Hello, I've seen a bunch of threads on the forum and discussions in the discord about the difference in loading times between digital and cartridge and thought I'd do my own analysis.
Recently we had a new 48 Tracks 200cc (No Items) WR and so I thought it would be worthwhile comparing the Digital and Cartridge WR's for this category to see who actually won when we account for the loading time differences, as well as to get an idea of how much variance we might expect.
I have created a google sheet with all the data here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QzSEeSbNmGg9f7hOGmdj4HNbx8iR1uFtFkZyyPxdtUc/edit?usp=sharing
The main points to take away are:
- The first track load (MKS) takes much longer on both cartridge and digital with the cartridge load taking an extra 2.3 seconds
- The average track load time difference excluding MKS is about 1.1s and the total track load time difference over the 48 tracks was 52.87s
- 50% of the time, the difference will be between 0.93s and 1.2s
- 80% of the time the difference will be between 0.8s and 1.29s
- The total loading time on Digital was 6m10.8s
- The total loading time on Cartridge was 7m03.6s
To measure loading time I used avidemux to step through the video frame by frame. I started the loading time on the first frame when the "Next Race" button has completely faded away and I end the loading time the first frame that the track name of the next track appears. I'm confident that there are no differences in loading time outside of this time frame between digital and cartridge as well.
If I find some more time I may do this same analysis on a few more runs to rule out any other factors that may have made these runs have faster or slower loading times, but if anyone else has a spare hour and wants to do the same analysis that would be nice.
