Curious if there are any major differences speed wise between an original NES and a NES Classic, like how there are frame-rate differences between NES and Virtual Console versions of various games.

The NES Classic runs slower - you’ll lose something like a second every ~10 minutes if my math is correct (I hope it is because I tell everybody this, so if not, I’ve done goofed)

You’re better off using emulator if you don’t have an actual NES.

The NES Classic basically is an emulator, isn't it?

First-party emulators (PS, VC, "Classic" mini consoles) are often treated differently than third-party or PC emulators.

Pretty sure Timmi meant a third-party emulator that's known to be more comparable to original hardware.

Yeah. While the NES Classic is essentially the same as VC, those platforms are not classified as emulators on most LBs. When I said emulator I meant one like Nestopia or whatever (the 3rd party ones).

In the case of the NES, the third party ones are closer to the same speed as an actual NES than the Classic hence why it’s a better choice (both suffer the same input delay fwiw)

A related question, is VC faster or EMU?

Varies per game @drybloxman

What Komrade said.

Some examples - For N64, VC is usually faster because it tends to have less lag and can run at a higher FPS than actual N64 carts (or accurate emulators). For NES games, it can be slower than an actual NES or an accurate emulator since VC doesn’t quite reach the 60.09 FPS like an actual NES iirc.

Cause I wanna get into SMB but idk if I should use EMU or my Wii VC

https://www.speedrun.com/smb1 Ask the experts

For smb1 your best bet is using emulator, there's some 4:57 emulator runs on the leaderboard.

Something like NES is "figured out" honestly. Most emulators are accurate enough. Can't speak for NESclassic or VC. Those tend to be slower I THINK.

Edit: and the "figured out" part is for pretty much every NES game. Emulation only starts to get sketchy with newer systems.

Third-party emulators often have the goal to be as accurate as possible to the original hardware. That makes them interesting for speedrunning. VC and NES classic are made by Nintendo for nostalgia and I doubt they care much about accuracy. They just need to be playable as good as possible, so they my even remove lag on purpose to improve the game experience.

Remove lag from what? From individual games? They wouldn't waste their time (nor do I think that can be accomplished with ease). They could just slap any shitty emulator on there and have the game run much faster though, but why bother? They probably just jacked a NES emulator off the internet :^)