Righto, since there seems to be debate on this topic, I think it's in the best interest to fire up a thread.
It's been a long time since most people have tried DS emulation, but I've been actively keeping up with it as best I can so that I might one day be able to record all of my best runs and submit them as TSC legit stats so that people could see exactly what's going on and not have to rely on a guide or anything like that. At the beginning of the year, I was running the no$ gba DS emulator on a Dell Inspiron 8600 and getting rather fair results. Input was no problem with the help of an Xbox 360 wired controller, it was running on auto and happened to be running at normal game time except with lots and lots of frameskip, but it was still not good enough to me because I couldn't accurately play it with its like 10 frames a second. Running it at 100% for either Sonic Rush or Rush Adventure made the emulator run at like 40-60%, so that didn't help and I have just been patiently waiting for something to happen ever since. (no$ gba doesn't seem to update anymore :( )
Then I got a brand new computer and tried it out again. And, well, it seems to me like the framerate issue I had was completely obliterated. It runs really smoothly. Infact, if anything, it runs BETTER than the DS. Seriously. Ghost runs don't lag the emulator like they do on the DS in Sonic Rush. Also compare the difference in time from the video time to the ingame time in
8 minutes of Dead Line 2. The thing in my new videos is that they aren't as smooth as what I'm claiming they are, and the reason for that is because my screen recorder goes at 15 FPS. I haven't figured out if I can change that or not :(
Now some think this is breaking the rules, so lets see:
Gamesharks, similar cheat devices, and ROM save states must not be used, nor any functions on the emulator, such as slowing down the speed of the game. Frankly it doesn't make for much competition.
Unofficial emulators that do not replicate correctly the original gameplay are not allowed. This currently spans DS, Dreamcast and any newer non portable consoles, and more.
- With this new computer it is actually impossible for me to slow down the speed of the game. Like I said, the 100% speed option runs it a lot faster than it normally should. The Auto speed/2 and speed/10 options don't work from what I can tell, and I can't use those anyway and get that kind of synchronized sound on Sonic Rush because there's no replay function.
- I don't know about you (you probably haven't tried under my conditions), but this feels like precisely the same game to me. I completely understand this plight if I was using iDeaS; I was like, going through walls and crap on that emulator playing the tutorial level in Sonic Rush Adventure. Seriously, the only conditions that aren't the same from no$ gba to my DS is that the language setting on the computer is set to Spanish for some reason. I haven't bothered to figure out how to change that because it could help learning a few Spanish words here and there for the future >_> <_<
Some people feel that submitting videos/stats done on any emulator is not ethical, in that doing it on its platform, in this case the DS, is just better. We are the same group of people that heartily uses .giz files as much as possible and plays basically all genesis/gamegear games on the computer because it's more practical and makes it easy to prove other people's times and such. I do not see why this line of thinking has to be different for this case.
There's also the opinion that because not everyone has a computer as shiny and bright as mine that while submitting the videos are not a problem, submitting them as TSC stats is. I could understand how that might be a case if nobody would ever have a chance at getting a new computer. It's like saying nobody in Japan or America should have Super Smash Brothers Brawl because Europe or Australia don't have the option of getting it either. It will be there for them in the future, and that shouldn't stop other people from enjoying it now.
Anyway, those are my thoughts. I would like to hear everyones so this can be settled.
