Potential rule change: disallowing emulators
5 years ago
Slovenia

Here's what I think.

There isn't enough EMU runs to have a different leaderboard. EMU and VC can't have a leaderboard together because they difference is too big. So personally i only see two options: -keep the same leaderboard for all runs -have a DS and VC leaderboard and don't allow EMU runs. Because ILSMB has a really good time we could put the time as DS because the DS was emulated and not the virtual console.

Baltimore, MD, USA

I don't see the need to restrict emulator in any way

Imaproshaman likes this
Massachusetts, USA

@enejlah what? None of that makes sense. You only need one run to have a new leaderboard. The whole reason we're doing this in the first place is because having emu times and official times on the same board isn't fair. And no matter what happens, giving one run special treatment is out of the question. If you're gonna have a ruling you have to apply it to every run. The whole point is that runs of this game should have to actually be on a console made by Nintendo. While emulators are an interesting tool, they are definitely not suitable for realtime runs.

Slovenia

I mean sure you can have everything seperatr, but having 100 DS runs, 50 VC runs and 3 EMU runs make no sense to me.

But now thinking, I still don't feel like it's fair to those 3 people; if you were them that'd be preety annoying.

Baltimore, MD, USA

What about having both emu times and "official" times on the same leaderboard is unfair? A speedrun of the game has the same validity no matter which console was used. There are no major differences that require a split in leaderboards.

Madison, WI, USA

Maybe the rule could be that the top 3 runs on the leaderboard have to be on an official Nintendo console. Some games have rules similar to this.

Massachusetts, USA

I don't think that's a good way to do it Josh. We should strive for equal application of the rules across the entire board. And @IlluminaTea there are differences. We know for a fact that desmume isn't accurate to an actual ds. And even if it was, it doesn't matter. A leaderboard dedicated to NSMB speedrunning should feature runs actually done on releases of the game, not a custom-made console.

Slovenia

Then why does a most runned game SM64 have it? But if the EMU doesn't emulate well, then you have a good reason to ban it.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
Baltimore, MD, USA

How is it not accurate to the DS? From what I've watched, it looks exactly the same. It isn't sped up at all, if anything there's a bit of lag, which is already a reason not to use emulator. And assuming that that's the only difference, it shouldn't matter what console the game is played on. If there are no advantages to it, and it's the same game, there's no reason to seperate it. A speedrun is a speedrun no matter which medium it's done through as long as that medium doesn't have any significant gameplay differences from the original release, and I don't think desmume does.

Massachusetts, USA

There is an advantage. You can mash much faster on a keyboard. You can also turn around instantly whereas on a dpad there will always be at least one frame between pressing left and right. And what makes a gameplay difference "significant"? That's a real slippery slope. We do know for a fact that it's not accurate and that should be enough.

PainPita likes this
Baltimore, MD, USA

You can't mash much faster on a keyboard. Moving your thumb is a lot faster than moving your fingers. It makes almost zero difference the moving between left and right. Not only is there not a single point in the run where that would actually save time ( pressing in the other direction faster doesn't matter as long as you end up in the same location, which is usually a matter of where you decided to press left rather than how fast you press it), but even if it did, it would be a couple of frames. Maybe in a 100% run that would add up to almost a second? I think it's obvious that the difference is insignificant and not worth banning emulator over. I don't think it's a slippery slope what constitutes as "significant" in this case. And I should ask again what the inaccuracy between emulator and console is.

Slovenia

No you can mash faster, because in both ways your fingers already are on buttons and keyboard ones are bigger. I'm starting to understand lakitu but I don't really vote for a separate leaderboard because I don't like when it's says you have an any% wr just because you have it on a different device, it's not all up to me though.

Baltimore, MD, USA

There are two ways you can button mash - moving your thumb back and forth across the A and B buttons or placing your fingers on them and alternating button presses. They both give you about the same amount of speed. You have to use the finger method for keyboard. There is no difference in speed because your fingers are still moving at the same pace; the size of the buttons don't matter.

Could someone provide examples of inaccuracies between emulator and console that give emulator an advantage?

Madison, WI, USA

I don't know anything about this emulator, but could you connect a controller to it? That would solve the keyboard issue, if we required a hand cam for emulators. I do know there is an FPS display in DesMuMe, so that could be displayed on screen during runs.

Baltimore, MD, USA

You can connect a controller.

Massachusetts, USA

The burden of proof is on you. If you want to run on an unofficial console you have to prove that it's accurate. And we know it isn't. If you had an emulator that was demonstrably identical to the DS then it would be one thing, but we don't and likey never will.

Baltimore, MD, USA

The burden of proof is not on me. It doesn't make sense to try and prove that every single facet of the emulator version is accurate to the console. The burden of proof is on the side that changes the status quo. If the burden of proof is on me to prove that emulator is inaccurate, then I can say "the New3DS version should be banned because it's inaccurate" and instead of me providing evidence for my claim I have everyone else try to prove that nothing is inaccurate about it. Instead of proving something to be true (it is accurate) it makes more sense to prove something to be false (it is not accurate). So, I need to know how it's inaccurate before I would even start trying to prove anything.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
Massachusetts, USA

The problem with that is that even if the new3ds version isn't accurate to ds, it doesn't matter because it's an official version. And if it's faster people can run it and there's no problem. The idea of "running the fastest version" is something that makes a lot of sense to me. This is, however, incompatible with allowing people to use their own, non-Nintendo consoles. You don't even realize how slippery the slope is that you're standing on. How good does an emulator have to be before it's allowed? We know for a fact that desmume isn't perfect and that no emulator will ever be, for the simple reason that they'll always require a good enough PC to run them. Every DS, WiiU, 3DS, etc. has the same specs on the inside and we know that they'll always be capable of running the game correctly because the game was made to run on them. You're right that it doesn't make sense to try to prove an emulator is accurate — because it's literally impossible for it to be.

Baltimore, MD, USA

"The problem with that is that even if the new3ds version isn't accurate to ds, it doesn't matter because it's an official version."

That's not the point. I used the New3DS argument only to show why the burden of proof is not on me, because it gives a different perspective of the same situation. It doesn't matter whether or not there'd be any actual debate on banning New3DS.

"We know for a fact that desmume isn't perfect and that no emulator will ever be, for the simple reason that they'll always require a good enough PC to run them."

This implies that the only problem is lag. If the reason is that you can only use an emulator without experiencing lag on a good PC, then there shouldn't be a problem. Lag gives someone a disadvantage, and desmume is known for having very little lag anyway.

"Every DS, WiiU, 3DS, etc. has the same specs on the inside and we know that they'll always be capable of running the game correctly because the game was made to run on them."

So then we should ban the WiiU version. The game wasn't made to run on WiiU, so by that logic it's literally impossible for it to be accurate. The WiiU is just emulating the game after all, it's not the official release.

If there is an advantage to be gained by using emulator, then it should be restricted in some way. But I don't see any inaccuracies except lag, let along advantages.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
Imaproshaman, Starman and 2 others like this
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