Hello. I am quite interested in becoming a speedrunner for this game but i had a question. From my understanding it is significantly faster to use the Wii U digital version of the game. Not everyone has a Wii U or even a HDMI capture card and might have better access to just a Wii console and a AV capture card which tends to be much cheaper than any HD capture cards ive ever seen. Anyways my question is, if the time save on Wii U is so significant than why isnt there separate sections for both consoles? I feel like it could help the community a lot if there were separate sections for each console. Sort of like Super Mario 64. Plus if there were separate categories per console maybe there could be a section for those less fortunate and that don't even own any of the consoles or a capture card and possible enabling the use of either Dolphin Emulator or the Cemu Wii U emulator. I feel like making these categories separate will not only make the community grow due to more accessibility but it could also make it much more competitive since its not limiting anyone to the hardware they have.

Well if there separated then it’s for a reason we don’t seem to have any reason to separate the leaderboards so why would we and emulators are banned for a reason also spm doesn’t work on cemu

But if other people think it’s a good idea I support it I just don’t see a reason to do that

And if you don’t have a capture card useing a camera is perfectly fine

I like the concept of making SPM more available. there are a few issues that we should work out though:

SPM doesn't have enough active users to pull this off. SM64 has thousands of runers making both leaderboards competitive. for SPM this would remove those who have a Wii from the competition, making it less desirable to run. because we all know people would only try for good world records on WiiU due to the faster loads.

another issue with emulators is it's difficult to find stable builds of Dolphin. This also becomes a game of who has the fastest CPU, there's a lot that would have to be worked out to get EMU allowed on leaderboards

I'm not saying that these are bad ideas, I really like the direction you're headed with this: making SPM more accessible to everyone which I agree I feel should be more accessible. It's just we have to resolve these issues before any of this could happen

also it's worth noting: you can still compete for World record on a normal Wii! I think runners get caught up in needing the fastest version of the game to even consider speedrunning which isn't the case for SPM at all! every version of the game uses the exact same route

I am not here to debate emulation ban, but I would like to know what discussion took place that allowed the SPM community to reach the conclusion that emulators are unsuitable for running. I know that for other games, Dolphin is fairly consistent and accurate with load times and emulation to be faithful at least to GameCube games; is that not as true for Wii games or SPM in specific?

As for the console split, if there are no considerable version differences between Wii and Wii U other than speed, I don't see a justification to split the boards based on console. If someone is determined to compete for WR, they should get the fastest console. (I know the Wii U is shit in general, but it seems like this discussion surfaces in a lot of games and is met with similar attitude.)

Also another thing I’m asking is so for SM 64 it’s not world record based on the subcategory I spaced on the category Wike the Nintendo 64 is always the world record and the only way virtual Console and emulator would be a world record is due to no lag it would still be faster than the normal world record and that has never been the case so how would that work and also if we choose the opposite Consol that people have I don’t know if they’ll like having to switch to a new console just because that’s the main competitive farm Console people use

Sorry there’s a lot of errors in that message

There's a few things I'd like to clear up here. If we did a console split I would strictly only be for it for other categories. If you split any% into different console categories then its not about beating the game as fast as possible anymore since it is restricting your version. It's not always about having the literal best time on the leaderboards, I would still be content with running the game on a disc if I was unable to purchase a Wii U. Wii U consoles are only 50$ if you know how to look so its not even that terrible. You wont even be required to use a Wii U to get the record still... So its just a silly thing to consider IMO. And again it wouldn't make sense to split any% into categories because of what i explained previously.

Also Emulator is incredibly inaccurate for a few reasons. Load times are not accurate to console / disc. There are various lag spikes that occur in SPM that do not happen on emulator at the same locations. Also many people have attempted the GBS RTA setup on emulator and couldn't get it on their emulators which proves another inaccuracy.

Wii U VC only saves like 2 minutes on average from what we could tell, so its not "significantly faster"

2 minutes in a speedrun to beat the game as fast as possible is still quite a big gap for a game thats 4 hours long. Now another thing with the emulators. Thats why there would be a seperate section for emulators so new runners that dont have access to a wii or wii u could still play and get a time on the leaderboard. even if the console categories dont get split up i feel like it would be nice to have a EMU version category so you could play on emulator. and while yes a wii u may be 50 bucks where you live. where i live and where others live they can go upto $150 not only that but you would also need to buy a decent capture card with pass through so you can get precise gameplay with no input lag. plus Im perfectly fine with keeping the nintendo consoles together in one group and have it be named "Console" or "Wii/Wii U" and than having another leaderboard thats called "EMU" just like Mario 64 does. so even with the emulator inconsistencies people could still dip thier toes into SPM. While it will be less competitive than the console leaderboards (as it is on SM64) it would still easily allow new comers to drop in and get some practice while they work up getting a console. A lot of people on SM64 start on Emulator and later decide to swap to console because 1, it feels more authentic, 2, it is more creditable than EMU and overall people dont want to fork out all this money on stuff they wouldnt even like. while yes people "could" run the game on emu. I feel like its more appealing to have your name put on a leaderboard. So instead of it just being like oh cool i beat it in X amount of time you can have a friendly yet competitive challenge to keep people pushing

also with the emulator version. we should lock it to a single version that will stay static because like you said not all versions of the emulator are stable. for example for SM64 the only emulator allowed is project 64 1.6, i believe the newest version of project 64 is 2.3 or something but yeah they have locked it down to 1.6 only

Honestly I just like the idea of keeping the leaderboards to official releases of the game. If you want to run emu then later decide to swap to console you submitting your runs during that period of you learning the game wont affect like anything really. I wouldn't be way too opposed for emulator tabs for other categories, but again, for any% splitting it into different sections doesn't make it about beating the game as fast as possible anymore. If you have a wii and a disc, just run that I recommend, you can still get great times on the wii. I also don't really like the idea of adding emu tabs in general because there'd be like one or two submissions maximum. If a lot of people had good emu times, or a lot of people had good disc times, maybe you'd have a point. The competitive version should never be on discs because of the inconsistent load time between consoles. It is honestly a blessing that loads are frame perfectly synced between Wii U VC versions. If you don't want to drop 150$ I totally understand, but it's also like, you can't expect to ever get a time 2 minutes within perfect anyways in a 4 hour run, so it literally wouldn't matter, you can still get sub 4:10, sub 4, and even the record. I personally would still be content with running the game if it was on disc lol

Although Wii U VC again is nice since everyone is literally on the exact same playing field for load times. With Disc loads between consoles and discs will vary by minutes which just sucks lol

Accessibility for this game is kinda fucked which I do agree with though, I just don't think splitting into categories is the way to go, people can and should run emulator without submitting if they so desire. And also can and should run on a disc because its not all about getting 1st place on the leaderboards, even if it was, its still possible lmao