Making a new thread because the other one is long, and I think this deserves its own thread.

The past few days, I've been going through a few videos frame by frame to count the exact loading times, and now I have an exact number that I am certain of. VC's loading time advantage over DS is 45.5 seconds. I have lots of data if anyone wants it.

Since we finally have a solid number for this, I propose we change the rules/timing so VC runs add the 45.5s timing difference on, and we can time it exactly if two runs are close. If anyone disagrees/has any questions, please reply here. Thanks.

More information:

45.5 seconds is for the route that koffing, ewaller, and I use with 75 loading zones (not 73- I forgot about the opening cutscene). The timing difference would change slightly for a different number of loading zones, but it's not enough to require a retiming unless it would be WR (I'm assuming any future WRs would use the same route we do with 75 loading zones though).

Something else I saw was that not every loading zone had the same timing difference: -entering a level: consistently .55 seconds faster -exiting a level: consistently 1 second faster -pipes: consistently .45 seconds faster -doors: inconsistent loading times. Sometimes faster, sometimes the same.

I''ve got no opinion on this personally, because I use a DS anyways.

The thing that I'm sure other people would be concerned about though is that, since the math / data etc... was done for Wii U VC, why not also do it for Emulator, and the DSi download version, and the 3DS download version. If it's to be done for one console, it should be done with the rest of them as well, so they can all match the original.

I'm not saying that every console that I listed off will actually need it (some might), but rather it's just the incentive to make them all even.

Emulator, for example, is faster than the DS, but not as fast as Wii U VC. So the math and data will definitely be different.

Also, do you think just for the sake of other people, you could actually post the data you got for the loading time differences?

That's all I know I can say for now <3

Thank you so much for taking your time to solve this, things on leaderboards will definitely be changed. Ye, I think it'd be cool to provide the data you have.

Glad this is a consistent thing.

Don't worry about it, I love data, research, experiments and stuff like this. I'll put all the data in a spreadsheet later then post it here.

If you're wondering about the timings, it starts on the first frame the screen is completely black and ends on the last frame it's completely black.

@LightOfEon I don't have any experience with the emulators, do you know if all of them have the same loading times? I know there are 2 or 3 different popular emulators.

To be honest, I'm fine with anything you guys would like. World Record may be exciting but I just love the game and want to see it beaten quickly regardless of who does it. So I agree with the 45.5 second penalty.

Should we round down to 45 or up to 46? Speedrun.com doesn't let you use decimals, right?

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KoN_0OmwC8PkuEnl2x1niu9zDQcaoObrHGlrbM1TAZE/edit?usp=sharing here's the data. I'm pretty sure you can use decimals, I have my pb timed to the tenth of a second and planned to submit it as that.

There's no problem in using even milliseconds in leaderboards, I'll add that.

@MyLittleWalrus Is that a round 45.50 or you just didn't estimated with enough accuracy? Just a friendly question. Also, your spreadsheet is private currently.

I just want to present AceBentura's "odd" arguments really quickly. The other day on his stream he states VC has "better pixellation that makes certain gaps MUCH easier", the bowser jump is "unmissable", and the blue shell magically goes faster on VC. Because VC is an emulation of the DS version there would be no reason for the engine to change at all. The only change we can confirm is loading times, which he noted and is correct for. I just want to clear things up because he banned me from his chat and called me a cheater... The whole issue with "better pixellation" dosn't really make sense. If something is better quality the gaps are still going to be the same size. Also for Bowser jump he claims to have once tried on VC and he was able to make the Bowser jump no matter where he landed on Bowser Jr. Having played on VC I can tell you the jump is cetainly missable. I have to conclude either A) He's telling a total lie or B) He simply made the jump like normal every time he tried it on VC. Bowser jump really isn't all that tight if you simply land on the right side of Bowser Jr. The only reason that I bring this up is because I do not yet have a DS cart therefore I can not prove my argument any further besides having (what seems like) common sense. I just want to put an end to this guys arguments too because he's taking a lot of fun out of the game when he makes me seem like a cheater and he's always so argumentative and defensive over ever idea. He also said that I'm not credible for giving reliable information compared to him because he's "beaten the game hundreds of times" even though I've invested hundreds of hours into the game. If you guys need me to make any test footage feel free to ask. Thank you!

http://imgur.com/Mq3OBQf Variants don't work as I wanted, you can't give a default order by variants' values.

@koffingrockz Solid proofs are always the best thing to solve it, even if his arguments may seem absurd.

I guess we're just going to add times to VC/EMU runs.

http://m.imgur.com/wwtj483,8NSqgbe Screenshots of VC (darker) and console (brighter). The brightness difference is likely from capture differences.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KoN_0OmwC8PkuEnl2x1niu9zDQcaoObrHGlrbM1TAZE/edit?usp=sharing not private anymore, sorry. Also koffing, I don't agree with what acebentura is saying. I think loading times are the only difference between versions.

Yeah ace does seem incorrect. It is going to be tough to give evidence but common sense should be sufficient. All Nintendo did when they made the game on VC was take the ROM and transfer it to Wii U. The hardware just loads faster.

Mishu, I just realized that I never answered your question about if it is exactly 45.5 seconds, sorry.

The time I calculated was 45.52 seconds, but that was with my method of looking at the video by .04 seconds at a time, which causes a few random rounding errors in the frame counts. Over a sample size of 75, small random errors of + or - .04 seconds average themselves out, so I think it's a very good estimate.

Anyway, there is no way to ever get an exact frame count unless I have 60 fps source footage of each console, but that's not going to happen. So, I think 45.5 is as close as we need. And since it probably never will be exactly 45.500 seconds, we can retime any close runs. I think that is the simplest, and most effective, solution.

Sorry, it's been a couple days, I really don't know about the different emulators that could be used. You would have to look into that personally, as it's common sense that it's a 50/50 chance of them being the same timing.

I'll just time whatever emulator the TASes use and assume that either that is the most popular emulator or that the loading times will be close enough. If I finish the timing tonight, I'll update the spreadsheet with my new data/conclusion, and post it below. After I finish this, I think all the issues will be sorted out and we can update the rules/timings unless people disagree and want to discuss more.

is there any randomness to load times? i know there is in nsmbwii and nsmbu, even so far as that the first level loads faster if you've played it once and not hard reset the game.

also why not just do time with loads/time without loads like they do for rayman legends, instead of trying to convert everything to DS time.

http://www.speedrun.com/Rayman_Legends

I wasn't sure about this either, so when I did the timings I timed world 1 for 4 videos (2 VC, 2 DS) and compared them. For those 14 loading zones, the times seemed consistent for each console so I went back to timing 2 videos for the rest of the run. Seems like loading times aren't random, can't be completely sure though.

Rayman Legends uses an autosplitter, so it's not a good example of taking out loading times. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but the only games I know of that the runners manually cut out loads either have many fewer loads, or have much longer loads. What I mean by the second one is it's easy to cut out 5 second loading screens, but most loads in this game are less than half a second, which is almost impossible to time accurately without going frame-by-frame like I did. If we can find an easy, accurate way to count loading times, cutting them out would be the best way to time, without question. But for right now, an approximation is the most accurate thing we have.