I'm not clear on them. How are they treated differently, if at all?

Additionally, what qualifies as an emulator? I know Dolphin is one, but what about playing on the Wii?

What about the Wii U (through Dios Mios/Nintendont)?

I've noticed that some runs on here with the emulator box checked have RTAs on this site that are different from the timer in their videos. Why is this?

I would appreciate any information on this.

Basically everything that can run gamecube ISOs are emulators. Dolphin, Dios Mios, Devolution, Nintendont, etc. Most of the time though when people say emulator they don't mean the homebrew channel apps though. Putting your gamecube discs in a wii, then running it isn't emulating, of course.

The reason why RTA is different for some emu plays: Most of the time people have 'idle skipping' checked on dolphin. Here's an explanation: "Idle Skipping causes the emulator to stop attempting to hold itself at the processor speed of the Wii. In short, it will lock its CPU emulation at "as fast as possible" and the only thing throttling the emulator at that point is the audio plugin. With Idle Skipping ¤disabled¤, the emulator attempts to run no faster than the actual clock speed of the Wii/GC (depending) and will try to maintain that."

Thank you for the explanation. So, if I'm running it on my Wii U through Nintendont, is it running faster than if I were to use my Wii?

The gameplay shouldn't be any faster with Nintendont, but certainly the menuing will be as the load time for tracks is faster because you don't have to wait for the CD to spin. And because we're still using RTA as the primary timing method for some bizarre reason, this can mount up to make a significant difference when playing All Cup Tour.

Oh yes, that's what I meant. Of course the game doesn't run faster, just the load times.

I think I'll use my Wii from now on then. Thank you for the information.