Hi,
The mod team has decided to ban the emulator Mesen because of a potential run ahead feature, listed here: https://www.mesen.ca/docs/configuration/emulation.html. "Run ahead allows the reduction of input lag by the number of frames specified. CPU requirements increase proportionally with the number of run ahead frames specified."
We've noticed other boards for speedgames ban it too and we'd like to implement a ban across all NES ninja gaidens as well.
All currently submitted runs done with Mesen will be approved, but future submissions will be rejected
Hello all! I just finished making a video in reaction to the growing trend to ban Mesen as a legal emulator for NES speedruns. This trend is motivated by the FALSE belief that the "run ahead" feature is undetectable. In the video I show how to detect it and make the case for banning the feature, not the emulator. Mesen is a high accuracy emulator, and I believe it's worth fighting for against this misinformation. Please watch the video and consider sharing it with your moderators. #SaveMesen
Was a real shame when it got banned. The other emulators that work with the auto splitter just don’t cut it (if you want to stream)
Informative video! My only issue with MESEN from a fairness standpoint, is it would seem an unscrupulous actor could use the history viewer to fake a run with the rewind feature. Makes it very convenient and easy. Unless I am missing something and there is some way to detect such a thing.
don't know much about history viewer and the rewind feature. just played around with it for a bit and couldn't get it to work in a way that would be useful for a cheater, but again i don't know much about it. looks like rewind has been available since version 0.9.0 and this is the first i've ever heard anyone pointing it out as a concern. the Mesen bans have been motivated by run ahead.
in terms of how to detect history viewer, i could look more in to it, but i found one way. Whenever you open Mesen, there is a game selection screen letting you choose from the last four ROMs you ran. that screen isn't captured by the history viewer. if moderators were to become seriously concerned about it, they could require every submission to start from the game selection screen (added bonus, the game selection screen confirms which version of Mesen you're using). this would require a runner to close and reopen the emulator for every attempt. alternatively, the submission need not include the screen, so long as there's a VOD showing that your series of attempts started from that screen.
And as i pointed out in the video, there are many undetectable things that a player could do (ram/memory watch, available on many EMUs) if they wanted to cheat. We ban the use of the features, not the entire emulator. ultimately the only real defense against such things is a history of attempts proving you have the appropriate skill level, and good will with the community. And even those don't guarantee anything.
there's no limits to what people "could" do, if they wanted to cheat. That would be true even if we banned all the emulators. even an "unscrupulous actor" playing on console could splice captured footage, or use a TAS chip. https://www.reddit.com/r/speedrun/comments/kewjhd/tas_replay_device_hidden_in_nes_controller/
Agree completely with Gordea. Unless someone has hard evidence that Mesen's runahead feature gives a meaningful advantage to running NG (I highly doubt it), this seems like a pointless ban. Mesen is a great emulator and it's sad that we can't use it.
