my best to compare loadtimes via 60fps videos of MC speedruns on different hard/software. I recommend using the shortcuts "," & "." to go 1 frame back/forward in the video for close observing.

The 3 compared systems are:

• Windows 98 on an Intel Pentium 233 MHz (Toshiba Satellite Pro 480 CDT)
• modern = Windows 10 AMD 3600x
• WINE on Intel i7-7700HQ @ 2.80GHz × 8

Observations:

• Some modern runners have the "fade to black" as screen fades, some do not. Not sure what is causing this to appear or suppress it. I only put the modern example without the "fade to black" in the comparison for now.
• Win98 doesn't show the button being pressed when starting a campaign. WINE & modern Win both do that.
• Loading times are very machine dependent.

The last point leads me to the conclusion that we need to remove loading times for the speedrunning leaderboard. Which will be a pain for the moderator (currently me) to deal with. Unless somebody cares about making an autosplitter that deals with all those loading times. Also time start will probably move to the 1st frame in mission screen after the start of the campaign to account for the 1st loading screen.

I'm sorry that I'm missing the "next mission"/loading into logistics screen on Win98 currently. I'll provide it soonTM.

Looking forward for your feedback. Would be great if someone has any clue how to create an autosplitter that works for the game. Because it might be tricky with the different resolution patches that are out on the field.

I am 100% on board with some kind of standardization moving forward.

I have looked into auto splitters in the past but they require a level of knowledge I just don't have, Although like you stated its hard to know what version people are running considering not a lot of people have a retail copy available to them.

Let me know if you need help pulling the loading times from the runs and I can make myself available to help.