Ohhhhh, just kidding. I don't notice the variation in loading times.

The Emu Category is not holding up for me. The rules require Project64 1.6 as an Emulator to use and only that one. That references a specific version of Project 64, in which that one is almost always corrupting my save when I use it. That is just, unacceptable.

It is kind of like ACE. But it actually redirects you to a seemingly random level. It turns out that the Memory might get mapped incorrectly when exiting the Special Stage. As in, it uses 2 bytes from an unrelated memory address as the level that you enter after exiting the Special Stage. If the hex value turns out to be $0D01, then the credits warp will work. But if the first byte value ends past $17, the game displays a glitchy title card then usually either crashes or displays even more unrelated garbage data. Although I probably recommend you visit this link here: https://tcrf.net/Sonic_%26_Knuckles#ID_0D_Act_1

Oh and here is an image which might be helpful: https://sonic.fandom.com/wiki/Sonic_the_Hedgehog_3_%26_Knuckles/Glitches?file=Dolius_Stage.png

Unfortunately, I have been unable to make video on it because of how unlikely it is for it to warp you to seemingly random stages. However, I remember one occurrence when doing the glitch warped me to an out of bounds level with a glitched out title card that I had never seen before. Technically, the level warp is a type of arbitrary code execution that causes you to go to various stages based off of memory addresses that would normally be for something else but instead are used as level IDs to send you to after exiting the Special Stage. When doing the level warp, it can cause the type of A.C.E. mentioned above.

I thought about this question when I realized that the Level Warp Glitch in the game could cause you to go to random levels once you exit the blue spheres stage. To back up my belief that a Credits Warp is possible here, the game has a level that is the ending to the game (for Sonic at least). The Level ID is this one here: $0D01. Could anyone make a TAS that uses this information to perform a credits warp or was I just over-exaggerating the Level Warp? I know that doing the level warp glitch is possible without debug mode. But hey, I may be even contributing to the creation of a new category!

It is my experience. At least with this level.

The Setup for the FPG in 1-1 is probably sub-optimal. I think that it is faster not to do that setup.

Yes, yes it would. It would differ because you would do the following: Enter 19, 65, 09, 17 in the sound test, go to the title screen, then press A+Start, then also enter code 04, 01, 02, 06 in the level select for all emeralds and then select Emerald Hill 1.