Hi everyone,

as demonstrated in the other forum post, I have the feeling, we need some addition to the Game Rules, limiting Emulator Settings to 'reasonable' values. When initially submitting my current runs, I have not paid any attention to the 'settings' part as there have not been any rules in this regard at that point in time. I also did not see the requirement in doing so, as the speed of my run (measured as the time until you for the first time can move Casper) was pretty much in line with stunt's runs.

A couple of days ago, I was asked by an upcoming Casper-Speedrunnner-Star the following thing: "Also your emulator seems to have quicker loading times, are their certain settings on psx you need?" So i was like ummmhhh.... well.... I don't know.. So I starteted investigating:

Long story short: Runs that have been submitted so far are very divergent when assessing their 'initial loading times' (time stopped from hitting 'New Game' until you can move Casper). The good thing: at least stunt's and my runs are somewhat comparable (stunt being around 15 secons, mine around 15.6 seconds).

In a next step, I wanted to find out which actual settings I used for my runs, as I was pretty sure I never changed my settings for the purpose of speedrunning Casper. Previously, I was doing Metal Gear Solid speedruns, where there are setting restrictions as of Game Rules (Metal Gear Solid Settings). So that was most likely the setup I was using as of legacy. In my recent investigations I noted the 'overclocking' part mentioned for Metal Gear Solid just crashes our beloved Casper, so I went back for a regular 100%. So this is the settings I've used in my runs and I would suggest to make the new standard to be added to game rules:

The topic of Emulator Settings is obviously nothing that only applies to Casper. During my research I found a couple of these discussions in other games (besides above mentioned Metal Gear Solid also e.g. Klonoa, Parasite Eve or with quite a big speedrunning community Chrono Cross). All these threads a pretty clear about the Reed Speedup ("RSU") Setting of not allowing anything above 2x (which referes to the Fast Disc Speed Setting of the PS2). On the Seek Speedup ("SSU") Portion, I was unable to find a consensual (if any) opinion.

Initially, I was unable to verify the initial load times of my WR-runs with the above settings which confused me (and this is why and when I started to alter these settings). I noted, that increasing the Read Speedup, has quite some impact in reducing load times (and also the highest selectable settings of 'Maximum' RSU/SSU). In doing so, I was able to smack the currently approved any%-WRs by more than 1:30min (total of 37:15) on a 10x/10x RSU/SSU and by more than 2:15min (total of 36:32) on a 'max/max' RSU/SSU. While overall, spending less times in loading screens felt great, the overall picture of setting WRs by tweaking emulator settings felt super wrong (while the runs itself were actually quite alright). [edit: it turned out, the largest portion of these time saves was a result from using NTSC instead of PAL]

In this process, I also noted stunt's quicker loading times compared to my runs mainly result from running the US version instead of the EU version (NTSC vs PAL is ca 1 second difference in the initial loading sequence).

Lastely - this is how I finally was able to re-confirm my WR-settings: Loading times seem to differ between the current version of DuckStation and the release that was live at the time of my runs in 09/2024. So I went to GitHub and downloaded the old release, and voila: perfect matches for this initial loading sequence of stunt's runs in the US version (ca 15 seconds) and my runs in the EU version (ca 15.6 seconds)!

Summarizing this: stunt and myself have likely used comparable settings running this game, while stunt made use of the faster US version (which obviously is fine). So in my opinioin, everything is fine so far - BUT this level should be defined as 'calibration' moving forward from here.

Therefore my conclusion/recommendations/advise:

• Moderators should decline both of my submitted runs using 10x/10x and max/max for RSU/SSU.

• Moreover, Game Rules should be complemented by the above shown settings for emulators (i) no overclocking, ii) max 2x RSU, iii) max 10x SSU; all others default).

• In addition - when submitting an emulator run - it should be made obligatory to add the Emulator version in the note section of the run (allowing to verify that setting requirements have been adhered to).

• The US version of the games offers quite significant time saves over the EU version acumulating the pure number of loading the sequneces this game has.

• Current version 0.1-8459 of DuckStation has longer load screens compared to version v0.1-7371 I used for my WRs in September 2024.

Happy for your comments, opinions and any sort of discussion!

inSightT

#edit1: I've just done segments up until the Ball Puzzle in NTSC and PAL. Using above settings, PALsplits are on WR level. NTSC version was already ca 10 seconds ahead.. PAL in general appears so have way more lag (e.g. every time you smoke). So a strong advertisement for NTSC. I will try to finish a decent NTSC run given these settings and see how they compare against those 10x/10x or max/max runs. Will keep you posted.

#edit2: it feels like all that work was kind of 'over the top' (but still necessary). The main time improvements in fact comes from the swtich to NTSC (compared to PAL) as you can see from this run (37:16), which i would assess WR-eligible as it is using the above mentioned settings (that have also been used in current WRs but played on PAL). Unfortunatley, i missed to go for the older DuckStation version, but hey: more room for improvement ;)

Hi friend,
I honestly don't know anything about emulator settings. But I trust you completely with your research and results on this subject. You seem to be an experienced runner and know what you're talking about.
I still took the time to read everything and I rather agree with your conclusions and the ideas you propose for the validation of runs. Given your investment in this game, I'm going to keep it simple. I'm making you a moderator of the game and let you validate or not your runs that seem to best suit what you've decided.
Congratulations on your runs and your work and congratulations on your WR :)

Thank you for the trust MC! Please note, I amended rules for the any% and 100% category accordingly. Nonetheless, in case there is anyone having a better understanding of emulator settings (or another speedrunner joins this community bringing this ability): Please speak up and make your point!

As my TLDR recommendations for upcoming runs:

• Emulator to be DuckStation v0.1-7371 (downloadable from GitHub) [this version appears to be faster compared to current build)
• Console settings to be limited to Read Speedup of maximum 2x and Seek Speedup of maximum 10x; all others to remain at default [was added to Game Rules]
• US-NTSC appears to outperform EU-PAL in terms of loading times and lagg