I cannot fully answer this question, but I can share a few ideas about aspects that might influence the loading times. First of all, I don't think there is a big difference between NTSC and PAL, if at all, in terms of loading times. Based on my observations, loading times for both a race and the parts selection menu are about 6 to 7 seconds for both versions, while for two speed runners, the race loading time is 3 seconds and the menu loading times in general are 2 to 3 seconds. Here are the three ideas which might influence loading times:
- XBOX Hardware Version: As far as I heard, the XBOX has multiple versions (v 1.0 to 1.4 and v 1.6) where different hardware components like disc readers were used. Depending on which version you have, it might improve loading times a little.
- Disc version: There are copies where the two games 'Sega GT 2002' and 'Jet Set Radio Future' are on one disc (together with some demos of other games). The Jet Set Radio Future speedrun community already found out that their game has differences in loading times between the version that contains Sega GT 2002 and the one that doesn't, with the latter being the better one. Something similar might apply the other way round as well, but I can't tell if the difference would be a major or minor one.
- Installed version: I'm not an expert about this topic, but I heard that you can softmod the XBOX and that allows you to install the game data from the disk to the hard drive and launch the game from there. The rules for another game that I speedrun banned copies installed on the hard drive because load times were heavily improved. About the XBOX 360, I have seen a speedrun of Career Mode Season 1 done on a 360 (not on this leaderboard). The game suffers from slowdowns on the 360 that vary on each track, so I think players who run on the 360 actually have a disavantge compared to XBOX users. These are all ideas I can provide. I hope any of this helps.
First of all, thanks for the explanation on the topic. I found it very confusing how everyone seemed to have slightly different loading times (even within the same region), with some being faster than others. I thought it might have something to do with disc reading speeds or maybe the version with Jet Set Radio being slower but I wasn't 100% sure. I did somewhat know about how games installed onto the hard drive through soft modding the xbox would have faster loading times (as proven in other games) but I personally felt that it wasn't fair in speedrunning, so I left this out. With xbox 360 on the other hand, I knew that many original xbox games suffered from slow down but I still found it interesting how it loads somewhat faster. I haven't had time to personally test it but even with the game suffering from slowdown, would it make up for it with load times? As the game has to load several times between each race but I haven't tested or compared how it much of a difference is between each version. I know its not anyone's fault but I found it frustrating how my lap times are somewhat decent but I feel loading times are holding me back, at least on my xbox and version of the game.
My next question would then be: what setup would be required to achieve the fastest loading times? I understand how there's different versions of xbox but what would be the fastest? (v 1.6?). As for the game version, I'm amusing the version without Jet Set Radio would be faster. thebook92 seemed to have the fastest load times out of everyone I compared (by far), even when compared to xbox 360. So I would be intersested in knowing what kind of setup he has.
I'm not totaly sure but I feel the speedrun of Chronicle mode should just be based on overall lap times from each race (basing the speedrun only on skill which makes it the same for everyone) but then it would eliminate the menu being a factor in the speedrun which adds some challenge to the run, so i'm not sure. For now I guess getting the best setup is key if you want to achieve faster times (at least for me). Again thanks for the expatiation. I understand a lot more now and things are a lot more clear.
About your suggestion to time the speedrun by just adding all six race times, I did further analysis the past days and this is what I found: Timing by race times would actually give me the World Record back. I present the lap times of the current top 3 runs as an explanation. I didn't consider milliseconds in my calculation so far because I don't know how to integrate them in my Software: 1st ; 2nd ; 3rd 03:00:898 ; 02:57:172 ; 03:03:693 02:44:209 ; 02:38:939 ; 02:44:249 02:09:594 ; 02:08:831 ; 02:13:059 03:25:761 ; 03:21:374 ; 03:25:541 03:16:657 ; 03:15:640 ; 03:21:361 04:26:000 ; 04:27:118 ; 04:37:280
19:00:000 ; 18:46:000 ; 19:23:000
Which means 1st place beats 2nd place by 21 sec in RTA but loses about 14 sec in Race Time (RT). 1st place beats 3rd place by 45 sec in RTA but only by about 23 sec in RT. 2nd place beats 3rd place by 21 sec in RTA and even by about 37 sec in RT. 1st place did noticable mistakes in scrolling through menus while 2nd and 3rd did it almost perfectly. To my mind, these differences are definitely worth a discussion in this community. Another thing I did was to compare all RTA and Race times of different regional versions of Chronicle Mode speedruns. As I lack a video for Chronicle Mode on XBOX 360, I took a Season 1 Speedrun instead. The findings are that RTA and RT times are always identical regardless of NTSC or PAL or loading times. So all XBOX users have equal chances in terms of racing performance. However, XBOX 360 has slowdowns on most (not all) tracks, so RTA can be about 8 sec to over 1 min slower than RT. Slower gameplay means more reaction time and therefore better chances. The disadvantage in RTA would turn into an advantage in RT for 360 users. These are my findings so far. Timing via Race Times is worth a thought, but we need more opinions on that.
The run I submitted was on a combination JSRF/Sega GT disc installed on a softmodded console. Loading times will never be the exact same between consoles, and in a run as short as Chronicle Mode is I think using Combined Race Time would be the most fair (though I would suggest keeping RTA times on the leaderboard as well, like what a lot of PC games do with showing times with loads on their leaderboards even though it's not the actual ranked time).
EDIT: I've deleted my run for the time being. I fixed the DVD drive on my console, so now that I can run the game fairly I'll submit a run using the actual disc as soon as i can.
