AntarcticaSome games may require splits to be submitted along with the run (although this is rare, but always check the rules of the game), but in most cases splits are nice for viewers so they can know your pace. Or for you for that matter so you can know your own pace. Myself personally, I don’t use splits. I just use a flat timer because splits make me anxious when I’m on a good run, or agitated when I’m on a bad one, so I personally don’t like to see them when I do my own runs.
Emulator being allowed is dependent on the game you’re trying to run, you need to check the rules for the game to see if it’s allowed or not. If you’re on Linux though, external capture products will be hard to find because you would need to find something with Linux drivers and I honestly don’t think that any of the good, cheap cap cards like gv-usb2 have Linux drivers. I don’t know of any cards that are both affordable and multi platform off the top of my head.
As for a timer, I would recommend LiveSplitOne which is a brower based version of LiveSplit or you could run LiveSplit itself through Wine. Or you could try to get Llanfaire to run.
It’s been so long since I’ve messed with Llanfaire that I don’t remember much about it’s build process at all.
If you’re looking for an alternative, you can either use the browser version of LiveSplit called LiveSplitOne or you can run LiveSplit itself through Wine.
You need the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) I'm pretty sure, but it's been a while since I've messed with Llanfair.
Edit: OP was deleted.
Bizhawk basically runs by using cores to be a multipurpose emulator. Depending on the core being used, it can be a SNES emulator, a GBA emulator, etc. What the game is saying is that they require you to use Bizhawk with the mGBA core so it can function as a GBA emulator.
As for the BIOS file, some emulators require a BIOS file from the system they’re emulating. At an extremely high level, the BIOS file basically contains certain information the emulator needs to be able to startup or play some games. A BIOS file is akin to a ROM - it’s not allowed to be shared on this site, so you’ll need to get the file yourself. After that I believe you just need to add it to the Firmware folder.
Hopefully that cleared up some of your confusion. As a note, assuming you’re on a Windows PC, make sure to download and run the prerequisite installer first https://github.com/TASVideos/BizHawk-Prereqs/releases then you can download and run the emulator https://github.com/TASVideos/BizHawk/releases/
Both of those links are gotten from the tasvideos page on Bizhawk, I recommend checking it out for some more information if you haven’t already.
Handheld is broad - if it’s something like a gameboy game, you could use the GBP on GameCube it a Super Gameboy 2 on SNES with a capture card to record the video. If it’s a DS, your options are limited without purchasing a DS cap card and having it installed. You can point a camera at it if you get creative with mounting a webcam or on top of a box and point it down at your hands.
Depending on the game, emulator might be an option, so check with the mods and rules of any game in question.
Legality depends entirely on the games and platforms you want to run. There are certain ones that are usually banned (ie. zsnes), but you’ll need to check the rules of the game(s) you want to run - or contact the mods if the rules don’t give explicit emulators/versions - to find out what your options are.
A lot of East Asian countries are restricted so you can’t set your country to them if you’re not physically located there. That is probably your issue. Are you not currently located in the Philippines?
Knowingly responding to a spam email is the absolute worst thing you can do from a self security perspective. You don’t want your email associated with those types of scams, once they get your email address you’re going to be added to more spam lists than you can count and revealing your email address to them is a good way to potentially get your accounts compromised as your email address is often your username.
You do you, but I can’t stress enough they sending an email to that spambot is a terrible idea.
I’d be more curious as to why YouTube isn’t letting you upload a video. It’s the most common place to host runs that are then submitted to this site.
A capture card works by taking the video and audio from your console and sending it your PC as a video source that can then be captured by something like OBS. You can either plug the console into your capture card and play off the video feed in OBS, or you can find a capture card with a pass-through (or use a splitter) to play the game off a TV while still capturing the gameplay in OBS.
Now, as for recommendations, it depends on your price range and setup. If you plan on playing off the OBS capture, I would recommend an internal capture card that connects to your motherboard as these will have the least delay. Something like the HD60 Pro from Elgato. If you plan on splitting the video signal, something like an Elgato HD60 S - which is an external card that connects via USB - could be an option.
There are many brands to pick from, Elgato is a good one, I’ve heard decent things about some Razer and Avermedia cards too. But the general price point for a decent quality external capture card is gonna be $150+ and an internal will probably be $200-$250. You might find other brands lower and closer to $100-$120 but they’ll probably all be external USB cards. You could also go as high as $300-$350 as well for some, what you pick depends on your price range and desired setup.
There are also a ton of online tutorials and reviews for products if you don’t know what card to pick or if you want to see more information about how all of this works.
Point a camera at the TV and make sure it’s in decent, viewable quality. But always check with the rules/mods of a game to make sure they don’t have other rules when recording like that (splits need to be added in post, audio needs to be clearly heard, etc)
You can run whatever you want regardless of what a leaderboard shows. If you would like to track a category on the leaderboards, you need to speak to the mods of the game and ask them to add it for you. Please note, the mods and the game might have different rules about what’s required to add a new category, so make sure you abide by them. In general though, having an example run of the category you’re looking to create and some rules for it is a good place to start when requesting a category from the mods.
I personally tend not to think about audience as much when it comes to this hobby because that’s how you end up with a lot of burnout really quick. If your audience likes Pokemon, but those games just don’t appeal to you from a speedrunning perspective, I’d advise against playing them. If you don’t really enjoy the game you’re running, you’re going to get burned out very quickly and end up with a bad taste in your mouth for this hobby. At the end of the day, what YOU want to play is most important in this hobby because you need to genuinely enjoy what you’re playing to dedicate so much time to it.
As for game suggestions, you’re kinda all over the map lol. Mario games like Sunshine I can’t speak for too much because I’m not big into platformers, but all of those games have robust communities and tons of resources to help you. For Zeldas, those games, primarily the 3D ones, can have some daunting glitches to learn, so the barrier of entry there might be high if you want to start with a glitched category (lots of practice involved). Luckily those games also tend to have Glitchless categories where you can focus on learning the mechanics and the movement of the game first (they may also show you if you’ll like the game to run).
It seems like you’re struggling with wanting to maybe run too much from too many different series. RPGs, platformers like Mario, and action/adventure games like Zelda are all very different with that’s needed to run them. I can personally say that I love the Zelda series and RPGs from particularly the SNES era, so I always recommend those if they appeal to people. But it sounds like you need to experiment - maybe pick a game from one genre and start with that for a couple weeks. Practice it, get a feel for how it plays and what’s strats might be required. If you find yourself bored, then pick a new game and repeat.
Finding a game can be hard, it’s why a lot of people here don’t like giving suggestions outright because often times what they like might bore someone else and it leads to a lot of “what else can I try?” type questions that can get frustrating to answer. This hobby requires a ton of personal motivation, and that includes finding the game(s) you don’t mind putting hundreds of hours into playing.
My guidance/advice to you is to find a game that interests you and start researching the run and the strats and ask questions to the community. For example, you mention you love Pokemon but don’t want to run it because it’s RNG laden. The thing is, it’s actually not because (at least for the older gens) they use RNG manipulation to get the results they want without resetting for hours. Granted there’s still some randomness, but most games seek to alleviate that the best they can through manips.
The point is, find a game and ask questions to the community. You might be surprised that a game you would never think of running because it seemed too random might actually be manageable through some simple RNG manipulations. Another example is Final Fantasy games using step counts (making sure to take the perfect number of steps on the right tiles) to make sure they get encounters they want when they want them.
Given that you like RPGs, there’s a ton of options for you to look at, I would recommend just taking some time to research them. Or, you can provide a bit more detail about the types of games you want to run (do you want to run on console, do you have certain consoles you own, etc) and maybe we can provide more concrete suggestions of games.
Make sure that you have Java installed to run Llanfair. Other than that, your options are to run LiveSplit through Wine or you can use the browser based LiveSplitOne.
