This would mostly depend on runners going through the extra mile of timing the loading sequences themselves, because:

1 - There's no IGT (In-Game Time). Thanks Nintendo for removing the race timer in a racing game.

2 - There's no auto-splitter for this game. Console games are hard to set up for these as far as I've heard. And as far as manual input solutions go, the ones I've seen have been fairly convoluted.

3 - While loading times have been timed before, giving us a reference of how much time difference lies between Cartridge and Digital, the loading times aren't consistent. So while one can know by average that a 48 track run on Cartridge is around 60 seconds slower than Digital, the small variations per load make it hard to say that it will always be a 60 second difference.

4 - Also to add to the above, the Digital version is further segmented into internal memory and SD card storage. The game loads a bit slower when loaded from a SD card, making any timing references even more unreliable.

For now, if the version difference is that much of a concern I'd suggest using the Filter button on the top right of the leaderboard, and use it to visualize Cartridge or Digital runs according to preference.

Also, I wouldn't be too concerned about the time difference between Cartridge and Digital unless your runs are getting to a high enough level where the time difference REALLY starts to matter. In most cases playing via the cartridge is fine enough.

Previous discussion thread with more relevant info: https://www.speedrun.com/mk8dx/thread/m129v

Thanks for calling it out, that was a mistake on my end that I forgot to undo.

Basically, it was a misinterpretation of mine regarding segmenting of larger runs into smaller categories (32 Tracks allowing for Nitro + Retro submissions, for example). I learned more about general RTA rules since then and went out of my way to improve all the categories whose runs were segmented in that fashion... or so I thought, seems I completely overlooked Retro Tracks NI.

The record in question has been reverted to 28:39 with a non-segmented run now.

The difference in loading times on an track-by-track basis isn't as bad as it seems like, but yeah, it's a bunch of small numbers that do add up greatly the longer the run is.

Here's a lowdown on the loading differences I've noticed so far. Bear in mind that these numbers are estimates, they aren't written in stone and thus can vary somewhat in-between runs:

-> On first track load, Digital gains about 3 seconds over Cartridge. -> On subsequent track loads, difference seems to be around 1 second per load or slightly more depending on track loaded. -> The loading time difference between mine and Quinn's 48 Track No Items run, using a different timing method from Haji's, accounted for about 60 seconds. -> That means that for a 16 track category, Cartridge might lose about 18-20 seconds compared to Digital. -> And about 37 to 40 seconds for 32 tracks.

You can use these values as a reference to compare Digital to Cartridge runs on the leaderboard, and vice-versa. But again, it's a rough estimate!

That said, making the switch from Cartridge to Digital is something that I'd probably only recommend if you're hitting a limit with Cartridge and really want to optimize the time even further. Otherwise Cartridge is perfectly fine to work your way up. :P

Lastly, these numbers are for No Items. I'm unsure if the same exact estimates would apply for Items runs. I do have the suspicion that loading times are faintly worse in Items runs, likely since the game loads additional objects like Item Boxes into the track.

I remember another person pointing this out some time before, think it was with German language, where the player got confused at the names of the two modes. I ended up checking Portuguese language and the same thing happens as well ("Sem Itens/Moedas" or No Items/Coins, and "Apenas Moedas" or Only Coins, the latter being the mode used in No Items runs).

We'll probably end up adding a note or two to the ruleset to hopefully help players avoid this misunderstanding in the future.

The current 32 Tracks category is merely a copy of the Wii U game's 32 Tracks category. That's it really.

Others have questioned this before on Discord, and, to be fair, it doesn't really make a lot of sense for Deluxe to have 32 Tracks locked to specific tracks. However, nothing has been done so far since there are lots of players who show interest in the current 32 Tracks category and there hasn't been a lot of motion in making changes to the category as it is.

Personally I feel that part of the reason why is that most communities treat Deluxe as the Wii U game for Switch, no more no less. To many people "32 Tracks" still refers to the original Nitro + Retro Tracks, while "DLC Tracks" is still used widely despite the DLC additions from Wii U technically not being new DLC in Deluxe specifically, and so on. So yeah, regarding terminology and stuff it's a mixed bag right now.

About the category, the idea I had about a month or so ago was to make a category for ANY 32 Tracks (with the fastest set of tracks being up to player's choice) while keeping the old category as "32 Tracks Wii U" or "32 Tracks Classic". Also considered having the old category become the new one, although that could end up pretty confusing for people who run 32 Tracks often suddenly facing rule changes...

Either way I probably wouldn't get rid of 32 Tracks as a whole because sometimes having the ability to race through a category that isn't too short or too long feels pretty nice, but that's just me. :P

^ Any ideas on how to implement that in LiveSplit then...? It's not as straightforward as it seems.

And yeah, I helped Quinn with the timings and I had a really hard time getting accurate measures, even with VoDs running at 0.5x or 0.25x speed. A presses felt really inconsistent to time. Maybe counting downtime instead of loadings might be the way to go, from Next Race to GO!.

The only instance of slow loading I've noticed was the transition from Music Park to Yoshi Valley, where the game stays stuck for a few seconds before entering the loading screen. It happened 2-3 times to me so far.

It's pretty weird how the amount of idle time in the speedrun is getting lower and lower like that, though... I really don't see how I'd save 24 seconds at all besides perhaps me getting better with mashing/timing A to skip the intro cutscenes and "Next Race" button, but I don't feel like there were many instances of that in the older runs.

Also, I do believe there's variance in loading times from run to run, but besides the loading time of the very first track (quitting on first track and restarting VS Race seems to give slightly better loads) I've rarely felt affected by loading differences in No Items before. So yeah, quite intrigued by those results...

Maybe the recent Nintendo patches helped improve downtime a bit?

Oh right, speaking of loading times, here's Quinn37's small spreadsheet about the difference between his Cartridge run and my Digital run (from June 23rd): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zbBwgEfNo49H9owiY7P0nmsVrQnvEoqjFklW_7jsfq0/

The data here's a tad different (timings go from A press at "Next Race" to A press on track cutscene), but it seems to show there's roughly a 1 minute difference between Cartridge and Digital when accounting all the tracks in the game. It doesn't account for any possible PAL/NTSC/JP differences besides this one specific comparison, though.

I'm not very familiar with Mario Kart Players Page these days, but I'd assume they're being lenient with proof because the in-game leaderboards allow download of other people's ghosts, friends or a top 20 time. With just this feature alone anyone can verify new records with ease, and there are people running a YouTube channel (MK8DX Records) solely dedicated to uploading new WR runs as they are beaten, plus another website that tallies all the WRs in a list format (https://mkwrs.com/mk8dx/). If a time is still found to be suspicious then the site's mods could easily request proof or delete said submission off their site. At least for the top times, proof is certainly not non-existent. I don't really see any problem with them.

That said, I feel adding ILs would add a big amount of clutter to the Speedrun.com page as of now. The only way I could see it done is one "IL" category with 2 tabs for track and engine class selection. But would 48 tabs even be possible in that case? Either way, I think it'd add a lot of work for something that has already been done elsewhere, and for a few submissions too, but I I could be wrong in that regard. Also it'd likely add more work to statistics-devoted players as well, who would now have one more place to submit a copy of their time to.

Personally I feel the Player's Page does it's job for keeping track of ILs very well, but that's just me.

Roughly 1 second difference on timer start and a similar 1 second difference as the run ends. I don't see the problem there.

A reminder that capture cards often have a small delay between what's shown on the person's monitor and what's transmitted to the PC. It's most common to see a delay ranging from 0.x seconds to 2 seconds. These all depend on the capture card that's being used, with the problem being more common with devices that use USB 2.0 (on the other hand, internal capture cards and those that use USB 3.0 ports have almost no delay from what I've heard).

You can start anywhere you want for 48 tracks.

If you want a more strategical approach to this try picking a track that is usually short on coins, making the extra 5 coins you get on the 1st race more valuable.

Last time I used the Mario Kart Players Page more than a year ago I'm pretty sure I submitted my times via an email which was filled in in a form-like fashion similar to what Speedrun.com does, so there shouldn't be any major difference between sites, nor a Switch internet connection should be required to submit anything there. Simply write down your times into their form and be ready to have some kind of proof in case site mods ask for it.

But yeah, there's little point having individual track times here when the Player's Page exist. IMO it's easier to head over that site if you want to compete for those. :P

It seems interesting in theory, surely enough.

Personally from all that I could see All Staff Ghosts to be fun as an endurance kind of category, since it uses TTs instead of GP/VS Race and has to be done in both 150cc and 200cc to be completed. Not so sure about the rest though. I mean, clearing all GPs, ghosts and then racing for 5000 coins seems like a definition of 100% alright, but would it be fun and compelling to run? 48 tracks in GP times 3, then 48 x 2 tracks in TTs followed by filler races (around more than double the amount you did up to this point, lol)... it feels all too similar to 48 tracks but done multiple times and different each time.

But hey, if people ended up running this and enjoying it then more power to them! It sure would be an achievement if completed within a day or something. :P

EDIT: Just remembered about coin farming strats in Battle Mode. Maybe scratch the "filler races" bit then.

I approved a couple of runs which didn't show the rule set on the highlight mostly because in all of those cases I had access to the runner's Twitch channel to check the broadcast VoD for the part that was missing, which netted a positive result.

That said, yeah, I'd definitely prefer if runners would start the highlight on the rules select screen at the very least to avoid any doubts for when the original broadcast gets deleted. It's better to have all the information in one video than having to look around for details that may go missing eventually, like Twitch VoDs do (2 weeks, I think?). It might seem like a small little detail, but sometimes small little details like that can make the difference between a validated run and a rejected run, especially as the categories get more optimized. Just a small tip of sorts!

GameXplain has shown in a video that it's the same ordeal with Deluxe. :P Here's the video:

Basically saying, MK8D Digital loads the fastest in-between races by an average of around 4 seconds compared to the cartridge version. Cartridge's still a bit faster than Wii U Digital, but yeah, preferably you'd want the eShop version to save the most time overall.

Hello! I'm wondering if I could have my account name changed to "Mystwalker" (or "MystwalkerMX7" if the former is taken). I've been using my old nickname less and less lately, and people over Twitch know me better by the updated nickname, hence the request. Thanks in advance!