Attention, Gameboy speedruners!
8 years ago

Hey gameboy speedrunners,

since there are still a lot of gb speedrunners out there using inaccurate emulators (like Visualboy Advance/VBA) for their gameboy speedruns I would like to remind and ask you to stop using VBA and switch to emulators like Gambatte or BGB instead.

VBA is running Gameboy/Gameboy Color games at slightly higher frame rate than usual gb hardware and other accurate emulators and additionally can't emulate lag properly making it running the games faster and smoother.

While it might sound tempting to use a faster platform, it's still unfair to people who are playing on original hardware (Super Gameboy 2 or Gamecube GB Player) and accurate emulators (Gambatte or BGB).

How you as a gb speedrunner can help?

1.) Try to spot people who are using VBA and inform them about its inaccuracy and help them to switch to more accurate alternatives. I can understand that this doesn't sound easy at all since there are not always clear indicators what emulator is/was being used but in case of doubt just ask them.

There is one indicator (which I know of) that helps you to spot a VBA emulator and it's the red emulator notification in the left lower corner which usually shows up when you reset the game or turn it on and load a rom.

http://puu.sh/mVpMX/f4ba8e653c.jpg http://puu.sh/mVpOL/1e1141e561.jpg

2.) To all the moderators of gameboy game leaderboards:

  • Always (!) define rules for your leaderboard and don't forget to turn on "Rules shown by default" in the leaderboard settings so one can see the rules as soon as you visit the site (like here for example: http://www.speedrun.com/ngsgb )

  • Include an explicit rule which bans the use of VBA and points out what emulators are allowed (for example: "Visualboy Advance/Visual Boy Advance-M (VBA/VBA-M) in any variation IS BANNED since it emulates GB games inaccurately. It is recommended to use BGB, Gambatte or BizHawk")

  • verify carefully and try to spot VBA users

I have noticed that it is getting better in general and people start informing about accurate gb emulators before they actually do runs but unfortunately there are still some who are taking the easy path and just google "gameboy emulator" which unfortunately leads to VBA as first result since it is the most known one.

Thanks for your time and reading!

Pipack, Airwreckgaming and 4 others like this

BizHawk is fine since it is using Gambatte's core

New Jersey, USA

What About SPeed running GBA Games On An emulator?

Scotland

Please don't necro post on a thread like this ^^ u can check when it was posted just above the posts, see 2 years ago. :)

To answer the question for gba games I am guessing this is what you meant. Read the rules of gba game but VBA-m core a lot of people use, mgba I have seen too. There are a few good gba emus so read the rules and if your not sure again ask mods :) and for gba I have yet to see a game that doesn't allow emu but make sure to check ^_^

Edited by the author 5 years ago
ShikenNuggets likes this
Netherlands

Basically what @MelonSlice said. Next time you can make a new thread and refer to this thread. This way we keep the forums 'clean'.

bruh i can understand replying to a thread that's 1-2 months old, but 2 years...