UPDATE (Nov 11, 2024)
- Bizhawk must be set "Tool Assisted Speedrun" profile to be accurate
Here is the video with the correct profile
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TL;DR - no difference between Bizhawk & Kega Fusion. The console is 2 frames slower for 20 second game
I was curious if there is any significant difference between the real console and some famous emulator. Now that I got the console at home I was able to record it and compare.
For my test I've played the first level and hold right the all time. Then I frame count from the first frame when life bar is bright red until the first frame the player start running animation.
- SMS console = 20.587 (2 frames late)
- Bizhawk 2.9.1 = 20.553
- Fusion 3.64 = 20.554
For a 11:20 run (680s) that means the console would be 1s behind. As it is today it's fine, the top 2 runs are done on emulator, but we should take that in consideration whenever someone has a 11:21 run done on the console.
(for some reason, in the video the fusion part is one frame later and I couldn't adjust it)
I'd like to see emu and console be as even as possible. If a console run does get that close, we'll definitely have to discuss what adjustment needs to be made. Thanks for doing the research on this.
FYI it's quite common, we did the same for black belt https://www.speedrun.com/black_belt/forums/ee5v3
I've tested with Genesis 1 --> 20.600, which is pretty much the same speed as SMS console, maybe a frame faster
Update (Nov 11, 2024)
Bizhawk was set with the profile "Casual Gaming", that's why it was faster. "Tool Assisted Speedrun" must be selected for max accuracy (see VIDEO))
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TL;DR - Bizhawk emulator run faster when the games has lags. Even it's a trustable emulator we should consider banning it.
Chatting with some other sega folks, we discussed about "some emulator doesn't have lags". So I've decided to test the most laggy part of the game: last level wth the laggy elevator when there are dinos around.
I compare 2 consoles and 2 emulators, I was very surprised Bizhawk was the one with less lags and be almost 3s faster.
- SMS - 44.767
- Genesis - 44.833
- Fusion - 44.783
- Bizhawk - 42.067
If I do the exact same 4 loop with the dino asleep (less lags) then I got similar times for all of them, and Bizhawk has the slowest time
- SMS - 29.900
- Genesis - 29.950
- Fusion - 30.00
- Bizhawk - 29.866
I've tried with a fresh install of BizHawk 2.9.1 with all default config, with SMSHawk core. I used sms_us_1.3.sms for the firmware
sha256:477617917A12A30F9F43844909DC2DE6E6A617430F5C9A36306C86414A670D50
All you need to do is get this rom hack to go straight to the level 5 and go to the elevator
I've tested with Bizhawk 2.10-rc1 and I've selected "Tool Assisted Speedrun" profile for maximum accuracy and I got a time of 44.850. Then I've tested again with 2.9.1 and this time I've also selected "Tool Assisted Speedrun" profile and I got a time of 44.800, which is same as the SMS!
Correcting what I said: Bizhawk should be allowed but with the TAS profile on!
