Howdy hey! I'm currently trying out speedrunning on an old DS game of mine using my 2DS xl system. I'm having a bit of difficulty with timing it accurately, and was wondering if anyone had any advice? Currently I have a stopwatch running on my laptop to the side while I play the game in my lap. I don't have any sort of filming setup, I have a rough idea of the setup I want but it means I can't retime my runs yet. My main problem with this is that my laptop is a bit out of the way, and this means there's often a couple second delay between my "actual time" and my ability to access the timer.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to set this up more effectively? Are there any ios/macos apps available that would be better for timing and easier to use?

I know LiveSplit is great, but my laptop is a macbook and it's not viable at this stage for me to buy a proper gaming laptop with windows or Linux. I'm aware that there's a browser version of it but I'm not quite sure how it works and I still have the issue of a bulky laptop that's out of the way from me while I'm playing the game. Any advice or examples of your own setup are greatly appreciated! I honestly have no idea how streamers seem to be able to time LiveSplit so precisely lmao.

livesplit has a web version https://one.livesplit.org/

Yeah lol I've seen that. I'm more so struggling with the physical setup of accessing the timer without losing time in the game. Would you have any advice for that ^^;

@keysmcgees generally, your splits should happen during loads or portions where you aren't doing anything. If that's not the case, you should change that.

I haven't set anything up for splits yet, just timing the whole run. There aren't many loading screens since it's a short and quick game, and a massive timesave is skipping the cutscenes. I reckon I just gotta work on having my stuff laid out better and better anticipation lmao. But thank you :D I appreciate all the advice I can get!

What game is it?

Club Penguin: Elite Penguin Force. I'm sure it shouldn't be that difficult to do, but I'm still pretty new at everything overall and keep mucking it up lmao.

Ask in that game’s forum to find out what other runners do.