Hi, I want to speedrunning this game using the original pc version (not the Steam / PS1 version) Can you add a separate category and / or allow it in the rules? Thanks

Hey, not sure if you're still active at this forum but I'd love to talk more about this when you get the chance. I can't get the original PC game running and would love to know how you do it, and if the game speed matches the emulation speed I don't see a reason to separate the two. If the versions differ in performance greatly, we can create a separate category for OG PC runs.

It would be great if we could decide about the legality of the runs, I recently acquired a copy of the game, and I'm tempted to start running it again but on PS3, some other forums accept this as legal emulation (like Virtual Console on the WIi). Also, since there are no PC runs we also need to make sure to talk about virtual machines as an option.

I agree with you 100%. I wanted to do exactly that a while ago, but the game is just... buggy.

Here is the problem. The game has a few different versions, and they all behave differently.

1) Original PS1 disc on real hardware

I have the original PS1 disc and a PS1 in mint condition. The game runs horribly on it. I honestly would not force anyone to speedrun this specific version. It does not feel satisfying to play, and I do not think there is any good reason to be elitist about sticking to it.

2) Original 1998 PC version

This is the 1998 PC release. An ISO is easy to find online. It runs extremely well compared to the PS1 version.

I set it up through VMWare, with a proper Windows 95 install, and it took me days to get everything working correctly. Once it was running, I realized there was a much bigger problem than just performance. The PC and PS1 versions do not just run differently. They have completely different physics.

On top of that, I have not managed to get this version to run on anything from Windows 7 onward. Asking people to set up a full Windows 95 emulator just to play this game does not feel reasonable.

3) Steam version

The Steam release is basically a badly done emulation of the PS1 version. I would still allow it, since it is the most convenient and broadly accessible way to play, but in my opinion it is bad. It does not run anywhere near as well as the 1998 PC version or a good custom emulation setup.

4) PS1 emulated through Duckstation (or similar)

Emulating the PS1 version through Duckstation or similar software gives the best results by far. This is the version I use, and the one I find most satisfying to play. It is also the method I would recommend to anyone who wants to speedrun or even just play the game in general.

Now here is where it gets messy.

As I said earlier, the PC and PS1 versions do not just differ in performance. They literally have different physics.

On PS1 you get what I would call "moon gravity". The buggies spend more time in the air and are generally slower. On PC, the buggies stick to the ground much more. This changes the gameplay in a big way.

For casual play that is already a noticeable difference. For speedruns it becomes a huge problem, because some skips are only possible with "moon gravity", which basically means when the game is running badly and lagging.

So when you set up Duckstation, you immediately hit this dilemma. You can:

• Run the game with regular PS1-like settings, without touching overclocking, read ahead, or seek ahead. This keeps performance limited, but it keeps the gameplay and physics faithful to the original PS1 version.

or

• Tweak those settings to make the game run much cleaner. Performance and responsiveness improve a lot, but you end up literally changing the physics. Some jumps and skips that rely on "moon gravity" become impossible.

That is the core issue.

This post is already longer than I planned, but I have thought about this a lot and ended up here: the community is already small, and I do not want to make it any less accessible. Also, changing the rules would probably force me to delete a couple of already existing runs, and I don't know how I feel about that.

If I ever did change the rules, I would probably do the following: require people to either use the Steam version, the original PS1 version, or Duckstation with a specific preset that I provide and recommend for speedrunning.

Can we really accept the Steam version as a PC one if it's just the PS1 version? Personally, I think not. There are two steam versions btw, one of them is off the store, but both are PS1 emulated versions. Since the original PC release is a different game, it seems fair that it gets a different category/platform. Steam versions are just PS1 (emu), Original PC release can be PC or PC(emu) with VMware, PCemu or 86box. As for Duckstation, we should discuss the rules for an optimal settings template for a run, since the last rules talked about ePSXe (lmao). I'm curious of where PS2 and PS3 runs should be, since they're consoles way more compatible with current capture cards than the PS1.

I don't think we should accept the Steam version as the PC one, no, but I would accept it as a viable PS1 emulating option for sure.

If you (or anyone else) are willing to properly emulate the PC version I'd probably make that a separate category for now; until we decide what to do with the main PS1 category. We could potentially make a Duckstation settings preset that matches in game speed and physics to the PC version, in which case I would consider a merge between the two, but until that happens I'd keep them separate.

Over the next couple of days I'll try to make a couple of these settings presets and send them over to you in a DM, along with some more thoughts.