Recently it was discovered that there's a significant difference in loading times between different Saturn consoles. The difference is so severe in fact that it would change the leaderboard ranks of some people. As this is obviously an issue for keeping the game fair and accessible for everyone I want to start a debate on what to do with this situation. There's basically two ways this could be settled: 1) Rank based on real-time and let runners figure out how to improve their load times (buying a new Saturn, burning a better disc, buying a real copy, etc.) or 2) Rank based on time without loads.

Approach #2 would require a bit more effort on the moderator's part as they'd have to go through the video and accurately cut out every load. This isn't a big deal for Any% given the small amount of runs and the length of the run but this may be a bit tedious to do for All Bosses. If we decide to take this approach we would still list RTA as well (speedrun.com supports listing multiple times for one run, look at the DOOM Eternal leaderboards for an example).

I decided to make a comparison video between the top runners of Any% to showcase the difference. (Please disregard mitjitsu's run, I forgot to remove a load)

Pros/Cons of removing load times from the ranked times: +) Runners can keep using their existing setups and don't have to try their luck on finding a Saturn with a pristine disc drive. This would also make the run more accessible for newcomers. +) It would make it trivial to allow ODEs (Optical Drive Emulators). An ODE is a device that loads disc images from magnetic or solid state media and replaces the optical drive on the host device. As there are no seek times and error correction as with optical media these devices tend to be slightly faster than a real disc drive. There's currently three such devices for the Saturn: Rhea/Phoebe (https://gdemu.wordpress.com/details/phoebe-details/) Satiator (https://www.patreon.com/prof_abrasive) MODE (https://shop.terraonion.com/en/home/17-Terraonion_MODE_Dreamcast_Saturn_ODE.html) (Note that Rhea/Phoebe are produced in extremely small batches, the Satiator is still in development and MODE is still in the pre-order phase but should be continously in stock afterwards) Whether or not we decide to allow ODEs can be part of a different discussion. +) Currently there's only one runner (mouse) who is using a legit copy of the game. Pressed discs tend to be easier to read by lasers than burnt discs, giving a slight edge to runners who use legit copies. Generally this is a good thing, however a genuine copy of SotN for the Saturn goes for $130-$200 these days and I personally find it unreasonable to expect runners to pay such a high price to stay competitive. A japanese or american Saturn will usually run you $30-$50 these days and an Action Replay/Pseudo Saturn cartridge goes for roughly the same price, making this setup significantly cheaper. +) Saturn discs have already begun to develop disc rot which may make it even harder to come by legit copies in the coming years.

-) Having to retime every Maria Any% and All Bosses run would require more effort on the moderator's or runner's part. It's also still up for debate how exactly we want to time this (e.g. which frames to cut from). -) There's more room for error when timing runs. -) It may be considered less "legit" to time runs like this as it evens out differences between original copies, burnt copies (and ODEs if we allow them) -) There may be lag differences as well between different consoles. The Saturn had 15 different motherboard revisions and there may be slight differences in processing speed. Only accounting for loading but not for these potential lag differences may be seen as a half-measure for some.

Q: What about clock rush? A: Doesn't matter on the Saturn Version as it's controlled by the system time. The system time can be set to whatever the runner desires.