by the category rules and Peter their own personal bests are just as important to the speed running community as the elites. It is the other 90% that keep a game popular as a speedrun. They also do lots of attempts. They enjoy watching others runs of the game. They cheer on the elite few break a WR. The obvious comparison would be - "a sport without fans is a dead sport". In Sorster's opinion, he feels it's black and white that only the top 10% should have 100% of the say. In my opinion I totally disagree with this for all of the above conversation I just shared. [edit] No disrespect to Sorster. I am happy he brought up this subject for conversation and he made a lot of good points in his video.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the glitchyness of runahead just visual? For example, lets say you have a 1 frame window to do something with two frames of runahead. From my limited programming experience, I would assume this would allow you to perform the input two frames late and it would still work. However, if you actually pressed the button at the correct time, it would register the input two frames earlier, causing you to miss the input. In essence, the “glitchyness” would just be the runahead correcting its mistake and rewinding to the actual outcome. Don’t get me wrong, I still think there is healthy reason to consider the reduced latency by itself unfair.
yeah it is just a visual glitch. that's the entire point of runahead that it will correct retroactively when it gets the actually correct inputs processed. it sounds like he is misunderstanding how it works.
This is what I understand, and why I advocated for runahead to be allowed in kaizo (btw that's me he shows at 12:16 probably because of my take in the kaizo community)
Also even a visual glitch like that can prevent other people from seeing what's actually going on. Not that visual disruptions should be banned because glitches are like 40% of speedrunning, but this is a case where it's either unnecessary or gives an advantage.
My general opinion on the matter is still pretty much the same. In games where there is a significant difference between original hardware and emulation, a separate category for each should be sufficient to maintain competitive fairness.
I'm new-ish to speedrunning (one year now, also have run some SMW), and I use emulator, simply because I don't have the proper room, setup, or money for console gaming. I'd love to eventually move to console, but I get by how I can for now. I've never heard of "run-ahead" until this video, and I'm shocked that something like that isn't banned, especially in SMW. Thanks for doing such a good job explaining things and educating others, instead of just saying "emulator bad, console good!" People sometimes give me crap for running on an emulator, but as I mentioned, I'm getting by how I can so I can actually stream games and speedrun. The console elitists can be tiring... I wish more people were open to honest speedrunners who just want to have fun and not cheat, but don't have the means for console gaming/ streaming.
I don't think you understand run-ahead... It's fundamentally impossible to reach an invalid gamestate with it. The undo jank is consistent, and a result of setting it too high. This jank is best described as negative latency. Imagine parallel timelines... Run-ahead shows you one future, (literally, runs ahead) based on your current inputs. When your inputs change, it changes course and shows the alternate timeline. It doesn't randomly decide to undo switches or make door entries free. The same inputs would get you the same results without it on. The door will always be a 3 frame window with 1 run-ahead frame or 100. It's very similar to rollback netcode in Fighting games. And while Fighting games can and do "cheat" rollback to make it seamless, emulators can't. There's no predictive AI blorping your Mario where it thinks you should be. Now if they should be banned or restricted isn't something I could say. I understand the concept of how it works, I don't know how it specifically works with every emulator. For example, does an emulator slow down or speed up when the timeline jumps happen? This is something you'd need an informed opinion on, on a per emulator basis. Though to me, as long as it's set low enough to not cause visible jumps (read: configured the intended way) it should generally be fair and is in no way comparable to savestates or slowdown/speedup.
Oh boy, now I want to see what 100 lookahead frames looks like. I was also thinking of rollback netcode as being similar, but I also just thought of how modern CPUs have built-in runahead at the lowest possible level, by the name of speculative execution. The processor guesses which branch of an if statement will be taken and then already starts computing the instructions from that branch, only to throw it all away in the case that the opposite branch gets taken. This actually wasn't implemented perfectly on several systems which lead to the famous Spectre exploit that lets an attacker peer into these alternate timelines to gain information they shouldn't have.
In my opinion, the biggest issue with even legitimate runs on emulator is how accurate the emulator in question is, especially when it comes to lag/loading times. The SNES is the newest console I'm aware of that has emulation accurate enough to rival real hardware in a speedrunning context. Beyond that, emulation has often had to use special tricks to get it to run at a reasonable speed on PC, which compromises the accuracy a lot.
If Niftski didn’t gain an advantage from using an emulator he wouldn’t use it. All of the other top Mario runners play on original hardware. Using a keyboard to play changes the physical mechanics of playing the game. It doesn’t matter that the input speeds are the same, the entire way the game is played is altered, every physical movement is completely different when using a keyboard. If Niftski could get the same time using original hardware then he would use original hardware. He could silence every critic and leave no doubt in anyone’s mind, but he continues to use a keyboard. If it makes no difference, then why not just use the setup that all the other top runners use? Even if the keyboard is more difficult for most people to use, the fact is that Niftski feels more comfortable playing on it - thus it gives him advantage over using an original controller. Here’s an analogy: imagine if a basketball player realized that the natural arc of there shot made free throws easier for them to make on a basket that was 10’2” high. So they set up a basket at that height and set a world record for consecutive free throws made. Even though having the basket higher couldn’t really be considered an advantage at all, that record would be worthless. Basketball is played on 10’ baskets. Nintendo games are played with Nintendo controllers.
I'm no speedrunner but the most obvious solution is to either make them separate categories (and in case of notable differing hardware revisions subdivide them also) OR if the run is withing, say, the top 10% of runs it is required to be on specific hardware setup.
So I speedrun Inazuma Eleven. A game with a very little community. It is a NIntendo DS game, so in order to be able to do a speedrun in the OG hardware you need to: a) have the hardware to capture DS footage (which is expensive and hard) b) have a camera ponting at a DS for 4 hours (any% usual time) while playing c) Being unable to run the Japanese version, which is almost a different game, unless you get one original copy (Very hard and expensive to get) So yeah, we allow emulators.This has a couple of disadvantages. Loading times obv change for everyone, so better PC meaning better times. But is the only way to make a small comunity speedrun the game, so we just bear with it (there are too many loading screens at desynced points to be able to keep track of all). When we talk about speedruning we also have to remeber small games and communitys, and not only the big ones like the Mario games. PS: Also emulation let speedrunners practice in very specifics points of the speedrun thanks to save state, and to test how the RNG of the game work. Very useful! Also great video! Congrats
Runahead just... Doesn't work like that. It doesn't let you press two different things at the same time, it just tries to predict what will you be pressing (the prediction will most likely be copying the previous frame inputs). If it was right it'll go ahead, adnd if it failed it'll remulate with the correct input. That's all, there is no way to cheat with that (except having the input lag reduced) It's just rollback netplay applied to emulation. I mean you can ban it if you want, IMO since it shows weird save-statey behavior on screen, allowing people to actually use save-states and camouflage them more easily. On the other hand it balances things out for PC players, since CRT screens have less input lag than LCD ones. So using an LCD screen actually puts you in a disadvantage over CRT players. All in all good video
Probably the biggest issue I've seen is a lot of the older emulators are faster than the newer more accurate ones. Yet leaderboards that rightly separate console and emulators do little to take account of it. Whenever I've tried to bring this issue up. People get defensive and try to downplay it. Despite pointing worse runs being faster solely due to emulator advantage.
Using elitism to shutdown debate is not a good look mate. In particular when you're main issue is one specific issue that you literally are if saying people can't afford something you openly admitted is expensive, and probably will eventually be completely inaccessible for everyone, they should just get used to delay. It's just a bad look, especially for anyone looking from the the outside in, it's sets a poor image of a community that only cares about the opinions of the elite few at the top.
I have the perfect response to 'Keyboards are worse than controllers so it's fair' argument. If they are worse; why use them? A USB NES pad is dirt cheap. If there is a *disadvantage* to using keyboards then why have so many people started using them instead of controllers? I am not arguing that they are better; but you can't say they are worse without explaining why people still use them. Here's an example: "I like to listen to music on analog media such as cassette' "Why? When you can use a lossless FLAC file?" "Because I the media is nostalgic to me; but I love having physical music media which I purchase directly from the artist which directly supports them instead of using a streaming service. I also love the inexplicable 'warm' sound you get from tape. I understand it's irrational but knowing it's coming from a magnetic strip played over decades old hardware makes just warms my heart." Such as that. But what's the argument for keyboard? If you say it's more uncomfortable and harder to use. Why do people use it? Again you can get a USB pad for dirt cheap. Anyway, as tilted as I sound I fucking love your videos and agree with every other point you had. I also love that you used Little Samson as an example since when people argue with me about emulation being just for piracy I always use LS as an example. What's more important, someone getting $500 for a game on ebay or people using an emulator so they everyone can enjoy it.
Again, I'm an emulator speedrunner, I've mentioned it numerous times. So, I'll say the following: I use emulation because I'm dead poor. I have some original hardware, but no funds to connect it to my TV, or computer. So for me, if I want to stream at all, emulation is my only option, apart from PC games. Further, with my emulator and an adapter, I can actually use some of my OEM controllers with my emulators. Moving on, I have always been conscious of the increased chance for cheating, so I actually run with both an internal and external input display on stream, and I try to make sure my controller is on camera as much as I can. I actually advocate for always using input display, so people can learn from your runs, whether you run emulator or not. So there's not one or two, but three easy ways to prove I'm really hitting those buttons. Finally, the issue of accuracy is really important. Lots of NES/SNES games are perfectly accurate to original hardware, so those communities usually just ask the runner mention that they run on emulation, as well as show some settings including input mappings and no run-ahead, mostly in case the board ever has to be split. Other communities, like Banjo-Tooie flat out bans emulators because of hilariously bad lag emulation. It sucks I can't ever run some of those games until someday when I can afford games and food, but so it goes, but the fact that some communities won't even make a category is discouraging, particularly with cost of entry being ridiculous currently. And a note to the emulator know-it-alls. Cheaters will cheat on OEM hardware and emulators. If you're such a cultural pollutant that you can't understand basic facts about gaming tech, screaming about emulators being fake and runs being cheated will only demonstrate your drooling, knuckle-dragging stupidity. Those of us who stream on emulator aren't missing your views or follows.
When you're down to counting, single digit numbers of frames, to figure out who is where in the top ten, for popular games, every little difference is going to stir up debate. Emulation, is far to important to ban, because it will dig speed running's grave over enough time, as hardware becomes more and more ancient. For example, I know people, that have only ever played, many of speed running's most popular games on emulators. I know young kids, that play the old Super Mario games, that have never once used a Nintendo, and have only ever seen them online.
Good video, there's also emulator startup state that can be an issue for games (say Family Feud is a game i've ran, the WR route effectively requires you to use FCEUX.) I'm not actually *that* concerned personally with runahead, I think it should be banned, I just don't think it's as easy as some people think to get an actual advantage with it.. especially without it being very obvious that runahead was enabled.
As an emulator developer myself, I see emulators as for video game preservation. I suppose my opinion is that emulators by themselves are not unfair, but hacks like speed up, slowdown, save states, gameshark codes, and other things are though as well as using certain unofficial input devices (neither of which necessarily requires emulation but are super easy with it) are in most cases. Some exceptions are categories of games with specific cheats enabled (e.g. solo Pokémon speedruns let you modify the starter), but those are exceptions! And one may ask - How can you speed up a game without emulation? On Windows, you can use Cheat Engine to speed up or slow down a game, and a popular racing game, Trackmania, has been subject to cheating this way. There are also some systems you can overclock. For example, the original Super Game Boy (the one without the link port) uses real Game Boy hardware but lacks the correct clock, thus it runs games noticeably faster. Some consoles can also be hardware modified to improve performance (SSD installation for example). That being said, even without these hacks, an emulator being 100% fair in terms of competitive advantage does not necessarily mean it should be allowed on leaderboards. Few emulators are ever 100% accurate to their physical counterparts in both performance and emulation accuracy (bsnes for example is an extremely accurate SNES emulator in all categories, but you will be hard pressed to find an equally accurate Nintendo 64 emulator), thus while playing on such an emulator may require the same exact skills as playing on real hardware, the actual gameplay on most emulators may not always fully correspond to what is produced on real hardware. A big example of emulators requiring similar skills but having different experiences is Billy Mitchell's infamous Donkey Kong world record where he tried to pass off an emulated run as real hardware. MAME does not make a game easier to play, but it is different enough that you can detect a run on MAME vs. an original arcade board. It is most important that runners are transparent about how they do their runs regardless of if anything is explicitly banned or not. After all, anyone can speedrun any game with emulation, cheats, etc. even if there is no leaderboard or speedrun category for it as long as they do not pass it off as something else. And lastly, while I think emulators are important for video game preservation and may become the most popular way to play certain titles, I think it is fine if it remains a category specific thing on whether or not emulators are allowed.
Emulators are honestly a necessity nowadays due to hardware failure and disc/data rot that can happen on older consoles. While it is good when you're able to play on real hardware, I do question the logic behind demonizing emulation whenever someone says it's bad. Especially when that someone is Nintendo.
Not everyone has access to original hardware, and there can be accessability issues with that as well. Eventually the original hardware will all break down... plenty of good reasons to allow emulation, in my eyes. That said I'm not a speedrunner, just a spectator.
if people like something, make it it's own category. If people play it then they can have their cake and eat it too, and if no one plays it then the problem has solved itself
For old consoles yes but generally the newer the console the harder it is to make it accurate enough. I don't ever see switch, ps3 and xbox 360, dreamcast and xbox ever being accurate enough for serious runs. It's also a nightmare to moderate. Splitting them is a pretty safe bet too.
I think what you said in this video pretty much sums up how I think about the topic, and I do think SMB is a good example of how to solve problems like this. Incredible video!
if you want it to be a system where only elite/active runners have a say, a very organic way to do that is to just have it be based on clout, kinda like how it is now-clout is usually strongly correlated with leaderboard position or alternatively, do it the way smash forums did it, the smash backrooms, once you break top 100, or if you make enough contributions that the existing backrooms members think you should have a seat at the table. this is one of the few cases where i think it's completely reasonable to structure your community as an elitist oligarchy. i don't necessarily think that that's the best way to do it, but i don't think it's unconscionable or even unreasonable.
I agree you need to be part of a community to make decisions that impact the community but gatekeeping is always a bad thing. You shouldn't need a run anywhere on a leaderboard. Being part of the community is the only thing that matters
this is a subject that deserves or needs a longer video with a deep-dive. There are so many roots to go down. both good and bad. But in general I don't have a problem with emulators, I often see rules that allow emulation but once you are within a % of the top time, runs have to be on the hardware. I think that's kind of fair, like with a lot of things in life once you put the time and effort into your skills then you need the equipment to achieve that.
13:50 that would disclude game breakers that help in the making of runs, but don't actually do runs because they like doing the other thing more. If one would add this, add an exception for those people who already proved their effort to the game by figuring stuff out no one else did. Other than that, good video. Covered the contentious topics beautifully.
I don’t necessarily think it’s unfair but I don’t think they should normally be allowed. Using the intended systems puts everyone on the same playing field. It’s uniform and adds integrity to the run.
In my opinion emulators are around the same as the original consoles. They don't make a huge difference however the big difference could be a different controller used for the runs, using it for precise or almost impossible on the original controller movements make it a very unfair advantage.
for example in mario 1 the wall-clips are much easier on keyboard! since there you dont have a D-pad with a ball in the middle, so on keyboard you can press a different direction much quicker, so i am confused why the SMB1 speedrun leaderboard allows it
@@AntimonySM51 i mean the time between different directional presses is less, ofcourse that makes wall clip easier since it requires going from front direction to 1 frame backwards and back (or something like that, anyway, it seems much easier to do on a keyboard without the weird ball under Dpad, but instead having 4 seperate buttons)
@@AntimonySM51 ah right, either way, all the tricks seem easier on a controller with 4 seperate buttons compared to a D-pad that has to tilt in full.....
I don't see an issue with just splitting the boards into console/emulator as long as the emulator functions well enough to speedrun (some newer consoles and older emulators don't function well enough)
The other question is hardware emulation. Stuff like FPGA consoles. Think Kevtris's work with the Analogue consoles and similar things. Are people posing the same questions to them as they do software emulation on your PC? Is hardware emulation treated like real hardware? Or like software emulation? Or something different entirely?
The simple fact that you can run a TAS not played on a console should end the debate. Sure some games are rare or out of production, but we all need to admit many runs are probably fake and nobody should cry too much when their favorite speed runner breaks another seconds barrier because it's impossible to tell if it's legit.
A bunch of the games that I've ran emulators are allowed, but they put them into separate categories, so have some categories called regular hardware and then the others are called emulated.
I know you said not to comment if you don't have an entry on the leaderboard, but the way you described runahead doesn't seem like how I'd expect it to work. Having the graphics rewind could be disorienting, but is ultimately just a graphical effect. The way I see it, runahead should make the game's internal state match what an actual console would have the vast majority of the time. It's intended to reduce input delay, correct? Then apply each input to the frame that it would've been received at on console, even if that frame had already passed by the time the emulator receives the input. A 3 frame window should still be a 3 frame window, just offset to match console. If the way it works in emulators is how it was described here, then I have a problem with those emulators rather than the speedrunning community.
I feel like just the basis of emulation being a legal gray area can be "unfair" for people. Some people will be morally opposed to emulation because of its legality, and if emulation can provide an advantage to playing on real hardware, it can lead to some issues. Granted, I don't know how common this attitude is, but I have seen it pop up. At least we have the divided leaderboards, so everyone feels represented.
In my opinion, there are a few best ways to handle this 1. Have a version of an emulator approved by the community/created by the community 2. Give a time penalty based on how much an emulator saves, or not allow emulator runs below a certain time 3. Have emulator as a sub category compared to console
Great video! I am still learning about these non-black-and-white speedrun topics like this, but this is my current view: Emulations that are vastly different from the original game should be made into a different category, like the SM64 board has. Emulations that can be set up in such a way that they are in essence the same as the console version can share the same board. It is then the individual community's job to decide where that dividing line is.
Do an uno reversal, Is excluding people with a paywall for a contest between passionate people fair Take into consideration that a N64 is getting very expensive these days let alone import the Japanese console and carts needed for most games. To some countries these consoles aren't even shipped to because of shipping restrictions (Russia comes to mind as of late) Where as grannies pacemaker can run N64 games aswell. Communities really need to figure out a way how to include Emu runs aswell. Because elitism is bad, and game preservation is the most important aspect as the original makers of these games either don't care or have been re-released a billion times This take comes from a hardcore physical game collector whom owns 1000s of disks and carts. I care for fair competition so there needs to be some ground rules which communities can agree on. Which should be easily managed because these communities tend to be small even for the large ran games like M64, Goldeneye, MK64 etc
I really don't have a dog in this fight as I don't speedrun, but I do follow the speedruning scene a bit and was always a proponent of splitting the categories. And it's really not based that much on whether or not the emulation is accurate or not, but rather the matter of input method. While the timings and lag might be similar or same, it's different to play a game on a keyboard or a modern controller when compared to an old controller such as the one on the NES. I played a lot of NES Tetris on both the emulator at first, and then later on actual hardware, and while I prefer the original hardware, holy fucking piss does the NES controller suck balls when it comes to ergonomics. Having your hands in a more natural position such as on the keyboard can certainly be an advantage when running a game for hundreds of hours and thousands of attempts and is less taxing on the runner. But that's just a layman's perspective. Maybe once you spend enough hours on the hardware, your hands get molded to it and you can't tell the difference. All I know is that I respect people (and their records) much more when I see that they were done on an original hardware, especially one as sucky as the NES.
Emulation is vital to gaming today. Can't play your Snes Classic without it! Aside from that, it helps preserve art, good and bad. That itself is enough for me honestly.
Storster, great content, you explained this subject very nicely, and I liked how you used a Comparison/Contrast angle. You're right too, people who don't have experience in the game shouldn't be making the decisions. Overall really good. Thanks.
i believe that pretty much all games should follow the resident evil 4 route and separate categories by hardware, in RE4 EVERY console has their own categories, and i think thats the right thing, because if you allow diferent hardware to compete in the same category you will eventually put someone at disanvantage, famously this happened on ocarina of time when the IQue was necesary to beat the world record, or stupidity like gta 5 having people on ps3 having to compete against people on pc. so emulators should be allowed and put into their own category.
I personally feel like there is no real point to banning emulators without atleast making an emulator only catagory because on a long enough timeline all game will need to be run on emulator because of console/ game degradation and online stores closing like what recently happened to 3ds and wiiu
Agree with this. Emulators are inherently a good thing. They lower the barrier of entry, and we all know how fragile the speedrunning communities for most games are. Emulators or not, there will always be runners who try to cheat. Even if they become a little harder to catch, I still think it's worth allowing emulators to increase the player base.
I like the communities that require actual hardware if your time is within 10% of WR. allows you to learn and report your pbs in a more accessible manner but expecting hardware investment if you're performing at top level. good compromise imo
I vote for double the categories. Fastest run OG hardware, fastest run Emulator. Takes very little data input, solves all of these arguments, and lets me enjoy watching double the speed runs. Everyone wins ya? Personal opinion...OG hardware all the way!
Side thought, no matter your current thoughts it's highly likely in the not so distant future it's a non question as the consoles break/wear out leading to emulation being the only viable method of playing the now older games.
FCEUX for NES, Gambatte for Game Boy, bsnes for SNES, Genesis Plus for Genesis. BizHawk for multiple platforms. Most 2D games have accurate emulation. 3D games are questionable.
I realy love emulators.. not only for cost savings, but it gain me access to games, i never could buy or play, do to regional locks, different hardware in different countries, romhacks, fan translations usw. Also Emulators help to preserve old games. Hardware is dying over time, therefor older games became less and less accessable in their original hardwareform. For Speedruns, Emulators are great because of savestates, that let you learn a specific part of the game - even if you are not using an emulator for the run itself.. whitout emulators and safe states, a lot of world records would never be achievable, whitout training with safe states - especialy in the gliched categories.
Eventually, all console games will need to be emulated, as those old and out-of-production consoles and game cartridges/discs get damaged or simply fall victim to the passage of time - how many working Nintendo 64s still exist in the world? How many copies of Super Mario 64 remain usable? Even more modern systems with online, digital storefronts will become affected, once their old stores become too unprofitable to keep up and get shut down; it's already happened to the Wii Store, it's happening to the 3DS eShop soon, and almost happened to the PS3 Store. As a result, the only way to play Wii games is through already-downloaded games or physical copies - and again, neither the Wii nor Wii game discs are being produced anymore, leading to the first problem. The same will eventually happen to the Xbox One, to the PS5, to the Switch.
I think you are mischaracterizing what run ahead does. Stating your case with a mocking spongebob voice does not elevate the conversation. Run ahead, if implemented properly, does not allow you to "press a button on whatever frame you want". You still get the same 3 frames. They're just shifted slightly. Mario jumping back to enter the door is a side effect, but in the real world the player pressed up when the display showed Mario over the door. The switch palace deactivating looks like a bug or bad implementation of run ahead, because that's not something you can do in the game. Different emulators will have good and bad implementations of run ahead, just like any other feature. Ideally, run ahead would only be used to remove input lag that existed within the original game. Usually only one or two frames. This can reduce input lag without the rewind side effects and when combined with lag inherent to emulation (double buffer gpu rendering, LCD lag, usb polling, etc), you end up with a total input lag very similar to original hardware on a CRT. This is why setting a run ahead limit makes sense, and should be decided on a per-game basis. I don't think obsessively playing the same game 10,000 times makes you more qualified to make technical decisions like this. Quite the opposite in fact, because at that point you're too psychologically invested in the old system. Letting only the top of the leaderboard have a vote is a surefire way to have stagnation and lock-in.
OMG!!! I'm on a Storster video!!! The runahead issue is one of many things that are discussed a lot, are voted and nothing is done after all and I feel extremely tired of those things and is making me move from running for leaderboard positions just to run for myself and not even bothering submitting any runs anymore.
Emulators is the life blood of speed running I believe. You shouldn't have to fork over part of your paycheck to run competitive with your childhood games (if you don't have the console/game already) and if you do great! The whole thing about emulators is there specifictly trying to be as close to the original hardware as possible
MySims Kingdom (DS) has some stuff that gives real hardware and mobile emulators an advantage over emulation on PC and console, like entire minigames that idk if they are required to beat the game (some are, some aren't) being near-impossible bc you can't use 2 mice to emulate 2 thumbs easily.
![[TH] RNT vs SPG - VCT Ascension Pacific - Day 1](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/RUTkf8Detj8/mqdefault.jpg)
![Why Are Emulators Legal? Dolphin vs. Nintendo, and the Fate of Emulation [Great Emu War Pt. 1]](/img/n.gif)
I already know this video will stir up a lot of discussion, so go at it!
If you want to chat and debate even further, I have a discord in the description!
@@Charles.Wright Liberals 😡😡😡😡😡
People with different opinons than me? Disgusting.
oh my god, someone had a different opinion than me? Time to doxx them, harass them, then cancel them until they break and leave the internet forever!
ive only played one game on emulator for speedrun and i got last place lol
i think you are smelly
As long as the emulator has been approved by the community I see zero issues. Not all emulators are accurate enough so often separate categories are made for emulator runs depending on the system. The WR for SMB 1 and Pokemon Red and Yellow were both done on an emulator.
No emulator is 100%, of course if the inaccuracy is relevant is a different matter. Not to mention not motherboard revision of a given console is exactly the same as every other. Xbox drives being an obvious one as is the 1chip SNES vs other revisions. Making the relevancy of accuracy weird to say the least. As it begs the question "should it be on a specific motherboard revision? Only officially released hardware? What about rereleased system on a chip or emulated hardware? FPGA?".
Heck even the few runs ran on original Xbox (there aren't a whole lot of them) but SpongeBob Battle for Bikini Bottom comes to mind because all the xbox's are made with different parts and the Samsung A drives are the fastest loading but are also vastly more rare and most prone to crashes.
So they settled for softmodded Xbox's where you can actually install the disk to the HDD because Xbox used to play from disk.
This way you create an equal ground between runners.
So for most games there needs to be some ground rules. But there is 0 diff between Emu SMB 1 and Hardware SMB 1
@@Rainbow-Dash emulators are cheating they can make a tas and pretend it's real that's what Mario 1 world record is he cheats
one thing i expected you to mention but you didn't is loading times, sometimes emulators can have significantly shorter load times than official hardware, especially for newer consoles, and that can make it a mess to allow emulators for full game speedruns. some communities have removed load times altogether to allow emulators but of course that makes it much harder to time runs
Yeah, loading times was my first thought. Surprised it wasn't talked about. But some emulators try to emulate load times as well so as not to cause any issues in the emulation, but I know this isn't always the case.
There definitely are a couple points I didn't think of till after, wanted to make this short and sweet. Definitely a big concern for anything in the modern disk game era
@@Storster it's even an issue on the Switch - physical cartridge vs. SD card vs. internal flash.
I'm sorry if this comes across negatively and I'll preface this by saying I know very little of speedrunning and am not part of the speedrunning community, but why count load times at all? even between consoles, there will be inconsistencies in load times which may give someone an advantage based on pure luck when speedrunning is a contest of skill. I don't know if Skyrim is a popular game to speedrun but the load screen from Skyrim to whiterun can take 30 seconds to several minutes on Xbox 360. if I lost a contest because of a variable I have little to no influence over, I'd be pretty upset. I am not trying to be disrespectful, I would actually like to hear some reasons for counting load time vs not counting them.
@@pmartin7548 the big reason most communities don't remove load times is because doing that for every run is a nightmare. In new super mario bros wii, the game i'm most familiar with, which isn't even the most load-heavy game in the world, the any% route goes through 16 levels, meaning there's 32 loading screens from entering and exiting levels alone, without counting those from entering pipes and doors mid-level. Accurately removing load times would require going through the footage of the run, pausing your timer on the frame loading starts, then restarting it on the frame it ends, about 40-50 times. In this game in particular the number of loads is manageable, but many games can have hundreds of loads over the course of the run, so it becomes a monumental task to go through every run you do and manually remove load times. Besides, in 99% of cases, load times are consistent enough on console that they don't need to be removed, so removing load times is rarely worth the trouble.
The only thing here I disagree with you on is that you need to be top 10% runner to have an opinion on the boards.
It's possible to get enough information on a game to give a reasonable and factually based response even if you're not a top runner. Just look at this video, you did it many times.
Additionally, that statement invalidates the work and effort that strat hunters put in. Just as an example we have Sockfolder1. Man has researched and found 100's of speedrun strats, but by your metric doesn't deserve a voice because he doesn't do runs.
I don’t think you should need to be in the top 10% to vote on rule changes, but you should have to be an active member of the community.
If the top 10% on Mario 64 all used the frame walk and then it came down to vote if it should be legal, then they’d all say yes and the rest of the community would be stuck with it. It’s like if you let the richest people run the economy. They’re not going to do what’s best for everybody, they’re going to do what makes them benefit the most.
It's scary how quickly everything can turn back to our real problems, isn't it?
he still says "to show how passionate you are about the game", sure, being top 10% isn't the only way, sockfolder and glitches'n'stuff show that by researching. (he's not wrong, at least he's not exhaustive.) but many people complaining do neither.
Emulators are a great thing for the speedrun community. I started running on emulator, because the barrier was super low. The community just has to do the research for emulators running properly.
I switched to OG Hardware, but that was a hell lot of hassle even though I was already rather informed about the system.
Emu and console are on the same board for the games I care, no category split.
What I miss is that I cannot use every controller I want, playing modifications of the game is way harder and sometimes out right impossible.
Also autosplitting is much, much, much easier to implement on emulator compared to console...
Yeah some jackass who bought some crazy expensive Japanese controller which let them program inputs and pulled a WR due to it is why. One bad egg has to ruin it for everyone.
As original hardware for classic games becomes more and more rare, due to decreasing numbers and increasing demand, emulation will eventually be the only possibility.
Like it or not, it is the future.
I really hate that this is the truth. its very unfortunate.
Companies really dropped the ball on re-releasing games, that's for sure.
@@19Szabolcs91 I agree to a point, but you cannot sell nostalgia to people that didnt love the originals.
Most gamers of today would laugh at games older people like me loved.
@@noahblevins9569 Yes but is costs almost nothing to put up old games for sale (or even free) for download. And it's nost just nostalgia, many players are genuinely curious about old classics, to see where it all came from, etc.
Same as watching old movies from the 1930s or so. It's niche, but vital.
@@19Szabolcs91 You make a valid point, but we are a tiny portion of the market. And original hardware is highly unlikely to be recreated and mass produced.
It would be very cool.
One of the best ways to show the “mapping one input to multiple buttons” is high level ADOFAI gameplay. Most top players use many keys for a one button game
As an ADOFAI player I agree with this. The game would be completely broken if this were allowed.
I've always been a fan of categorising things myself. So i'm on camp 'let there be seperate leaderboards' here. I feel it's the best way to tackle things and to have as little restriction as possible.
Fantastic, well-considered take. The obvious answer is somewhere in the middle and really depends on what kind of advantages are afforded by a given platform. Split by platform is the cleanest, but for some games intermixed can be okay. It’s ultimately up to each community, and the passion and fervor around this does make sense, even if it sometimes veers into gatekeeping.
The whole "if you're not an active/top tier runner you're not allowed an opinion" thing feels bad.
I personally never saw a problem when using emulation for speedrunning. Some games on emulator run exactly, if not, pretty close to their console versions. And if that's the case, then it should be fine for a leaderboard. But if a game runs much better on emulation, or even more have exclusive skips and glitches, just give it a separate leaderboard.
I’ve always thought it depends a lot on the game, the system, and the community. Some games like Super Mario Bros is so simple that it’s very well emulated, the NES is easy for most PCs to emulate, and emulation is very accepted by the game’s community. Plus it’s more accessible and easier to record. But for other games like Perfect Dark for example, emulation definitely needs to be a separate category, it’s impossible to emulate perfectly and gives the user an advantage from having a better controller in most cases, and even when emulated at original resolution with the most accurate graphical effects it usually runs even slower than a real N64 due to inaccuracies, which allows for unique glitches to be used.
I think for the most part it should be a separate category, but there are definitely some situations where it can be mixed together.
Also as an aside, I flat out 100% disagree with the point that only the top 10% of runners should have a say on how the rules of that game are determined.
Speedrunning is just as much about the community watching the runs as it is the players making the runs. Also there is the TAS community as well. Many of them do not care about (actually themselves doing) RTA running, but they are very happy to theory craft ideas and put them in TAS to help out the RTA runners. These TASers deserve a say as well.
Speedrunning is a community and the entire community should have a say, not just the elite few.
The folks who will never break into the top 10% but are quite content to play by the category rules and Peter their own personal bests are just as important to the speed running community as the elites. It is the other 90% that keep a game popular as a speedrun. They also do lots of attempts. They enjoy watching others runs of the game. They cheer on the elite few break a WR.
The obvious comparison would be - "a sport without fans is a dead sport".
In Sorster's opinion, he feels it's black and white that only the top 10% should have 100% of the say. In my opinion I totally disagree with this for all of the above conversation I just shared.
[edit] No disrespect to Sorster. I am happy he brought up this subject for conversation and he made a lot of good points in his video.
Honestly splitting the leader boards just makes everyone happy
I believe that there needs to be two categories for speedrunning. Emulation and Non Emulation.
The video turn out great, i didnt knew about the "runahead" stuff
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the glitchyness of runahead just visual? For example, lets say you have a 1 frame window to do something with two frames of runahead. From my limited programming experience, I would assume this would allow you to perform the input two frames late and it would still work. However, if you actually pressed the button at the correct time, it would register the input two frames earlier, causing you to miss the input. In essence, the “glitchyness” would just be the runahead correcting its mistake and rewinding to the actual outcome.
Don’t get me wrong, I still think there is healthy reason to consider the reduced latency by itself unfair.
yeah it is just a visual glitch. that's the entire point of runahead that it will correct retroactively when it gets the actually correct inputs processed. it sounds like he is misunderstanding how it works.
This is what I understand, and why I advocated for runahead to be allowed in kaizo (btw that's me he shows at 12:16 probably because of my take in the kaizo community)
Also even a visual glitch like that can prevent other people from seeing what's actually going on. Not that visual disruptions should be banned because glitches are like 40% of speedrunning, but this is a case where it's either unnecessary or gives an advantage.
My general opinion on the matter is still pretty much the same. In games where there is a significant difference between original hardware and emulation, a separate category for each should be sufficient to maintain competitive fairness.
I'm new-ish to speedrunning (one year now, also have run some SMW), and I use emulator, simply because I don't have the proper room, setup, or money for console gaming. I'd love to eventually move to console, but I get by how I can for now. I've never heard of "run-ahead" until this video, and I'm shocked that something like that isn't banned, especially in SMW. Thanks for doing such a good job explaining things and educating others, instead of just saying "emulator bad, console good!"
People sometimes give me crap for running on an emulator, but as I mentioned, I'm getting by how I can so I can actually stream games and speedrun. The console elitists can be tiring... I wish more people were open to honest speedrunners who just want to have fun and not cheat, but don't have the means for console gaming/ streaming.
I don't think you understand run-ahead...
It's fundamentally impossible to reach an invalid gamestate with it. The undo jank is consistent, and a result of setting it too high. This jank is best described as negative latency.
Imagine parallel timelines... Run-ahead shows you one future, (literally, runs ahead) based on your current inputs. When your inputs change, it changes course and shows the alternate timeline. It doesn't randomly decide to undo switches or make door entries free. The same inputs would get you the same results without it on. The door will always be a 3 frame window with 1 run-ahead frame or 100.
It's very similar to rollback netcode in Fighting games. And while Fighting games can and do "cheat" rollback to make it seamless, emulators can't. There's no predictive AI blorping your Mario where it thinks you should be.
Now if they should be banned or restricted isn't something I could say. I understand the concept of how it works, I don't know how it specifically works with every emulator. For example, does an emulator slow down or speed up when the timeline jumps happen? This is something you'd need an informed opinion on, on a per emulator basis. Though to me, as long as it's set low enough to not cause visible jumps (read: configured the intended way) it should generally be fair and is in no way comparable to savestates or slowdown/speedup.
Oh boy, now I want to see what 100 lookahead frames looks like.
I was also thinking of rollback netcode as being similar, but I also just thought of how modern CPUs have built-in runahead at the lowest possible level, by the name of speculative execution. The processor guesses which branch of an if statement will be taken and then already starts computing the instructions from that branch, only to throw it all away in the case that the opposite branch gets taken. This actually wasn't implemented perfectly on several systems which lead to the famous Spectre exploit that lets an attacker peer into these alternate timelines to gain information they shouldn't have.
In my opinion, the biggest issue with even legitimate runs on emulator is how accurate the emulator in question is, especially when it comes to lag/loading times. The SNES is the newest console I'm aware of that has emulation accurate enough to rival real hardware in a speedrunning context. Beyond that, emulation has often had to use special tricks to get it to run at a reasonable speed on PC, which compromises the accuracy a lot.
If Niftski didn’t gain an advantage from using an emulator he wouldn’t use it. All of the other top Mario runners play on original hardware. Using a keyboard to play changes the physical mechanics of playing the game. It doesn’t matter that the input speeds are the same, the entire way the game is played is altered, every physical movement is completely different when using a keyboard. If Niftski could get the same time using original hardware then he would use original hardware. He could silence every critic and leave no doubt in anyone’s mind, but he continues to use a keyboard. If it makes no difference, then why not just use the setup that all the other top runners use? Even if the keyboard is more difficult for most people to use, the fact is that Niftski feels more comfortable playing on it - thus it gives him advantage over using an original controller. Here’s an analogy: imagine if a basketball player realized that the natural arc of there shot made free throws easier for them to make on a basket that was 10’2” high. So they set up a basket at that height and set a world record for consecutive free throws made. Even though having the basket higher couldn’t really be considered an advantage at all, that record would be worthless. Basketball is played on 10’ baskets. Nintendo games are played with Nintendo controllers.
lol
I'm no speedrunner but the most obvious solution is to either make them separate categories (and in case of notable differing hardware revisions subdivide them also) OR if the run is withing, say, the top 10% of runs it is required to be on specific hardware setup.
So I speedrun Inazuma Eleven. A game with a very little community. It is a NIntendo DS game, so in order to be able to do a speedrun in the OG hardware you need to:
a) have the hardware to capture DS footage (which is expensive and hard)
b) have a camera ponting at a DS for 4 hours (any% usual time) while playing
c) Being unable to run the Japanese version, which is almost a different game, unless you get one original copy (Very hard and expensive to get)
So yeah, we allow emulators.This has a couple of disadvantages. Loading times obv change for everyone, so better PC meaning better times. But is the only way to make a small comunity speedrun the game, so we just bear with it (there are too many loading screens at desynced points to be able to keep track of all). When we talk about speedruning we also have to remeber small games and communitys, and not only the big ones like the Mario games.
PS: Also emulation let speedrunners practice in very specifics points of the speedrun thanks to save state, and to test how the RNG of the game work. Very useful! Also great video! Congrats
Runahead just... Doesn't work like that.
It doesn't let you press two different things at the same time, it just tries to predict what will you be pressing (the prediction will most likely be copying the previous frame inputs). If it was right it'll go ahead, adnd if it failed it'll remulate with the correct input. That's all, there is no way to cheat with that (except having the input lag reduced)
It's just rollback netplay applied to emulation.
I mean you can ban it if you want, IMO since it shows weird save-statey behavior on screen, allowing people to actually use save-states and camouflage them more easily. On the other hand it balances things out for PC players, since CRT screens have less input lag than LCD ones. So using an LCD screen actually puts you in a disadvantage over CRT players.
All in all good video
Probably the biggest issue I've seen is a lot of the older emulators are faster than the newer more accurate ones. Yet leaderboards that rightly separate console and emulators do little to take account of it. Whenever I've tried to bring this issue up. People get defensive and try to downplay it. Despite pointing worse runs being faster solely due to emulator advantage.
Using elitism to shutdown debate is not a good look mate. In particular when you're main issue is one specific issue that you literally are if saying people can't afford something you openly admitted is expensive, and probably will eventually be completely inaccessible for everyone, they should just get used to delay.
It's just a bad look, especially for anyone looking from the the outside in, it's sets a poor image of a community that only cares about the opinions of the elite few at the top.
Great video! Glad i was ready, as this was really in-depth!
I have the perfect response to 'Keyboards are worse than controllers so it's fair' argument.
If they are worse; why use them? A USB NES pad is dirt cheap. If there is a *disadvantage* to using keyboards then why have so many people started using them instead of controllers?
I am not arguing that they are better; but you can't say they are worse without explaining why people still use them.
Here's an example:
"I like to listen to music on analog media such as cassette'
"Why? When you can use a lossless FLAC file?"
"Because I the media is nostalgic to me; but I love having physical music media which I purchase directly from the artist which directly supports them instead of using a streaming service. I also love the inexplicable 'warm' sound you get from tape. I understand it's irrational but knowing it's coming from a magnetic strip played over decades old hardware makes just warms my heart."
Such as that.
But what's the argument for keyboard? If you say it's more uncomfortable and harder to use. Why do people use it? Again you can get a USB pad for dirt cheap.
Anyway, as tilted as I sound I fucking love your videos and agree with every other point you had. I also love that you used Little Samson as an example since when people argue with me about emulation being just for piracy I always use LS as an example.
What's more important, someone getting $500 for a game on ebay or people using an emulator so they everyone can enjoy it.
Even if they're unfair in specific circumstances, there should be no reason why it cannot be separated into another category.
Also, your generalization of runahead is pretty gross. It's like rollback netcode.
Again, I'm an emulator speedrunner, I've mentioned it numerous times. So, I'll say the following:
I use emulation because I'm dead poor. I have some original hardware, but no funds to connect it to my TV, or computer. So for me, if I want to stream at all, emulation is my only option, apart from PC games. Further, with my emulator and an adapter, I can actually use some of my OEM controllers with my emulators.
Moving on, I have always been conscious of the increased chance for cheating, so I actually run with both an internal and external input display on stream, and I try to make sure my controller is on camera as much as I can. I actually advocate for always using input display, so people can learn from your runs, whether you run emulator or not. So there's not one or two, but three easy ways to prove I'm really hitting those buttons.
Finally, the issue of accuracy is really important. Lots of NES/SNES games are perfectly accurate to original hardware, so those communities usually just ask the runner mention that they run on emulation, as well as show some settings including input mappings and no run-ahead, mostly in case the board ever has to be split. Other communities, like Banjo-Tooie flat out bans emulators because of hilariously bad lag emulation. It sucks I can't ever run some of those games until someday when I can afford games and food, but so it goes, but the fact that some communities won't even make a category is discouraging, particularly with cost of entry being ridiculous currently.
And a note to the emulator know-it-alls. Cheaters will cheat on OEM hardware and emulators. If you're such a cultural pollutant that you can't understand basic facts about gaming tech, screaming about emulators being fake and runs being cheated will only demonstrate your drooling, knuckle-dragging stupidity. Those of us who stream on emulator aren't missing your views or follows.
When you're down to counting, single digit numbers of frames, to figure out who is where in the top ten, for popular games, every little difference is going to stir up debate. Emulation, is far to important to ban, because it will dig speed running's grave over enough time, as hardware becomes more and more ancient. For example, I know people, that have only ever played, many of speed running's most popular games on emulators. I know young kids, that play the old Super Mario games, that have never once used a Nintendo, and have only ever seen them online.
Good video, there's also emulator startup state that can be an issue for games (say Family Feud is a game i've ran, the WR route effectively requires you to use FCEUX.) I'm not actually *that* concerned personally with runahead, I think it should be banned, I just don't think it's as easy as some people think to get an actual advantage with it.. especially without it being very obvious that runahead was enabled.
wow the family feud SNES game? I haven't thought about that in like almost 20 years haha. man people run some really obscure games!
@@richarddavis8863 I ran the NES version, there are SNES/Genesis family feud speedruns though! www.speedrun.com/family_feud
As an emulator developer myself, I see emulators as for video game preservation. I suppose my opinion is that emulators by themselves are not unfair, but hacks like speed up, slowdown, save states, gameshark codes, and other things are though as well as using certain unofficial input devices (neither of which necessarily requires emulation but are super easy with it) are in most cases. Some exceptions are categories of games with specific cheats enabled (e.g. solo Pokémon speedruns let you modify the starter), but those are exceptions!
And one may ask - How can you speed up a game without emulation? On Windows, you can use Cheat Engine to speed up or slow down a game, and a popular racing game, Trackmania, has been subject to cheating this way. There are also some systems you can overclock. For example, the original Super Game Boy (the one without the link port) uses real Game Boy hardware but lacks the correct clock, thus it runs games noticeably faster. Some consoles can also be hardware modified to improve performance (SSD installation for example).
That being said, even without these hacks, an emulator being 100% fair in terms of competitive advantage does not necessarily mean it should be allowed on leaderboards. Few emulators are ever 100% accurate to their physical counterparts in both performance and emulation accuracy (bsnes for example is an extremely accurate SNES emulator in all categories, but you will be hard pressed to find an equally accurate Nintendo 64 emulator), thus while playing on such an emulator may require the same exact skills as playing on real hardware, the actual gameplay on most emulators may not always fully correspond to what is produced on real hardware.
A big example of emulators requiring similar skills but having different experiences is Billy Mitchell's infamous Donkey Kong world record where he tried to pass off an emulated run as real hardware. MAME does not make a game easier to play, but it is different enough that you can detect a run on MAME vs. an original arcade board.
It is most important that runners are transparent about how they do their runs regardless of if anything is explicitly banned or not. After all, anyone can speedrun any game with emulation, cheats, etc. even if there is no leaderboard or speedrun category for it as long as they do not pass it off as something else.
And lastly, while I think emulators are important for video game preservation and may become the most popular way to play certain titles, I think it is fine if it remains a category specific thing on whether or not emulators are allowed.
Sonic 2 allows for run ahead, it makes things smoother which can lead to better gameplay, and is encouraged.
This is the best comparison between emulation and anything by far! I'm not really that into speed runs, but I must say: great video!
I love your content you touch on topics that no one else does....keep it up mate
Emulators are honestly a necessity nowadays due to hardware failure and disc/data rot that can happen on older consoles. While it is good when you're able to play on real hardware, I do question the logic behind demonizing emulation whenever someone says it's bad. Especially when that someone is Nintendo.
I brought it up to my doctor and he just wanted to ask about my drug use and family history of mental health
Not everyone has access to original hardware, and there can be accessability issues with that as well. Eventually the original hardware will all break down... plenty of good reasons to allow emulation, in my eyes. That said I'm not a speedrunner, just a spectator.
if people like something, make it it's own category. If people play it then they can have their cake and eat it too, and if no one plays it then the problem has solved itself
For old consoles yes but generally the newer the console the harder it is to make it accurate enough. I don't ever see switch, ps3 and xbox 360, dreamcast and xbox ever being accurate enough for serious runs. It's also a nightmare to moderate. Splitting them is a pretty safe bet too.
I think what you said in this video pretty much sums up how I think about the topic, and I do think SMB is a good example of how to solve problems like this. Incredible video!
if you want it to be a system where only elite/active runners have a say, a very organic way to do that is to just have it be based on clout, kinda like how it is now-clout is usually strongly correlated with leaderboard position
or alternatively, do it the way smash forums did it, the smash backrooms, once you break top 100, or if you make enough contributions that the existing backrooms members think you should have a seat at the table.
this is one of the few cases where i think it's completely reasonable to structure your community as an elitist oligarchy. i don't necessarily think that that's the best way to do it, but i don't think it's unconscionable or even unreasonable.
I agree you need to be part of a community to make decisions that impact the community but gatekeeping is always a bad thing. You shouldn't need a run anywhere on a leaderboard. Being part of the community is the only thing that matters
this is a subject that deserves or needs a longer video with a deep-dive. There are so many roots to go down. both good and bad.
But in general I don't have a problem with emulators, I often see rules that allow emulation but once you are within a % of the top time, runs have to be on the hardware.
I think that's kind of fair, like with a lot of things in life once you put the time and effort into your skills then you need the equipment to achieve that.
13:50 that would disclude game breakers that help in the making of runs, but don't actually do runs because they like doing the other thing more. If one would add this, add an exception for those people who already proved their effort to the game by figuring stuff out no one else did. Other than that, good video. Covered the contentious topics beautifully.
3:04 i was watching this video of NES turtles yesterday lol
I don’t necessarily think it’s unfair but I don’t think they should normally be allowed. Using the intended systems puts everyone on the same playing field. It’s uniform and adds integrity to the run.
In my opinion emulators are around the same as the original consoles. They don't make a huge difference however the big difference could be a different controller used for the runs, using it for precise or almost impossible on the original controller movements make it a very unfair advantage.
for example in mario 1 the wall-clips are much easier on keyboard! since there you dont have a D-pad with a ball in the middle, so on keyboard you can press a different direction much quicker, so i am confused why the SMB1 speedrun leaderboard allows it
@@raafmaat switching directions quicker doesnt even make the wall clip easier
@@AntimonySM51 i mean the time between different directional presses is less, ofcourse that makes wall clip easier since it requires going from front direction to 1 frame backwards and back
(or something like that, anyway, it seems much easier to do on a keyboard without the weird ball under Dpad, but instead having 4 seperate buttons)
@@raafmaat Clearly you don’t know anything about the wall clip, you press left for A LOT longer than one frame
@@AntimonySM51 ah right, either way, all the tricks seem easier on a controller with 4 seperate buttons compared to a D-pad that has to tilt in full.....
I don't see an issue with just splitting the boards into console/emulator as long as the emulator functions well enough to speedrun (some newer consoles and older emulators don't function well enough)
The other question is hardware emulation. Stuff like FPGA consoles. Think Kevtris's work with the Analogue consoles and similar things.
Are people posing the same questions to them as they do software emulation on your PC?
Is hardware emulation treated like real hardware? Or like software emulation? Or something different entirely?
The simple fact that you can run a TAS not played on a console should end the debate. Sure some games are rare or out of production, but we all need to admit many runs are probably fake and nobody should cry too much when their favorite speed runner breaks another seconds barrier because it's impossible to tell if it's legit.
A bunch of the games that I've ran emulators are allowed, but they put them into separate categories, so have some categories called regular hardware and then the others are called emulated.
I know you said not to comment if you don't have an entry on the leaderboard, but the way you described runahead doesn't seem like how I'd expect it to work. Having the graphics rewind could be disorienting, but is ultimately just a graphical effect. The way I see it, runahead should make the game's internal state match what an actual console would have the vast majority of the time. It's intended to reduce input delay, correct? Then apply each input to the frame that it would've been received at on console, even if that frame had already passed by the time the emulator receives the input. A 3 frame window should still be a 3 frame window, just offset to match console. If the way it works in emulators is how it was described here, then I have a problem with those emulators rather than the speedrunning community.
I feel like just the basis of emulation being a legal gray area can be "unfair" for people. Some people will be morally opposed to emulation because of its legality, and if emulation can provide an advantage to playing on real hardware, it can lead to some issues. Granted, I don't know how common this attitude is, but I have seen it pop up. At least we have the divided leaderboards, so everyone feels represented.
In my opinion, there are a few best ways to handle this
1. Have a version of an emulator approved by the community/created by the community
2. Give a time penalty based on how much an emulator saves, or not allow emulator runs below a certain time
3. Have emulator as a sub category compared to console
Great video! I am still learning about these non-black-and-white speedrun topics like this, but this is my current view:
Emulations that are vastly different from the original game should be made into a different category, like the SM64 board has. Emulations that can be set up in such a way that they are in essence the same as the console version can share the same board. It is then the individual community's job to decide where that dividing line is.
Hard agree. Especially as Xemu continues to progress, this convo is gonna flare up in the 5 or so Xbox speedrun communities that exist
seperate catagories for all! dont see why people should be punished if there is a big enough community of them
Do an uno reversal,
Is excluding people with a paywall for a contest between passionate people fair
Take into consideration that a N64 is getting very expensive these days let alone import the Japanese console and carts needed for most games. To some countries these consoles aren't even shipped to because of shipping restrictions (Russia comes to mind as of late)
Where as grannies pacemaker can run N64 games aswell.
Communities really need to figure out a way how to include Emu runs aswell. Because elitism is bad, and game preservation is the most important aspect as the original makers of these games either don't care or have been re-released a billion times
This take comes from a hardcore physical game collector whom owns 1000s of disks and carts. I care for fair competition so there needs to be some ground rules which communities can agree on. Which should be easily managed because these communities tend to be small even for the large ran games like M64, Goldeneye, MK64 etc
all I know is that it's unfair if you submit it to the non-emu m&m kart racing board
I really don't have a dog in this fight as I don't speedrun, but I do follow the speedruning scene a bit and was always a proponent of splitting the categories. And it's really not based that much on whether or not the emulation is accurate or not, but rather the matter of input method. While the timings and lag might be similar or same, it's different to play a game on a keyboard or a modern controller when compared to an old controller such as the one on the NES. I played a lot of NES Tetris on both the emulator at first, and then later on actual hardware, and while I prefer the original hardware, holy fucking piss does the NES controller suck balls when it comes to ergonomics. Having your hands in a more natural position such as on the keyboard can certainly be an advantage when running a game for hundreds of hours and thousands of attempts and is less taxing on the runner.
But that's just a layman's perspective. Maybe once you spend enough hours on the hardware, your hands get molded to it and you can't tell the difference. All I know is that I respect people (and their records) much more when I see that they were done on an original hardware, especially one as sucky as the NES.
Yes, that's why there are separate cetegories
As a person who knows almost nothing about this, I mostly agree with you
Emulation is vital to gaming today. Can't play your Snes Classic without it!
Aside from that, it helps preserve art, good and bad. That itself is enough for me honestly.
Storster, great content, you explained this subject very nicely, and I liked how you used a Comparison/Contrast angle. You're right too, people who don't have experience in the game shouldn't be making the decisions. Overall really good. Thanks.
i believe that pretty much all games should follow the resident evil 4 route and separate categories by hardware, in RE4 EVERY console has their own categories, and i think thats the right thing, because if you allow diferent hardware to compete in the same category you will eventually put someone at disanvantage, famously this happened on ocarina of time when the IQue was necesary to beat the world record, or stupidity like gta 5 having people on ps3 having to compete against people on pc.
so emulators should be allowed and put into their own category.
You actually can't tell someone where you can obtain roms, other than that you can find them with a quick Google.
If you hate emulation, you also hate preservation of the very hobby you enjoy.
I personally feel like there is no real point to banning emulators without atleast making an emulator only catagory because on a long enough timeline all game will need to be run on emulator because of console/ game degradation and online stores closing like what recently happened to 3ds and wiiu
Agree with this. Emulators are inherently a good thing. They lower the barrier of entry, and we all know how fragile the speedrunning communities for most games are. Emulators or not, there will always be runners who try to cheat. Even if they become a little harder to catch, I still think it's worth allowing emulators to increase the player base.
As long as there's clear delineation, no.
I like the communities that require actual hardware if your time is within 10% of WR. allows you to learn and report your pbs in a more accessible manner but expecting hardware investment if you're performing at top level. good compromise imo
I vote for double the categories. Fastest run OG hardware, fastest run Emulator. Takes very little data input, solves all of these arguments, and lets me enjoy watching double the speed runs. Everyone wins ya? Personal opinion...OG hardware all the way!
awesome video. keep it up
Emulation isn't necessarily piracy but-
🌟 It is always ethical to pirate video games 🌟
I think the switching of controllers is ridiculous.
Yeah just as long as emulation is marked along with its setting I’ve got no problem with it. Can’t expect everyone to shell out $200 to play spot 7up.
Side thought, no matter your current thoughts it's highly likely in the not so distant future it's a non question as the consoles break/wear out leading to emulation being the only viable method of playing the now older games.
Billy Mitchel would love this to be approved!! Hahahahaha
I think all the points made here are super valid. But I only VERY casually run anything.
Great work.
FCEUX for NES, Gambatte for Game Boy, bsnes for SNES, Genesis Plus for Genesis. BizHawk for multiple platforms. Most 2D games have accurate emulation. 3D games are questionable.
I realy love emulators.. not only for cost savings, but it gain me access to games, i never could buy or play, do to regional locks, different hardware in different countries, romhacks, fan translations usw. Also Emulators help to preserve old games. Hardware is dying over time, therefor older games became less and less accessable in their original hardwareform. For Speedruns, Emulators are great because of savestates, that let you learn a specific part of the game - even if you are not using an emulator for the run itself.. whitout emulators and safe states, a lot of world records would never be achievable, whitout training with safe states - especialy in the gliched categories.
The bottom line is that it's almost impossible for emulators to be 100% accurate. There will always be a few little quirks that will affect gameplay.
Eventually, all console games will need to be emulated, as those old and out-of-production consoles and game cartridges/discs get damaged or simply fall victim to the passage of time - how many working Nintendo 64s still exist in the world? How many copies of Super Mario 64 remain usable?
Even more modern systems with online, digital storefronts will become affected, once their old stores become too unprofitable to keep up and get shut down; it's already happened to the Wii Store, it's happening to the 3DS eShop soon, and almost happened to the PS3 Store. As a result, the only way to play Wii games is through already-downloaded games or physical copies - and again, neither the Wii nor Wii game discs are being produced anymore, leading to the first problem. The same will eventually happen to the Xbox One, to the PS5, to the Switch.
I think you are mischaracterizing what run ahead does. Stating your case with a mocking spongebob voice does not elevate the conversation.
Run ahead, if implemented properly, does not allow you to "press a button on whatever frame you want". You still get the same 3 frames. They're just shifted slightly. Mario jumping back to enter the door is a side effect, but in the real world the player pressed up when the display showed Mario over the door. The switch palace deactivating looks like a bug or bad implementation of run ahead, because that's not something you can do in the game. Different emulators will have good and bad implementations of run ahead, just like any other feature.
Ideally, run ahead would only be used to remove input lag that existed within the original game. Usually only one or two frames. This can reduce input lag without the rewind side effects and when combined with lag inherent to emulation (double buffer gpu rendering, LCD lag, usb polling, etc), you end up with a total input lag very similar to original hardware on a CRT. This is why setting a run ahead limit makes sense, and should be decided on a per-game basis.
I don't think obsessively playing the same game 10,000 times makes you more qualified to make technical decisions like this. Quite the opposite in fact, because at that point you're too psychologically invested in the old system. Letting only the top of the leaderboard have a vote is a surefire way to have stagnation and lock-in.
Lol I definitely use run ahead for kaizo.. the lag on emu is awful.. hardware definitely reigns supreme, though. So glad emu is a last resort
I think the obvious solution to all of this is have everyone play on emulated hardware inside VR. That way nobody is happy.
OMG!!! I'm on a Storster video!!! The runahead issue is one of many things that are discussed a lot, are voted and nothing is done after all and I feel extremely tired of those things and is making me move from running for leaderboard positions just to run for myself and not even bothering submitting any runs anymore.
Same day I released a new refunct pb I see refunct in this video lol.
Emulators is the life blood of speed running I believe. You shouldn't have to fork over part of your paycheck to run competitive with your childhood games (if you don't have the console/game already) and if you do great! The whole thing about emulators is there specifictly trying to be as close to the original hardware as possible
6:35 KUTO1K OMG THE MAN THE MYTH THE LEGEND
MySims Kingdom (DS) has some stuff that gives real hardware and mobile emulators an advantage over emulation on PC and console, like entire minigames that idk if they are required to beat the game (some are, some aren't) being near-impossible bc you can't use 2 mice to emulate 2 thumbs easily.
“Increase in reddit usage” 💀
It's like playing on a console that's better. It's not cheating, it's Digiorno
idk if i zoned out or if you never explained what run-ahead is?
Always thought you should have emulator rankings and console rankings and they shouldn't mix.