"Everyone Has A Chance To Get A World Record Or A Good Time On Their Respected Console/Emu"

I think is actually the issue here. Perfectly proven point of the fact that accessibility is secondary to your desire to have a world record in a speedrun you haven't even done a run of lol

Get to the point where emu loads are the only thing keeping you from the top of the leaderboard and maybe it would be a legitimate concern

I submitted my 1st run last night FYI...

And yes I've been watching various runners including yourself run this game over the past 2 years before you make anymore comments...

Isn't the PSP store closed now which in essence now makes 'grinding' a world record impossible on PSP/PSTV for anyone who was not able to download a digital copy beforehand? (Mainly the European region)

How is that now fair on the newer runners/future runners?

Isn't that now a pay to play speedrun for the fastest time?

Congrats on finishing your first run!

I just went into the store on the PSTV on the console and was able to pull up Parasite Eve just fine, so it looks like you can do it that way at the very least. I don't know what it's like on a PSP or just in other regions.

I will say it again because I don't think people are actually reading anything. You can 100% do runs on emulator right now and they would be accepted. Just because the board isn't currently split, it doesn't mean you can't do an emulator run. There's just no one doing emulator runs. You can have the fastest emu run on the boards right now and claim that you do. You just wouldn't have the little "1st" next to your name which feels like the real problem here and not the accessibility aspect. If people really wanted to do emulator runs, I think there would at least be enough motivation to try the run before complaining about the board setup.

I've also seen no push back from anyone on making a community accepted emu with setting that could actually be comparable to real hardware. So if you want to make it your mission to figure that out then so be it. We can address that when that comes to fruition. I can't promise that the end result would ultimate be acceptance of this, but I would much rather prefer this than splitting the boards for no reason.

I'll get the ball rolling on some emu tests, if anything it will add information to the conversation, even if we don't end up doing anything with it.

I could have sworn there was a much bigger difference between ps1 emu and PSN. IIRC I gained 5 mins just jumping from ps1 emu to ps2 slim FDS, but that could have been just getting better at the game I suppose. Plus that was 4 years ago and my memory could be off.

I'll mess around with some duckstation and see what I can do and report back here.

As a sidenote, I just want to add that we've already gone though a PSN closing down scare, and who knows if they will do it again in the future. If that happens, we'd be asking everyone to not only buy expensive consoles, but taking the risk of hacking them. Just a thought for the horizon.

I don't have a lot to say about splitting the boards aside from I don't believe it is currently necessary due to reason that have been stated earlier in the thread and private discussions.

I am concerned about the loss of the PSP PSN store. (I've checked, it's gone) So yes, currently without jailbreaking a PSP new runners would have to find a PSTV (Not cheap) if they want to run competitively, which I do see as a problem that needs addressing. If we could find an emulator that runs comparatively to the PSP/TV that would be great for a number of reasons, but until then we're kinda stuck. I will note on the Duckstation and accessability, I currently cannot use it because it requires Windows 10 so not everyone can use it still.

Did some tests, there are settings to make duckstation load faster than the PSTV/PSP version, but I'm having trouble trying to find some sort of parody with the PSTV version. I'm getting close, but I don't know if it's possible. I'll try again in a few days.

What I learned the most about though is PS1 emulation. Every door load loses at least a second, and you lose 11 seconds to loading before Eve 1 - pretty nuts.

In the future when (not a matter of if) PSN gets shut down, any PS runs that have a PSP/PSTV release would require people to jailbreak their hardware to bring in the .ISO of their game. That's a a real concern going forward on all PS boards that are dominated by PSN downloads.

RE: splitting all PS platforms of the game into their own small boards, I always felt this solution to be messy unless there is some true distinction between the various platforms. In terms of this game the only ones I can think of are physically swapping the disc (whatever) and easy analog movement access during a run. This already exists in terms of filters, but no one ever bothers with using them since they are essentially 'hidden' leaderboards.

I may be supremely ignorant, but is the discrepancy between PSP and bizhawk truly 2-3 minutes? Seems really low for a 2.5 hr run.

What upsets people who don't have hardware is they feel kneecapped by the concept that Emulator should emulate PS1 load times. Which yes, limits whether you can get a top 3 time, and also makes the run longer assuming all else is equal.

Chasing parity with PSP/PSTV loads is only relevant if you want to maintain a single board.

I think the discrepancy between the PSN and PS1 emulators is much more than 2-3 minutes, but I haven't finished testing. I know that you lose 11 seconds before even getting to Eve1, and 1 second every door load, so that estimate feels low to me.

Take that with a grain of salt, I really need to get back in the testing. I feel like the 2-3 minute differential is the difference of a ps2 9xxx and the PSN, not the PS1 version. More testing needed though.

I like the concept of a single board, but halfway through testing, I don't know if I can ever find that exact parity.

I see good arguments for both sides, but I think I'm leaning 70/30 for the leaderboard split rn, just mostly because of the high cost(300$ish) to run the game (competitively)

Hope this helps because I love running Parasite Eve and I did dish out $200 for top times and I know not everyone has the luxury to do that. But what if we added a rule for emu where you loose -3:00mins because of the time difference, if there is a way where you can add your RTA and I'll call it, your Leader board time which is your RTA minus the time difference of PSTV/PSP time. We could put it under IGT I suppose. If it really is 3:00 mins difference of emu vs PSTV/PSP we can always test and see how the difference is. All up to the community and the mods really but it would not split up the boards, people can run it on emu and compete for top time. If worse case then just split the boards between PSTV/PSP and Emu would be best.

The difference would be dependent on settings and which emulator you choose. In addition, giving a differential is contextual depending on the run. For example, sometimes people go to the exterior or interior of the Warehouse, and sometimes they don't. That is an imprecise solution.

Going inside the warehouse would be a safe strat if i remember and you would only go to the warehouse if you obtained the micro uzi for the PPK so warehouse is depending on how the runner wants to deal with their run. And for emulator if we choose to the difference of time we just choose a emu thats accurate to hardware or can be pretty close to what were looking for.

Okay, did a lot more timing and testing.

The problem with duckstation speedups is that it's inconsistent with PSTV/PSP. Duckstation loses a few seconds to the initial load while blowing 10 door split loads out of the water. There aren't any settings I can do to fully emulate the PSTV loads, unfortunately. It's always faster on some loads while slower on others on custom settings. On default settings it does seem to emulate the PS1 loads well.

The cost of entry to compete in this game is very high, so my recommendation is adding to the leaderboard an emulator category with a standard emulator that we all agree upon. It's a major change, but I believe it will bring in a lot of runners, especially those who are closer to poverty and cannot afford buying a console for one speedrun.

I did an emulator run and it was a mid 2:45 - emu runs are 7-9 minutes behind it seems.

I feel bad for those who can't afford consoles and capture cards. It's a big gatekeep for the leaderboard. I understand the reason for not separating the leaderboards, but is there anything we can do? Runners are giving up, and I'd like to have a bigger community.

Let's think creatively and see if we can figure something out