Basically I've been wondering why do Emulator and Console runs have different leaderboards. Other games don't have this distinction, for example DD2 only have one common leaderboard.
As long as you don't resort to emulator tricks to accelerate the game, there wouldn't be a substantial time advantage by playing in a Emulator rather than in a console, and you can still add a rule to ban such tricks.
I mean, the loads are shorter in an emulator than in a original PS1, but so they are when playing in a PS2 or PS3 and these runs still fall under the Console category. The current WRs for both categories are similar, proving there's not much of a difference if playing in a PS2 or an Emulator.
I've noticed too that there is a bit of inconsistency with some of the runs currently in the LBs, such as some runs being stated as played in emulator but still under the Console category (a IL run in Speedway and a Total Destruction run). Also for individual levels, by default the overview only show the Console category, so even if there are runs in the Emulator category they still show as if they were empty.
So what do you guys think? There is any reason to have these leaderboards separated?
IMO emulation and console should always be separate cos they are different. DD2 boards should have separate categories but they don't. I did request for it to get changed but no joy. Emulation will never be the same as original hardware. I think there should be separate categories for emu and console for every game not just this one :)
I feel like I understand the sentiment that it's not the same playing a game in its original hardware than in a emulator, but at the same time I don't know if it justifies having different categories for both. Like the original hardware is the PS1, and it comes with certain drawbacks that emulator users don't have: slow loads, being restricted to one specific controller or region differences in the games. In this case there's a clear difference between both categories that directly impact the times.
Then again, under the console category are also acepted runs in newer consoles with backwards compatibility: PS2, PS3, and now some PS1 games can be played too in PS4 and PS5 via the Playstation Plus Premium service, DD isn't in the catalog yet but who knows if it'll be added too in the future. These consoles aren't the original hardware and they are pretty much emulating the game too. They don't have many of the disadvantages of the PS1 either, being closer to an emulator than to the PS1.
IMO there's a much bigger impact in the runs whether if playing with a PAL or NTSC version than that of playing in an emulator. Maybe for a game with thousands of runs submitted where even the smallest difference matter this split can be justified, but most categories here have 2-5 runs only, dunno if it's worth having them even more spread out.
PS3 and PS5 will be a seperate category altogether which will be a PSN category cos again PSN is different from EMU and Console. Its definitely worth seperating them all because they are all different
EMU PSN Console
NTSC and PAL are the obvious ones being different.
IMO it doesnt matter how small a leaderboard is, it still has to have seperate categories :) I totally understand that not being many runners to keep things altogether but i think things should be set up properly so it keeps things right for the future. With DD being a downloadble game off PSN on PS3 & PS5 there should be another category for PSN. Thing is with Emu, console and PSN if you played them all side by side and let them load and go onto the title screen they would all be out of sync and after a few minutes all 3 will be playing at completely different times. When it comes to Playstation speedrunning console and emu should be kept apart in all games not just this one. Just means when it comes to console the optimum way to run a game is NTSC, so if any PAL runs exist, NTSC will be far superior. DD1 runs in 25FPS on PAL and 30FPS on NTSC. Just makes PAL runs obselete Doesn't make it too bad cos most games during the PS2's lifetime were PAL60 so everything was the same speed by like 2002/2003. But everything prior to this had the speed issue
But If we are making different categories because the runs get out of sync, then shouldn't there be different leaderboards for PAL and NTSC too? because as you said they run in different framerates and NTSC is always faster.
Also puting the PS1 and PS2 in the same category isn't totally fair, bcs while PS2 uses hardware emulation opposed to PS3 and PS5's software emulation, it's still way faster than PS1. Just a little test I did playing two runs side by side, in the PS2 the first race will start in about 20 seconds, while it takes ~28s for the PS1 to start the same race, so these runs also get out of sync and by a big margin.
Another thing that bothers me is that as the years passes, this old harware only gets more and more scarce. There will come some day where the consoles we currently own will start malfunctioning too. What will happen when the consoles aren't available anymore, or the only ones on sale are so prohibitibely expensive they are only within the reach of rich people? will these categories be just locked forever without anyone being able to contest them anymore?
Sorry if I'm being a bit nitpicky, I totally get your point that we should have different categories to ensure fairness^^', but I'm curious why is the split Console/Emulation/PSN but there's no difference between PAL and NTSC versions? And why are PS1 and PS2 treated equally when they also get out of sync and one is way better than the other? If we want this to be completely fair we would have to split the leaderboards in so many different categories that it would be terribly impractical, so I get some concessions have to be made, but IMO there should be separate LBs for PAL and NTSC before separating between Emu/Console/PSN as the differences between the former are bigger than those in the latter.
I appreciate your enthusiasm @ispor, but you should look at what most games, especially the PlayStation Speedrunning community as a whole usually settle on. These discussions have been had numerous times before regarding other games and people have come to some generally accepted standards. @Subsonix has brought up some great points as well!
Big PS game series like Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy, Gran Turismo, etc. all seperate Emulator runs completely from console runs for various reasons. PS Emulators - no matter how great they are - all show inaccuracies to varying degrees compared to their console counterparts, especially when it comes to things like emulating lag/slowdown in a busy game like this. Also, console categories should work as a way to seperately rank runs performed on any official means of playing the game. PS2 (usually with FDS enabled) is almost always the fastest option to do just that and is therefore the console you'll see the most when looking at top PS1 speedrun records.
Very rarely will you see Emu and Console share a leaderboard. This usually only happens when a leaderboard is neglected/set up by people who don't know much about these things or when Emulators put you at a disadvantage with slower loads and otherwise function equally. Spyro & Crash Bandicoot games are an example for this ruling. Usually, PSN rereleases get ranked alongside other console versions, as they're "official" releases emulated on console, but I've seen them ranked seperately from both Console & Emu before (FF7-9) and totally understand the reasoning. Personally, I'd not be opposed to adding a seperate category for it.
As for PAL & NTSC versions: One region's version will always be more optimal than the other so if you wanted a faster time, you'd get that version and use it for future runs. Also, it's easier to get a different region's game than it is to get the perfect console if you wanted a top time so accesibility is less of a reason to split regions here. Unless the content of the regions differ drastically, all regions are pretty much always ranked together.
Just giving my two cents on the matter here. Again, Tume would be the one to settle on and apply any big changes to this board.
