Hey all,

So I didn't realize a couple of times were submitted on flash carts like the PowerPak. I never really specified in the rules before about these. I kept the times verified for now, but all future submissions should be on a real cart if possible.

Was wondering how others felt about allowing these. Currently, emulator times are hidden on the boards and not considered "official" and I'm not sure if Power Pak should be the same deal. The main reason I'm not a fan of this is because you can reset on the cartridge, not actually resetting the console. I don't think the RNG seeds reset the same way like this, plus it's just easier and less tedious than resetting the console.

What about just requiring reseting the console each time as you would with an actual cart of the game?

I suppose that could work, but I'm still iffy about using one at all over a real cartridge. Someone could hack a rom for example to where good RNG seeds are more consistent and we wouldn't know.

If it's that easy to do that and it would not be possible to tell it was a hack, then I would say it should be separate from runs on actual cart

That's a bit steep. I don't necessarily agree with not allowing flash carts at all. It's expensive to get a lot of NES games even if this specific one isn't. Basing on the fact that someone could cheat isn't the best way to go or else we'd just ban all emulators and flash carts. Chimp is right with the resetting and streaming to show as much work as possible. If people try hard enough they will get their cheated run accepted anyways.

Also what is the purpose of hiding emulator runs? If the emulator runs the game to the specifications of the console then that should also be fine or else just have their own category.

Just my 2 cents. I did do it on a flash cart and the RNG reacted the same as any of the real cart videos so I don't see the big deal here. If you can spot someone cheating on flash cart then thats great! Allow the rest of us to not have to spend more money to play these games haha.

I appreciate some of the input.
I'm honestly OK with allowing it because I don't know how someone would even manage to alter the RNG seeds. I do think the console itself should be reset rather than using the PowerPak menu, though. As far as price goes, you're honestly spending more money on the PP, but I guess as a longterm investment you're saving money if you plan to run/play a lot of games.

As far as hiding emulator runs, I haven't been too sure what to do or what emulator is most accurate. I've only had them hidden because some other communities (OoT for example) do this. But for OoT, emulator runs that are within 10% of world record aren't accepted. I don't know how that would work for F13th. There's obviously way more accuracy to how NES games run than N64, but even so I've noticed a few times in the past, emulator submissions that were loading areas quicker than real NES.

At the end of the day I'm pretty firm on preferring console, at least if you are going for record.