banned emulators?
6 years ago
Switzerland

Little Question Why Emulators Are Banned In Single Star?

GoodleShoes likes this
New York, USA

I'm no authority but I believe the lag/loading time is different and there's not enough interest to include an emulation filter. Maybe someone has a more definitive answer.

Canada

Emulators won't account for the lag console gets so it's not allowed. It may also differ from loading times, because it does load faster but I am uncertain it would effect single star timing but still, not allowed.

Edited by the author 6 years ago

Midori banned emulator and VC from single star in 2012 with reasoning that roughly translates to emulator is "half man and half machine," even though there were really only a couple emu single star players left in 2012. The original reasoning for why emulation is "half man and half machine" was because you could instantly go back to the star select screen. Other things like lag and loading times were not the main reasons. The irony of this is that now most single star runs are done with a Gameshark code to go back to the star select screen instantly.

Also, loading times are not necessarily faster on emulation. Although most of them are, some specific ones are not. It depends on which counter factor (cf) you use. Most people who play on emulation use cf1, which removes almost all of the lag. However, cf2 actually has longer loading times for loading zones. A good example is the star Elevator Tour in the Volcano in LLL. Xiah's 18"95 real-time done on console is actually 18"66 in-game time, while my 18"93 real-time done on emulator is 18"63 in-game time. This is because I used cf2 for this star. Using an app made by Toast, we can easily calculate what the IGTs should be on an N64.

With the lag-counter code, we can determine what the IGTs for this star should be in real-time on console. In J1.0, the lag-counter starts at 23 in LLL and going into the volcano brings it up to 35. Since there should be no lag if this star is done correctly, this means that an 18"66 IGT should be 18"95 in real-time. By using the same calculations, 18"63 IGT should be 18"91 in real-time. This shows that the loading times for emulator depends on the cf used.

In response to GoodleShoes:

The reality is that SM64 is a game that started on emulator and that most of the people who were interested in this game originally played on emulator. Things like capture cards and good software to capture game footage weren't nearly as well-known, accessible, or easy-to-use as they are today. To say that there is "not enough interest to include an emulation filter" is incorrect because the roots of this game (both RTA and single star) are in emulator. Another interesting point to bring up is that since emulator was the popular platform a decade ago, NTSC became the lone standard. This is why there is no PAL leaderboard like there is for games like Mario Kart 64. The Mario Kart 64 community always had emulation banned, which meant that it would be difficult for players in PAL regions to obtain NTSC consoles back in the late 1990s and early-mid 2000s. Since players in PAL regions could easily play SM64 in NTSC through emulation, there was never any reason to make a PAL leaderboard.

Single star is console only is for 2 reasons. The first reason was because Midori "officially" banned emulator runs from the leaderboards (as mentioned earlier). The other reason was because the more dedicated players were beginning to move to console. It's that simple. Since most single star players care much more about the IGT than the real-time (provided your lag reduction wasn't completely half-assed/shitty), lag and loading times are not actually the biggest reasons.

Edited by the author 6 years ago
GoodleShoes likes this
New York, USA

Wow, had no idea the runs were mostly emulated in the beginning. Could have fooled me with how people treat emulator players as casual.

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