Hi everybody! Hope y'all are doing well. I know new emulator rules probably sounds scary but I think everyone will agree it's a positive thing.

A Specific Version of Mesen Will Be Allowed

Mesen emulator is a good emulator but has been banned for a while due to some features which made moderation tricky. Threecreepio has made a special version that we can allow for the leaderboards though!

The NES version is available here

Good news, there is also a SNES version in the works. The current version had no L+R handling whatsoever so Creepio is working on implementing that (can we give a big thanks to Threecreepio!!)

next up:

Input Displays and Frame Counters

For emulators which have input display and frame counter features, having these turned on is required. For the record, I know many use Nestopia and it doesn't have these features. On Creepio's Mesen version this will already be taken care of for you. But in the case you're using another approved emulator, be sure to turn on input display and frame counter.

and finally:

Lost Levels Categories Moving to the Main Boards

We've decided to move "Both Endings (FDS)" and "All Stages (FDS)" from the category extensions leaderboard, to the Main Leaderboard. These categories are essentially Any% D-4 and Warpless D-4 but for the original version of the game, so there's really no reason they shouldn't be main categories. Hopefully people take some interest in these great SMB2-J categories (I'm guilty too) and have some fun playing them!

That's it everybody! Let us know your thoughts, say thank you to Threecreepio, and have a good day!

- SMB1+2J Mod Team

Threecreepio the MVP.

@clackjifclackjif I understand the feeling. But this is about striking a balance between allowing emulators in the first place, ensuring they can't be abused, and using all the tools available to make moderators' life as easy as possible. If things like on-screen frame counter, and input display are too distracting for someone, there's plenty of options that are not "just go buy an original NES/SNES". Including Nestopia.

If anybody is somehow still using my autosplitter instead of Giffi's (which is the one activated in the "Edit Splits" window), I've now updated it to support Mesen: https://github.com/periwinkle9/smb-autosplitter

To add to what @AvasamAvasam said, you could also use Mesen. It runs as well as nestopia and has an input display and a frame counter which are far less distracting than the FCEUX one. The only case in which Mesen and Nestopia are worse at RTA is in the case of MacOS and Linux because there, FCEUX is the only decent emulator that runs at native framerate instead of 60 flat.

Made this short infomercial to explain and promote MesenRTA, the version of Mesen created by ThreeCreepio that Kosmic mentioned in the original post.

Hi everyone! I'm new here and would like to start running this game; but I have a Mac and normally use OpenEmu (v2.3.5) and it does not allow to show FPS or Input Display.
So my question is if is currently OK to submit runs using this emulator even taking on consideration other threads that make clear this emulator keeps a fixed 60.0 FPS???
In any case, I'll use OBS to record and can add an Input Overlay to show my inputs on screen.

Thanks for your time.

You can use nestopia or fceux. They're available for MacOS, but afaik all emus are locked at 60 fps on Mac. Also please don't necro 2 month old threads.