Recently, after testing BAR! on a variety of different emulators, we have determined that the age-old problem of accurately emulating the game's physics has been solved. The latest versions of Project64 and Mupen64Plus, 2.3 and 2.5 respectively, have both shown very promising results in our tests. The car no longer sticks to the ground where it shouldn't, and all things considered, gameplay feels true to console. Also, with use of the LLE graphics plugin "angrylion-plus", emulator gameplay footage is no longer trivially easy to distinguish from console footage. We are proud to say that BAR! now looks and plays great on modern emulators.
As a result, we have made an adjustment to the rules: Project64 2.3 and Mupen64Plus 2.5 are now the only approved emulators for running BAR!. All previously-approved emulators (namely Project64 1.6 and 1.7) are now no longer approved. Since their inaccurate physics emulation provided somewhat of an advantage over console, a few years ago we hid all emulator runs from our leaderboards by default. From now on, and until further notice, emulator runs will again be shown by default, as our newly-approved emulators are deemed to be more-or-less at par with console. If any future versions of Project64 and Mupen64Plus are released, they will be approved by default, unless we determine that they hinder the console-emulator equivalency.
As a consequence of deeming older emulators invalid, we must also retroactively reject and remove all old emulator runs from our leaderboards. This will put future emulator runners on an even playing field, as they will not have to compete with times that were achieved on emulators that provide an unfair advantage. A document archiving all of the retroactively rejected runs has been created so as to not lose any historical record of these achievements. It can be found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vM2t_quPIe6Bmt-rSJB-OxCClKkv9ez7G_37HoFcKtY/
To get started with emulating BAR! accurately, check out these links:
Project64: https://www.pj64-emu.com/download/project64-latest m64p: https://m64p.github.io/ RetroArch: http://www.retroarch.com/?page=platforms angrylion-plus: https://github.com/ata4/angrylion-rdp-plus/releases
I use Project64 with angrylion-plus, myself. I recommend it.
m64p and RetroArch both use Mupen64Plus as their core. Just ensure that you're using a recent build and that your core is up-to-date. If you're still unsure, just make sure that BAR!'s physics aren't broken, and you're good to go.
Thanks for reading, and we hope that everyone finds this to be a positive and enjoyable change.
Additional investigation is casting some doubt on the parity of console and emulator again. We may be defaulting to hiding emulator runs on the boards again soon. We will try to keep you posted here.
There are fundamental differences in the way emulator and console handle the physics in this game, even with the most accurate emulators to date. As a result, emulator has been effectively removed of late, with the only active player who was using emulator (Khaotix) having removed his emulator runs and moved to console.
I am proposing to the moderators that we resume a ban on emulator submissions, or at least consider a separate board, as the rising level of competition in conjunction with Henix's recent major skip discoveries is really showing the discrepancy between console and emulator such that I no longer believe they can be fairly compared.
Emulator is once again banned - it just doesn't reproduce the console physics accurately.
Realistically, it's not going to get unbanned any time in the foreseeable future, likely not until there is something approaching a cycle-accurate N64 emulator.
