With the new M2 ports of the Ray trilogy, what exactly would be the proper settings to be used for a run of the game (Mostly difficulty-wise as unlike RayForce there's no PCB rapid fire option)? Would a run using these ports (Steam, PS4/5, Xbox One/Series S/Series X, Switch) first be necessary to determine that?

Interesting. I think we will need to open a new category for it and I will need to do some more investigating. Thank you for bringing this to my attention!

Hello once again, if this would help I've done a couple sample runs of the Ray'z Arcade Chronology ports of RayStorm (I've previously done the same for RayForce). I suppose this would also count as a first attempt of the game.

Hello sorry its taken me a while to get back to you on this.

The truth is that I am not 100% sure on the best way to handle this. The fact that this port is essentially on 5 different systems, I am not sure if the correct move is to open a category just for this port, or to open categories for all the systems it is now on (maybe Xbox port runs faster than PS port for example)

Any thoughts? Want to ensure we cover this one.

Understandable on the debate on what to do, and don't fret over it taking this long.We had to figure this out for RayForce as well. We pretty much figured it practically is same as the arcade version or running MAME (if anyone ran the Sega Saturn ports, it'd probably have it's own category for the load times. However, no one has ran it for a run yet, and having tried I would NOT recommend it with MAME and Ray'z Arcade Chronology available.) Having said that, your board so rules can differ. I'll try to offer what I know to help.

From what I can see of this, the Ray'z ports in general behave the same as arcade. Platform does not seem to make a difference in terms of one loading faster than the other, I only have the ability to test PlayStation 4 (base model) and Steam for now. I lack any Xbox version or the Switch version (until my physical copy of the game finally ships out) to see about those frames. The only one I'd remotely foresee having issues is MAYBE the Nintendo Switch, of which I am not seeing any such issues from other sources. The only other thing to really talk about is the HD version of RayStorm. I am entirely unsure about how we should handle that as I have heard of (but not seen myself) that there is a rare potential crash in Stage 1 in that particular version (this may be confined to the Steam version as well, but again this is not something I have verified personally.). I will look into this when I am able to do so.

So, for now, just adding the multiple platforms to the Arcade category would probably work (and perhaps put into the category rules about what settings to have when using this collection).

More attempts, more video data showing the Ray'z ports compared to MAME. Again, have to wait to get Switch and Xbox (One) copies to test those platforms. Order is Steam/Windows 11 (with MSI Afterburner open) and then PS4. Getting frame data on console is NOT as easy as PC, may just have to rely on our own observations here. The capture card feed doesn't tell us a whole lot on that front. for a MAME comparision, see the run I recently submitted (MSI Afterburner's open on it too, can't miss it.)

Thank you again for all your hard work on timing and investigating these items.

For now I have added PS4 and Switch to the list of available systems.