Pennsylvania, USASince my "expertise" would be on the Sharp X1, I'll focus on that as of now. While, I do agree MAME should be supported as an official acceptable emulator, I still believe runs on X-Millennium at 4 MHz should still also accepted.
Yeah, it's 2018 and we shouldn't have to rely on an emulator from 2000, but my only main concern is accessibility. As far as I know, the only place on the Internet that has a file of the Sharp X1 version of this game also comes with the X-Millennium emulator. The emulator is also quiet easy to set up once you get your hands on it.
It took me quiet a while to set everything up for MAME, and in order to load the game on MAME requires another download on top of the ROM file and MAME. I can make a tutorial once I have the time,but I believe we shouldn't be raising the barrier of entry for a game that's already so unpopular. I totally agree the X-Millennium emulator has a ton of faults, but forcing people to set up MAME may drive people out.
So I guess here's the backstory. I tried emulating Super Mario Bros. Special on MAME () and noticed that it ran the game much slower than the currently allowed X-Millennium. I was about to make a thread discussing a potential emulator rule change, however I noticed that the choice of emulator was not the main problem, but the emulation speed.
Currently the rules as of now is this:
"Because original Sharp X1 hardware is difficult to come by in the West, most runs will be played on an emulator. Your emulator MUST be X-Millennium 0.26d. It is also highly preferred that you capture the entire window of the emulator. Runs must be done in 8 MHz mode."
I done some research and noticed that the Sharp X1 never ran at 8 MHz. According to Wikipedia the Sharp X1 ran at 4 MHz
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X1_(computer)
Sharp also released the Sharp X1 Turbo, but according to this site, that too only ran at 4 MHz.
http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=259
Seeing how neither of these models ran at 8 MHz I think the Sharp X1 any% leaderboard needs to be wiped since it doesn't truly represent the original hardware. The runs that play at 8 MHz have an unfair advantage.
As for PC88 any% I believe that can stay since it did run at 8 MHz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC-8800_series
And I guess, one other small thing. Would you add MAME to the allowed emulators list along side X-Millennium.
I was wondering on everyone's thoughts of setting up a SMBS Discord server. I know the existing player base is tiny but I think a Discord server would make it easier and faster for everyone to help set up or discuss this game. Thoughts?
So I've gone through the rules of the any% categories and the rules state that time ends on the same frame the axe disappears in 8-4. However, I found out in practice that Bowser is able to kill you even after the axe disappears. This will send you back to the beginning of 8-4.() If that was a real run, time would have stopped. However the game technically hasn't been completed. If the time was stopped on the first frame of credits, there wouldn't be any ambiguity in game completion. So if you die after grabbing the axe, should the time end? Or shall we change the rule on when to end the timer?
