Hello! I've been watching SM speedruns for the past 4yrs and have finally decided to start running myself. My setup is as follows: Retroarch with snes9x 1.60 core Xbox One controller (Dpad with Face buttons, bumpers as inputs) wiki recommended emu settings

Is this a valid setup? If not, I have a snes mini (I enjoy using it but I can't run livesplit and I have more experience with pc snes emus) so I can use that and put the splits on a recording afterwards if needed. Any feedback would be very much appreciated.

Ive never ran SM personally but the more original hardware you can use the better. That being said, emulator is fine as long as the correct version is used and you follow the rules. Personally i would use the SNES mini since that would be considered an official console. To the best of my knowledge you dont even need to post video proof of your run, but by submitting your time its expected that you are truthful and you actually achieved that time. Hope this helps, and good luck on the runs!

First off, Welcome Setup looks good, I started with the same setup. Using a Standard Emulator is Fine. SNES9x 1.60 or Higan is accepted so you're good there. Xbox Controller will work fine, but you'll quickly outgrow it. Since you're on PC i'd look at a 8bitdo SN30+, it has a proper D-pad

All in all, you're looking good. Go grab Livesplit make some splits and start running