Hiya! I wish to discuss objection to runs on the board.
- The SMS port of Arcade Smash Hits was a Europe exclusive release. Citations:
https://www.smspower.org/Games/ArcadeSmashHits-SMS
https://segaretro.org/Arcade_Smash_Hits
Accordingly I believe all runs should be submitted at 50fps. Andresfgp's run shows 60fps. When I looked at Walgrey's runs today I noticed the bgm playing faster, so these runs are at 60fps too. I think the ruleset should be updated, 60fps runs rejected, and runners to resubmit using 50fps. Given how short/trivial the categories are this feels reasonable.
- I strenuously object to the admittance of any runs done on Fusion emulator. This has for a long time been regarded as highly inaccurate and known to be especially poor at emulating lag. We must presume one day that PB battles will rest on handfuls of frames, so it is better to establish that baseline now. I notice andres you have used retroarch on an Aleste run so I have no doubt you'd be able to use that or even SMSHawk.
Looking into this. Sorry about the 60 FPS thing, my mistake. Those runs will be rejected.
Currently adding a list of allowed emulators as well as showing FPS in the rules. Right now, the list includes MAME, RetroArch, & BizHawk. If there's something wrong with this list please let me know.
I will say I am surprised to learn that Fusion is inaccurate for SMS emulation. I've seen some SMS boards allow it, so I am curious as to why. Regardless, I'm ok with banning Fusion, especially since the runs that do use it already break the 50 FPS rule.
Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Once again, apologies for all of this.
Heya! I feel we need to discuss the new run submission. Andres, I think you're clearly fantastic at this run and if we grind we can take it very low, and wonder do we want to create a longer category too: a first thought would be max-score or 999999: something that people can point-press but that we can tear into as well. I really appreciate that you ran again, I love the competition, and I hope you understand my prior objection was not a function of your skill. <3
For this submission I have to raise the severe framerate drop in the middle of the run. It's normal for emu to do a frame skip and occasionally mark 49/51fps to keep things accurate. I've had CPU issues in the past where it's made things unworkable, eating input, etc, so I've experienced the frustration, thanks Windows! If a run has a momentary fps drop it's not an issue, eg at 7 seconds in.
However, there's a near 2 second period from 0:31 to 0:33, and 10 second period from 0:37 to 0:47, with massive fps volatility down as low as 35. This level of frameskipping by the emu could potentially introduce inaccurate emulation behaviour, and at this length of duration, it creates a potential advantage. I wish to emphasise potential, and it can also clearly hamper a run. But I do feel that the severity of inaccuracy/slowdown here is beyond a reasonable level for the run to be verified.
As the only existing runner, I can also see I have an unfair advantage in petitioning this, regardless of being a retro moderator. With that in mind I'd welcome our consulting others who are neutral to negate that if there are objections. I think we may be best served by appointing a second moderator in this vein so that any future issues can be dealt with outside my raising them, lest this become gatekeeping. <3
Yeah I'm not going to be taking any action against this. Most of the time, emulator lag serves as more of a detriment and timeloss than anything else. Rejecting that run and future submissions like it over a negligible amount of lag would only make speedrunning the game a little less accessible, which is something I want to avoid.
