Not only that, but the Everdrive can be configured to load the most recent ROM on power-on, or the video can be cut from black screen. Does the C optimization have faster loading times? That video mostly concentrated on the FPS increases, which wouldn't come across easily in VODs.

Obviously it wouldn't be verified if it were known that the ROM was being used. The question is, how would the verifiers know?

Hi. Not a SM64 runner but I was watching this video about optimization in Mario 64:

So if a high-level runner used a recompiled ROM on the Everdrive and then beat other runners by a few seconds as a result of frame gains in a handful of places, how would run verifiers detect it?

This is an issue that plagued the series from the beginning, in particular Double Agent: Giant lists of categories with 0-1 run(s) per category, most with zero. Even if all the category ideas are perfectly valid, it creates the impression of a ghost town leaderboard and hides runs from newcomers who might not bother to click through all of the categories.

Better to have a shorter list with a decent number of runs to create the impression of an active and participating community for an aging game series with limited numbers of runners.

Timmiluvs, your Super NT comment is misleading. Super NT can run at the original clock speed in two different ways: 1) by using the Analogue DAC 2) by setting the original clock speed in the system menu which will cause a screen tear every 10 seconds or so.

Also your comment about being "better off using an emulator on your computer" is grossly inaccurate. Input lag on a PC is subject not only input lag caused by the input processing in your OS, but the lag varies by several frames depending on what is happening in the background. You are much, much better off with dedicated hardware emulation solely focused on replicating the original hardware down to the transistor level.

There are a handful of high-profile retro games accepting Super NT runs in particular as hardware runs, as it makes absolutely no sense to consider SNES Classic runs "hardware" when its performance is significantly more inaccurate than FPGA hardware. I suspect there will be a general trend in the future towards accepting these platforms as either hardware or under a separate designation; FPGA in superscript in the same way as EMU, for example.

https://www.8bits4ever.net/product-page/SX-1

Just curious if you would count a run done for this game or MG1 on an FPGA implementation of the original MSX2 hardware as an "emulator" run. (It is certainly less of an "emulated" run than the PS2 versions.)

Is this version eligible for this leaderboard?

https://store.playstation.com/en-us/product/UP0576-NPUZ00151_00-ATHENA0000000001

So I've been reading about the history of these carts. Quite obviously, everyone who has submitted a run has done so on an Everdrive or emulator. These pirate carts were originally developed in China and sold in Russia. Both of these places use the 220v / 50hz power type, as opposed to the NTSC 115v / 60hz type. The Dendy (and European NES) run at a slower clock speed to account for the difference. This likely means these runs are being done at an abnormally fast clock speed. This may also apply to other Hummer Team titles using similar mappers, such as Somari, Kart Fighter, etc.

This is just from memory, but I think PS2 SC actually has an extra level thanks unique to the platform, too.

All consoles are considerably slower than PC in all classic SC games, including this one. GameCube just happened to be what these individuals had to play. I have a PS2 run in Pandora Tomorrow, and so does YayMarsha, despite the fact that both XBox and PC are faster. There's nothing stopping you from running any platform and getting a "Platform WR."