I know this is an issue that many speedrun games and moderators find a huge headache (probably the reason there was no emulator category in the first place) but this time I did the work for the mods so they don't have to waste as much time.
Before commenting make sure to watch the following video:
So after watching the video what are you guys thoughts? Should 'Enable Fast CDVD' be allowed for everyone?
Something I forgot to mention in the video is that I believe is that if this rule is changed, then Volpescu's tournament runs should be taken off of the leaderboard because it is impossible to get that good of a time without the 'Enable Fast CDVD' (at least in World Tournament, and he has a large advantage in the other tournaments as well). Reminder that this is nothing against Volpescu, but rather to make the game more fair for everyone.
Also one more thing to add is I think that if you want a really good time you should shift towards the Wii emulator due to the faster loading speeds in general (and more consistent because Dolphin is probably the best emulator for any console).
P.S: I probably put way too much work into this but I hope it was easy to understand. If you are confused please ask about anything!
I agree with the regulamentation of the emulator category. Stating 'no hack allowed' is too generic, it would be better to explicitate which options may be edited and which options may be not, both for the wii emulator and ps2 emulator. So that if one has a slow PC, it can edit the 'safe options' (the ones that don't reduce load times for example) to increase FPS in game.
Or simply ban the ones that reduce loading time as you suggest. I think there's a similar option for the wii emulator too so that should be taken into consideration
I've also found that this setting exists on the Dolphin emulator as well.
If you right click a game and click on 'Properties' there is an option to "Speed up Disc Transfer Rate". This should be kept as the filled in box or unchecked because if it is on (checkmark) then loading times become much more variable on your computer and sometimes I would get loading times of 1 second and sometimes of 3 seconds, much faster than in the video.
In Volpescu's runs it seems to me because of the version of the emulator, Processor or ssd, this happens in some of the AMD but I'm not sure
if desired, it can be done loadless (without loadind times) in Tournaments
Gustavo, in the video I tried out using the same setting as him and the loading times were very similar. I'm pretty sure he used it but I have no way to get in contact with him Lol, hope he sees this post.
The loading times in that video are about 6s 900ms lining up pretty much exactly with me, sill_i_am, marlon chaves, and mr challenge.
Yeah I don't think the rig affects loading time. I have a much less powerful computer (gtx 950M, i5 7300) and our loading times are the same. It seems pcsx2 normalizes the load times for every PC, if 'fast cdvd' option is ticked this limit is removed
