Hello everyone, idiot here.

I'm new to speedrunning, and, as a broke college student, I can't afford to drop money on an NES and MTPO. I assume that the original hardware is the best way to run the game, as I'm sure emulators create some kind of delay or lag. What emulator works the best for MTPO and are there any legal configurations that I should utilize?

Thank you,

IcarusCursed

Welcome to the speedrun. Emulation these days have come a long way and there are some runners who put up great times on emulators. Of course, once you get to the really advanced strats and seek lower and lower time, the instant response of OG hardware and a CRT can't be beat.

To see which emulators are permitted for use in submitted runs, click on the "Show Rules" button to see the list of allowed emulators. If an emulator is not listed there, it means that we will not permit it for submitted runs.

For general rules when using emulators, make sure that you aren't using frame counters or anything that you wouldn't see on actual hardware. (So input readers are fine since those are used on real hardware).

Thank you. Might I ask, for MTPO in specific, since the run uses the in-game timer, the only drawback about an emulator would be input delay, correct? Or are there any other factors that I will be fighting while running MTPO?

The input delay from the emulator, if there is any from the emulator since modern computers are powerful enough to handle NES emulation, is really from the display the emulator is being run on. Using a laggy, input-delay heavy monitor will create issues. Low latency, gaming monitors in Game Mode will have less than a frame of latency which is really needed.

Best option is to try it out and see. You'll know pretty early on if the latency is too much for you on your setup.