Title says it all.

It's been 3 years since I uploaded all the records yet nothing has been done, despite emulators (and PS2 emulation with fast disc) having an outrageous disadvantage due to the use of RTA timing.

Emulators should- MUST be ruled having a consistent setup, explicitly telling which emulators are allowed, if 60 frames are allowed, read and seek speed, etc. It should apply to most classics on the PS1 catalog if possible.

A bit more in-depth explanation regarding 60 frames on emulators:

The in-game timer is mostly unaltered, and by this I mean that the timing errors are milliseconds apart and it's likely due to being more accurate and being given more processing power. In my honest opinion it's not enough to outright disallow the usage of 60 fps since it's an active deterrent if you're going for Best Laps/ILs. Before uploading the runs I did talk about this with Shiinyu and the implications it would have, got the green light back then after giving evidence about this.

Regarding solutions:

There are many ways to solve this problem, some more ideal than others, starting by the one that got the most sensible opinions on the NFSR Discord:

1. Split the leaderboards between Real Hardware and Emulators. Fairly straight forward, and emulators get more strict ruling, such as stating Accepted Emulators, 60 fps allowance, Setups allowed (like Read and Seek Up Speed), etc.

2. Keeping Hardware and Emulators on the same boards, but changing the timer to IGT or LRT. Time in menus in this game is negligible, and what ultimately matters is lap times. IGT would imply having loads taken in for the sake of convenience, while LRT requires removal of load times, being fairer overall.

3. Outright ban of emulators. Terrible idea since it limits the access for competition, and not everyone has the money for it.

I hope this leads to something being done in the future, I know this has been brought up time from time on the community Discord. Genuinely love the game and all, while I do want to give more runs a go, there's an ethic barrier that isn't letting me do it unlike before.

Of these three, I agree the most with option 2, as it doesn't necessitate needing to add another criteria to all the existing submissions.

Option 1 is also a decent option as well as it standardizes what can and can't be done in terms of emulation, which I have seen on boards such as Ridge Racer Type 4.

I do think that implementing both an Emu/HW split & switching to IGT would be the best course of action, moving forward.