With the new src update, it seems impossible to change the name of threads anymore. I would have repurposed one of the threads for this one, but I can't.

So, I've decided to delete one of them while pasting its messages here ("Adding a disk speed variable to help distinguish KBV runs" one specifically, since it doesn't have any user messages other than my own). These are the first two replies.

(originally posted on the 14th of February 2022, @RayUziCrow and @Ettie hearted it)

Read the Duckstation / Retroarch through Beetle core emulator disk speed discussion thread, and amoser's guide for setting up those emulators for further information about them that are pertaining to this thread. https://www.speedrun.com/klonoa1/thread/tndcp https://www.speedrun.com/klonoa1/guide/hjy9m

Much like DtP, this game's loads are also affected by PS2's Fast Disk Speed setting, as well as these two emulators's enhanced disk speed. And given submitted runs of this game have already made use of them, I found it necessary to begin tracking them using variables. It simply is for the clarity of information.

This thread and change are mostly justified by the following : while we don't have exact numbers for all of those cases, Ettie has noticed some significant advantages with them - by the order of at least a second per loading-screens - enough to justify tracking those thing seriously.

Rest assured, this decision doesn't change anything about how the game is ran or timed. I was originally going to push this without the community's opinion, cause I had thought this wasn't relevant enough that it would require it. But I still brought it up on the server while writing this, and the reception doesn't seem bad so it's probably fine. And reverting the changes would only take mere seconds anyways.

Only new thing is that - in the case you play on those emulators, or PS2 - you are now strongly encouraged to show trace of this setting somewhere in the footage of your run... but it's in no way mandatory, as people may forget about it (this case has happened with DtP). Rejecting runs solely because they don't show it feels very wrong imo. I don't think we are any worthy of being this strict with moderation when our community is nowhere near big or professional to justify it.

Following this opening post, I will make the technical changes, then add its rules in the main panel section, and finally update some of the current runs with these.

One day this board might also see character variables. Looking forward to it.

[Edit : I should mention that FDS loads are faster than the emulation disk speed enhancements, and that going any higher than the allowed amounts ("2x (Quad Speed)" for duckstation, "4x" for retroarch/beetle]) result in crashes (courtesy of Ettie). So, no issues there.]

[Edit 2, 15 february 2022 : updated most of the runs !]

(originally posted on the 17th of February 2022)

A couple precisions about the high limit of the usable emulator disk speed. Use these as reference for this specific post : (1) (2)

With the assistance of amoser and Ettie, we made some tests about speeds higher than 4x, to see if they can be used while still being slower than the fastest console counterpart, PS2 + FDS (PS3 is slower).

What we didn't expect to find, and that definitely slew things us down a little bit was a previously unnoticed emulation inconsistency during the character loading-screen of a match. Normally, when the loading-screen appears, the loading text is supposed to flicker slowly, and there is a fade-down at the end, transitioning to the match. But on certain emulators (ePSXe, Duckstation, psx/psxfin are generally concerned as far as we know), this is not the case. The loading text will freeze, and there are no fade-down animation, it instantly cuts to the match. Ultimately though it doesn't bother us very much for what we were trying to do.

Now, as emulators are generally infinitely slower than PS2 FDS (see (1)), there shouldn't be problems allowing them. But this isn't about them.

Anything up to 4x works fine and is slower than FDS (both emulators are basically equal on this). But as seen in (2), when it comes to 6x, both emus go faster than it. Therefore, we can't allow them to be used. (The emu stutter at the end of the Retro clip doesn't happen on lower speeds*, probably unimportant)

This doesn't change anything about the rules or what's currently in place.

Some minor questions about the emulation inconsistency remain to be unanswered. We do not know if it happens on an actual PS1, and inexplicably, why it's also apparently a thing on PS3 (see Haru's obsoleted run). If this first wonder is actually real, it would prove that this emulation error isn't one, shockingly enough.

This leaderboard didn't have any way of knowing if a run was 50 or 60 Hz (which we have for DtP and L'sV), so I added an information variable for it.

There are no 50 Hz runs currently.

[Edit, one day later] Maybe 50 Hz speed runs simply aren't a thing with this game ?? I couldn't find any videos of it.

Well, @amoser comments :

"This is a completely uninformed guess, but perhaps because the game was actively developed for release in Europe (with English voice acting and everything), the physics/gameplay are adjusted in the PAL version so that everything still lines up with the 60 Hz version despite actually running at 50 FPS? That sort of thing isn't unheard of, and this is very late PS1 game, so it wouldn't be that surprising."

Furthermore (https://www.speedrun.com/klonoabv/runs/y6r43e6y) :

"The youtube video is at 60 FPS, and if you frame-by-frame it in sections where there's constant movement, there's a doubled frame (usually) exactly every 6 frames. Meaning we're getting 5 actual frames for every 6 frames displayed at 60 FPS, or 50 frames per second. So since it doesn't at any point actually run slower from a gameplay standpoint (I didn't actually confirm this, but it sounds like balneor did*), the 50/60 Hz difference doesn't seem like it's relevant at all. So in short, the PAL version does run natively at 50 Hz, but the game logic is sped up so that it doesn't (barring any subtleties that have yet to be discovered) affect the speedrun in any meaningful way."

(* I did and it checks up)

It's fair to say that Hz for this game won't have as much of an impact like it has on the original DtP and L'sV.