Hey everyone!

So I got into watching speedruns of mario 64 in the last year and began trying it for myself in the last couple months.

Ive practiced A TON and got comfortable with a lot of newbie movement for the 16 star run and have gotten to a point where I might want to start submitting my runs and have my name along with eveyone else on here.

I want to make sure I go about it correctly and had a question: so Im currently playing on emulator. A bad habit which i havent gotten situated is that I "save and continue" after I collect a star bc too often I hit that damned "save and quit" option and ruin my runs. Bc of that everytime I restart I have to first go in and delete the file which gets annoying.

To circumnavigate that I created a save state in my emulator that essentially functions as a restart button and restarts the game with that play file empty so that I dont have to, as I said, keeping deleting the progress of the previous run before every run attempt.

the thing is it shows the prompt "loading file 0" when I do that, and when I go to submit a run that I think is worthy of it, I dont want the verifiers to think Im loading a clipped run to cheat. my runs are still pretty bad comparitively so wiith all the mistakes i still make (currently my 16 star is around 28 minutes lol) so i dont think theyd think I was doing that, but I wanted yall opinion or knowledge as to whether using this save state to restart my runs is kosher. I should just learn the "dont save and continue" strat and I likely will soon, but If i get a good run before then Id like to share it and do so with within the rules and guidlines of the community.

I appreciate any knowledge as to this or any other concern yall might think I should know while running emulator. I love this game and this community of runners and if Im going to be apart of it I want to make sure Im submitting runs that follow all the rules and doesnt waste anyones time.

Thanks for anything feedback or tips you have!

-Jo

No, Save states are not allowed in any runs. Even if its a save at the beginning it is still not allowed.

But I’m not a mod so I recommend getting contact with a mod.

The rules for emulator explicitly state:

"Timing starts from power on (loading the ROM) or reset (pressing F1) and ends when the big star is collected at the end of the game (the first frame that the star bursts into dust). You cannot use a savestate to restart a run, since any possible savestate would cut off the start of the run. To quickly clear your files in a way that won't invalidate your runs, savestate to a clean file and then press reset.

For exact retiming of EMU runs, the first frame of the Super Mario 64 logo should appear at 1.33 seconds."

You can only use a savestate if you hit reset immediately afterwards

Also would recommend joining the SM64 Speedrunning Discord to ask questions

You can make a savestate on the file select screen, with File A selected before deletion. Load this state and delete the file, and then use the reset function normally. Starting the run from a savestate rather than a reset is not allowed.

Thanks y’all! I really appreciate your responses and appreciate your patience with my question. Thank you for taking the time to help me out! Happy running!

If your runs are still in the high 20s (like mine) you probably don’t have to worry about save and continue. In 16 star it really doesn’t lose that much time until you get some really fast runs going. Also I’m pretty sure all save state use is banned

be sure to read the rules to make sure your emulator's allowed on the leaderboard