All my speed runs so far have been with an emulator (Mac - OpenEmu - Mednafen), using an 8BitDo M30 bluetooth controller. I'm considering buying a physical Saturn, just to set times on Sega Rally (crazy, I know!) and be in the 'proper' Sega Saturn category on here, not just the emulation category.
During my browsing, I've realised that there are a lot of ODEs for the physical Saturn, such as the Satiator, Saroo, and Fenrir, which people tend to use due to the aging Saturn's CD drives breaking (amongst other reasons!)
My question is, would setting runs on a physical Saturn, albeit via the Saroo or another ODE, count as being on original hardware? In my opinion, yes, this counts as original hardware, as although the E in ODE stands for Emulator, it is emulating the optical drive only - the game is still being played on the Saturn's hardware. But I just wanted to check with the community, before going ahead and making my decision.
I would count it as original hardware and treat the same as using the CD drive. Where I would treat an ODE as an emulator would be when the reduction in loading time makes a difference. Of course here loading time is not part of the runs and there is no evidence Saturn custom firmware affects anything else.
Thanks Boxer! Very useful, and totally agreed. Good point on the load times as well.
Given Load times are meaningless in this game as we use In-Game Time I don't see any issues with ODEs being counted as real hardware as at the end of the day it's still being played off actual hardware.
One thing that should be noted in particular with Saroo. Saroo applies game specific patches and BIOS overrides under the hood, even when you're using a disc. This could potentially alter the games behavior unknowingly to the end user. It could also be used to by someone to add their own patches to modify the games behavior with no real way to verify it.
None of the other ODEs do this to my knowledge.
