You can call me Michael or Cow, either is fine with me. But I would like to start speedrunning NES games. I own a lot of nes games and have the actual console, but I don't currently have it hooked up and I don't have a reliable method of recording. Using a camera to aim at the tv is just wrong lol.

But I have chosen to try using fceux as it has built in recording. What are the rules for emulated runs? I can't seem to find the rules anywhere. I plan on playing mostly NES games for runs. I've done a ton of runs on Double Dragon 2, but the recordings always looked awful. Is Fceux allowed? Is there a certain range of settings that I need to set to match criteria or can I just leave them on default?

Thanks for reading.

Actually Mesen has video recording as well and it feels like it has less input lag. I believe it is the better choice for the emulator.

It goes on a game by game basis. On a given game's page, any rules dictating emulation usage would be listed there. I know some emulations of NES are banned because they are inaccurate in their emulation. However, I think FCEUX is generally regarded as the best and pretty much accepted for most things (just check the rules on a game to make sure). Emulators generally only get banned if they are inaccurate; which I think eliminates basically Wii/PS2/Xbox up, since these are basically computers, and different hardware on a computer emulating these systems creates all sorts of weird discrepancies (if not at very least, allowing you to load loading screens significantly faster.)

Don't use the built in recording features of any emulator. They'll probably look bad and I don't know if they affect the performance of the emulator in any way.

You're better off using broadcasting software like OBS or XSplit to get your local recordings that way. It'll be in much better quality then whatever built in recording an emulator will have.

As a final note, I've never heard of Mesen for NES emulation. I have no clue how accurate it is or if it's even accepted. For what it's worth, I've never seen it listed on either the accepted or banned emulator lists for NES games is idk how well known or tested it is. You're better off going back to fceux and using the aforementioned software for your recordings.