The Sonic Center

Sonic Central => Leaderboard Disputes => Rules Revisions => Topic started by: TimpZ on January 20, 2014, 12:23:35 am

Title: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: TimpZ on January 20, 2014, 12:23:35 am
There have been a larger number of people that try to pass off various tool-assisted runs as legit on both TSC, SDA and Youtube. Distinguishing between the legit runs and the fakes can be easy or hard depending on the skill the person in question possess and also as speedrunning in general becomes larger, an increasing number of ways to cheat the system starts to emerge.

For genesis games, there are a lot of alternatives for emulators to use; Gens with variants, Fusion, Regen, BizHawk etc. These are all different in functions and goals. BizHawk is an emulator tailored for TASing complete with all the functionality you could ever want. Gens is open source and there's a large amount of variants including ones tailored for debugging, extracting ROM data or editing RAM, making TASes and much more.

On the contrary, emulators like Fusion are closed source and with very little built-in tools useful for cheating in any way.

What I'm saying is, if you're gonna use an emulator for competition, why allow the use of one that allows for TASing, memory watch/editing and LUA-scripting as basic functions when very much viable alternatives exist? It is usually not too hard to notice the difference between emulators either, especially when there's an accompanying video (no I'm not going to tell you how) so in order to remove variables from the dispute process I propose that a rule is instated that ban these kinds of emulators.

There are also emulators for other consoles like Dolphin where there are no viable alternatives. I wouldn't call emulators for consoles like gamecube my area of expertise so all I'm suggesting right now regards the Sega Genesis games. However if someone else have any input regarding those then feel free to jump in with your thoughs.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: SpinDashMaster on January 20, 2014, 09:26:21 am
This should be in the Rules revisions or Beef forum. But, I understand your frustration, especially with the godly videos we have seen posted recently. Something about these videos just looks iffy. It's one of the reasons I haven't bothered to even seriously approach the S3 Times charts yet (save for LB1, which now has a bitch of a difficult zip to execute).

That said, there are a lot of players who prefer to use Gens Movie 9x over anything else, and a lot of legitimate videos have been recorded in that fashion.

It would be splitting hairs and pissing off a lot of people if we simply banned emulators that had TAS capability (Heck, I even know about a method where one could pseudo-TAS through Gens Plus).
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: TimpZ on January 20, 2014, 11:00:57 am
When I asked Parax, he said this topic belonged here.

Yes I am frustrated. I'm going to give an example (and don't take this the wrong way SonicBoom737):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZxpTSWjI4g

This video was made by a TSC user that got banned for faking evidence by making TASes. He was later forgiven and reapproved for submissions. If you take a close look at the video, you will notice he is using Gens.

Now he got a TSC record time in that video, but how can you tell he didn't cheat? How can you say with certainty that there's not a single savestate in that video?

You can't, it's impossible, this video says as little as an end photo. Take note I'm not saying SB did cheat in this video, I'm merely pointing out the fact that there's no way to tell and thus this video is not proof in any regard. He might've just as well not made a video at all.

I know that if you really want to cheat, there's a way. I could probably hack TASes into the demo mode and replay on a real console if I really wanted to. But that requires a lot of time and money invested and it's more likely (easier and cheaper as well!) that I'd just do it for real.

But when it comes to emulators such as gens, if you know some programming you could do whatever you want with it with little effort as opposed to fusion where you'd essentially have to hack the emulator or get some kind of windows-emulator stuff going or possibly binding a keylogger to the emulator in some way. In any case, it's going to be a lot of work and it's obscure work as well as there's no general use for TASing capabilities for Fusion when alternatives exist.

I realise TSC work a lot on the honour system and credibility of trusted users. I'm not telling you to ditch that, I'm saying that a video recorded in gens is not proof at all and if you're serious in competing you'd not consider it much of a hassle to record attempts using a secondary program (or getting a real console set up for that matter...)
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: SpinDashMaster on January 20, 2014, 05:40:26 pm
Well, Parax is weird. This forum is for talking about competing, not modifying how we compete.

I personally don't record a lot of the TA's I make because I can't be bothered to spend that much time between attempts (I don't mind as much for an RA because an attempt is like 8-10 minutes long, so setting up the little .giz and filename is a relatively quick thing). That doesn't mean I shouldn't play because I don't feel like recording every last damned thing I do.

Don't get me wrong, it's been decades since these games came out, and TSC's had people TAing these games for about ten years (You're looking at someone who's been submitting for a little over 8). When a game gets to be this age, stuff gets down to the wire, and there's seldom room left to improve. We're already seeing these kinds of things happen to games like Sonic Rush and SA2B just to name a few.

That means of course players are going to have motive to TAS a run to give them an extra edge. But the purpose of having videos on this site isn't simply for proof for the sake of proving a stat. Videos here are informative -- that is to say others can watch these videos and learn to perform strategies from them as well.

But if you really feel some of these videos reek of TAS, then you need to get in touch with an admin and start helping clean house. But don't go calling every emulator-recorded video out there a potential fake just because of emulator choice. There are other factors in play here, such as processing power and internet speeds. (Which is why I prefer .giz's, for one)
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: TimpZ on January 20, 2014, 06:13:28 pm
So basically what you're saying is that anyone can submit any times, in any time scope for any of the genesis games without being required proof?

If someone overnight tied all the TSC time records for S1, S2, S3 and S&K, would you deem that believable without proof?

Of course not. But what proof would you accept? Print screens of the end screens? Videos? Something else? If it was done on emulator, what would it take for you to feel convinced?

What I'm saying is that if you're gonna make extraordinary claims, you better have extraordinary proof. Even most of the red stats are hard to get if you're a beginner and you'd be unlikely to be able to get them without serious effort. So if a random guy comes in and claims those times, then when confronted points to a run done on an emulator specifically developed for being TASed on, would you accept that without hesitation?

I certainly wouldn't.

I'm not saying there shouldn't be any videos in the form of GMV or GIZ on the site, but this isn't 2004 anymore, making and sharing videos are easier than ever. Speedrunning in general is getting bigger and if you don't go with the times, then you're gonna get overflowed with fake stats that are uncontendable.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: SpinDashMaster on January 20, 2014, 06:27:21 pm
How does someone manage that many hasty generalizations within one post?

First of all, yes. Anyone can submit any times, in any time scope of any game, and not be required proof unless there is sufficient reason to suspect the person submitting the stat. Do not forget that this is TSC and not Cyberscore. Do not forget the foundations for which this site came about.

And since when has an overnight sweep ever gone out without an automatic BS call?

Not everyone here has the fastest computers or networking speeds in the world. I don't really care if it's 2099, the fact remains that there is an honor system to be upheld here, and if there was sufficient backing for me to suspect any recent person submitting to S3, you would have already seen me raising total hell. If you feel someone's posting something iffy, you need to take it to an admin. But don't just go around saying we all have to upgrade our PC's and spend all that extra time between attempts just so we can conform to "getting with the times." That's about as capricious as it gets (I said that somewhere before).
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: TimpZ on January 20, 2014, 06:47:38 pm
I've never visited cyberscore so I don't know their policies. And I know that the example was extreme, however the point still stands. If someone unknown came here and got a lot of good times, what would make you content with their claims?

If people are allowed to use emulators with TASing capabilities, you get discussions like these: http://www.soniccenter.org/forum/index.php?topic=5805.0

I'm just saying there's a very easy way to avoid all that crap. You're using an emulator without TASing capabilities it would seem given you can't reload a savestate and still have the video recorded. Great, now if you'd just give proof of that this emulator is a good one for competing without any functions that would give lots of options to cheat without getting caught, then there's no problem.

I have talked to admins before. What do I say when there's no obvious proof of cheating and it's only very unlikely that this person got the time in question while using an emulator with TAS funcionality? They say I need tangible proof. But the burden of proof I think should be on the one claiming the time, not people trying to find a single iffy jump in tens or possibly hundreds of videos.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: SpinDashMaster on January 20, 2014, 06:54:08 pm
One of the reasons TSC came up in the first place was an intent to distinguish a competitive community apart from Cyberscore, where players often would get banned or have stats removed without being given a chance to prove oneself.

As for being content with a new player's times? That fortunately is something you nor I have to worry about anymore. You have great admins in place here monitoring the state of affairs constantly -- you should trust their judgment. And if you feel like something's being overlooked, then point out something they should look into.

Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Parax on January 20, 2014, 07:06:19 pm
Yeah my bad, Rules Revisions is the correct board for this. Moved.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: TimpZ on January 20, 2014, 07:19:31 pm
Yes, I'm pointing out something I'm concerned about right now.

You're still not answering my question, so I'm going to make the most tangible example I can.

Lets say Romulo improves his time in this stat by 1 second: http://www.soniccenter.org/rankings/sonic_&_knuckles/times/death_egg_2/sonic

Everyone knows Romulo and he has proven to be trustworthy other times, so everyone are happy.

The next day, Shadowfan69 registers on the site and submits one time, it ties with Romulo's time in the DE2 stat.

Since he's unknown and just got a record time, people call him out. He points to a video on youtube which is verifiably made on an emulator with TASing capabilities.

What is your course of action? The same question goes to anyone else or any mods. There's nothing obviously cheated with the video, maybe he did some long pauses at times but pause buffering is allowed so that's not evidence.

If you're content with that "evidence", then there's nothing more I can say to convince you this is a problem.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: SpinDashMaster on January 20, 2014, 07:20:59 pm
Yes, me and everyone here would be content with that evidence, without the obviously sarcastic quotation marks.

Any other questions for me to un-dodge?
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Parax on January 20, 2014, 07:35:31 pm
Honestly though, how far should we go in requesting proof from people? Although we strive to keep the charts as legitimate as possible, ultimately there's so many different ways people can cheat that there's no way we could safeguard against all of them. At some point you just need to accept somebody at their word that they didn't cheat. It's not an ideal solution, but a better one would require pretty much an overhaul of the entire site and all its policies.

The other thing is when people fake proof, they tend to not be very knowledgeable about how a human would actually go about getting a similar stat to what they're claiming. That means there's often little discrepancies in the proof they provide, and when questioned about it they tend to provide explanations that make no sense. We've caught plenty of BSers who faked proof that way before, and probably will again in the future.

In the example you cited, if this guy had a video and nobody could find any reason to doubt it aside from that it was done on an emulator with TAS features? Yes, I'd accept that. Either way if he continued posting videos then there'd be more material to work with down the line as for determining more definitively whether he's a cheater or not, so it makes no sense to ban him.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Zeupar on January 20, 2014, 07:39:05 pm
I think TSC's main problem right now (and for the past several years) is that a good number of players don't trust the legitimacy of our rankings, even though many of us have done our best to keep the site free of false records. I support any suggestion that helps improve this bad image, and I believe your idea would help us move forward in that direction.

I have been talking to BizHawk's main developer today, and he said he has recently considered implementing a cheat-proof feature in the emulator (ironic, isn't it? :P). From the looks of it, though, it's not something that will be developed any time soon. In the meantime, I'm all for banning those two emulators for competition on TSC.

What I'm saying is that if you're gonna make extraordinary claims, you better have extraordinary proof.

I can't agree more with this.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: SpinDashMaster on January 20, 2014, 07:49:33 pm
As Parax has already mentioned, banning Gens alone as a whole uproots way too much, especially when not every Gens emulator has TAS functionality, and especially when many trustworthy players aren't using it anyway. That's kind of slapping a lot of innocent people in the face, and destroying the core concept of the honor system that we have here.




Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: TimpZ on January 20, 2014, 07:57:50 pm
Nope, that's all I have to say, my point has been made. I just think it's an incredibly backwards system and it's a shame that you're allowing it to be so easily exploitable by not stating, to me, obvious rules.

And no, like I've tried to explain this whole thread, a gens movie file is not and never will be any sort of evidence of anything other than possibly the ability of the person in question to use the program.

Quote
If he continued posting videos then there'd be more material to work with down the line as for determining more definitively whether he's a cheater or not, so it makes no sense to ban him.

What if he doesn't? Take this guy as an example: http://www.soniccenter.org/forum/index.php?topic=5604.0

Think what you will of it, but I'm dead certain he lied about the stat. So was many others who are very knowledgeable about the game as well. What if he instead of not being able to give an adequate explanation said "oh I still have that video on my computer let me upload it" and gave us a link to a video just like the one I just gave an example of? I was even told that because the stat was so old, contending it might be pointless since he likely wouldn't be around to defend himself. In the end the stat was removed, but it has been like a thorn in my side since I saw it and thinking than you can't disproove it because of silly things like the fact he never submitted any evidence or that he used an emulator it's about as easy to cheat on as it is to use when very much viable, better even, alternatives exist... It makes me feel like there's no point in competing at all.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: SpinDashMaster on January 20, 2014, 08:07:50 pm
This is quickly turning into a desperately subtle chain-BS call. I know it's hard, but try not to turn this into an "omg we need to look at TimpZ's BS calls all over again" thread.

Like, that guy had nothing to do with this discussion like any of the other dudes you've linked.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Don on January 20, 2014, 08:07:59 pm
Okay, so it's really interesting to see all this. Let me share my thoughts - Remember that I am relatively new to speedrunning AND competing, though.

So first, I really do dislike the fact that you can use Emulators that have extended functions - I personally go OUT of the way to use emulators, especially because my PC is bad and can't record properly with most. I use either a capture card with the console and the game or actual PC versions of the games.

Now what I've done for most of the proof I have: Either make a video, hope that people trust me, or save it on the savefile of my console (Sonic Colours) in case I did not record anything.

From what I understand it is not always possible for everyone to record everything, and that's FINE. There are multiple alternatives to not using an Emulator! Heck, there's a LOT of virtual console kinds of things for the genesis games. I even got the Sonic 1 for myself, JUST to compete and make clear that I don't cheat or TAS or whatever. I really dislike cheating and cheaters / BSers.

As for that, I make personally sure i use official versions - for my own and for everyone else's sake.

I want to uphold the honor system, but I really would appreciate a guideline of not using certain emulators. I mean we have tons of rules that we can't exactly FORCE on people, but if they DO post proof that is against those - we have an easier time and suspicions won't arise that quickly. I don't want to have to look at every second stat and think "this might be cheated".

As for Gens/whatever, Fusion has a built in recording option that is very friendly to bad PCs, even I can record with it easily. So recording is NOT an issue, you just need the right codec for it. I just choose to not do it as I am a person that believes in authority, so I want to EARN trust FIRST before I fall victim to just completely RELYING on it.

And we have to rely on the TRUST anyway for most DS-generation and later games, since there's no easy way to prove that anyway. So don't get me wrong, i BELIEVE in the honor system, I truely do.

I just would rather not have to worry about cheated/TASed/BS stats because someone used a wrong tool at the wrong time and everyone become worrywarts and there's just this thick cloud of uncertainty and anger about possibly wrong stats.

Whether its rightfully so or just false, we can't really know. With that, I will not vote for banning or unbanning any emulators, because I feel like I do not understand the issue well enough or do not have the right to do so, as it's for the admins to decide - not some greenhorn that basically just joined.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: TimpZ on January 20, 2014, 08:34:40 pm
This is quickly turning into a desperately subtle chain-BS call. I know it's hard, but try not to turn this into an "omg we need to look at TimpZ's BS calls all over again" thread.

Not that this have anything to do with the discussion, but alright. I have posted 2 BS threads, 1 of which I was the main reason it was started. The first one is about a guy that's being accused of either TASing or using slowdown in an emulator (something one very dedicated TSC user have had to put in a lot of work in order to proove). The second example was about a stat that was "too good to be true" in every aspect of the phrase, but it was uncontested for years and I motivated posting it by explaining the fundamental flaw of your trusted honour system.

I think Don brings up a good point. Given how easy it is to cheat, there's no point in an honour system since you'd never be able to tell the truthful stats from the fake ones to begin with. Something like a trust system, where you earn your credibility is much better. Like I said, I wouldn't have second doubts about Romulo posting a WR time without proof, because he have shown to me he is capable of such a feat. I don't however trust someone who does the same thing with no history in the community, with the game or evidence to back it up (that includes a gens or bizhawk movie in my eyes as well).

In the end, what's even the point of an honour system if you don't trust people? It's just going to build frustration, people jumping the gun on any little piece of possible evidence of cheating and a general discontent with competing in general.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Naegleria on January 21, 2014, 03:42:21 am
options:
1A. Original console only, ban emu and re-releases, require video.

2A. Official releases, ban emu, require video.

3A. Official releases, non-TAS emu allowed, require video.

4A. Official releases, all emu allowed, require video.

5. All releases, all emu, no video required.

1B. Original console only, ban emu and re-releases, video not required.

2B. Official releases, ban emu, video not required.

3B. Official releases, non-TAS emu allowed, video not required.

4B. Official releases, all emu allowed, video not required.
---------------
I think video's should be required; if a time/rank can not be objectively verified by an outsider, then it is useless.

I also think we should ban emu altogether, but since a lot of people bitch about not wanting to get a $15 console, allowing non-TAS emulators should suffice.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Rusty Rom on January 21, 2014, 11:30:11 am
I guess everything about banning emus was already explained in this thread, and of course I vote against any emulation, mostly due to them cursed savestates that make any lazy guy think he's good at something when he didn't spend 1/10 of the time it would take on an actual system.
Naegleria brought up some good options to solve this issue as well. Honor system is just a Republican excuse not to improve the site policies and its proof methods. And I've had some bad experiences with emu players before... and some of them got caught in the act, even with them having good rep with this community.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Gpro on January 21, 2014, 01:07:04 pm
Considering the fact that it's really easy to TAS with Gens, I'd be all for banning using it for emulation.
I also want to point out that when it comes to using Gens, it's really anal with its video stuff, so it makes no sense using it to me, but that's more opinionated :P
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: RigidatoMS on January 21, 2014, 01:29:35 pm
Thanks for  the information, Hyper.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Groudon on January 21, 2014, 04:46:18 pm
I wouldn't mind seeing those emulators banned, but how would we figure out which existing stats used them and which didn't?
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: TimpZ on January 21, 2014, 04:47:52 pm
I wouldn't mind seeing those emulators banned, but how would we figure out which existing stats used them and which didn't?

Well commonly when a law is passed, everyone who broke it before it became law typically doesn't get prosecuted. I trust the same thing would apply here :p.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: TimpZ on January 21, 2014, 07:49:27 pm
Sorry for doubleposting, but this is a big post I took a long time to write and I feel like merging it with the previous one would loose context.

I have not tested every emulator nor do I know of every one in existance. But I can try! Here's a list of all the emulators I've found on the internet with some brief comments. Some are more obvious than others that they're unsuitable for competition (such as Gens Rerecording 11b S3K camera/solidity display hack) and others seems like obvious choices for fair competition.

Here's also a useful guide to deciding on what emulator YOU should use, depending on your computer and preference to accuracy: http://segaretro.org/Comparison_of_Sega_Mega_Drive_emulators


It also seems like I'm not completely alone in my desire to at the very least enforce stricter rules on what emulator can be used. Hopefully after you see a list of them here, others who aren't completely convinced will see my reasoning at least.

Quote
KGen
DOS emulator

KGen98
DOS and Win9X emulator, rewrite of KGen

Kega
Old version of Fusion

Kega Lazarus
Newer version. Added 32x support

Kega Fusion
Latest version of Kega. Focuses on accuracy. Very optimised and features movie recording to AVI.

Gens
Features slowdown and buttonpress recording. Was used to make TASes before other versions with RAM watch, LUA-scripting, frame advance etc were developed.

Gens Movie Test
Early version of Gens rerecording.

Gens Rerecording 11b
Latest version mainly developed by people from TAS videos. Focuses on adding features like the ones in the comments about Gens.

Gens Rerecording11bS1/S2/S3K
Hacked versions of Gens11b that adds new camera functionality and solidity display among other things. Game specific.

Gens Plus!
Gens with added optimisations and graphical/sound features and the like.

DebuGens
Unofficial mod by Fuzzbuzz. Allows for dumping and importing of ROM, RAM and YM2612 channel data. Also features layer/object toggling.

Gens KMod
Mod of Gens to add development/debugging/hacking features.

Gens+ REWiND
Basically Gens+ but with a rewinding feature

Gens/GS
Variant made by our very own GerbilSoft. Adds and improves a bunch of technical stuff.

Gens/GS S2HD edition
Joke about HD rereleases

sGens
Shows a couple variables in real time for S1 and S2

GensM2K
???

DualGens
Developed specifically to compare beta ROMs to final products

Gens Hacking Version
Main functionality is to develop Game Genie and Action Replay codes.

Gens32
Lots of added functionality, including input movie support.

Gens32 Surreal
"Best" version of Gens32? Not sure of chronology but added compatibility and lost of work on sound.

Gens32 Ray
Abandoned(?) update to Surreal.

GNOME Gens
Experimental build of Gens to run with GNOME on Unix/Linux

BeOS Gens
BeOS port of Gens. Apparently runs well.

BizHawk
Multiplatform emulator, Genesis emu is work in progress but SMS and GG works fine. Not sure if specifically designed for TASing or not but certainly with it in mind. Lots of powerful options similar to Gens rerecording.

Ages
Focuses on "speedy" emulation. Can record and playback "demo files".

RetroCopy
"Extremely accurate" according to itself. Features a virtual 3D rendered room where both video and games can be displayed on a virtual TV.

RetroDrive
Formerly known as GENSX and VEGAS. First public 32X emulator, not sure about Genesis functionality.

HazeMD
Built on MAME (arcade emulator) focused on accurate emulation of all Genesis games, including unlicensced or pirated games. Integrated into MESS

MESS
Emulation project dedicated to emulate every home console and computer ever created in a very accurate way. Mostly inferior to dedicated emulators.

DGen/SDL
Typical emulator from the looks of it. Alse features a debugger for M68k. Discontinued.

DGen -not the above-
BeOS emulator that is "not a port of DGen"....?

Syn-Z
PSP port of DGen

Regen
Aims for maximum accuracy. Supports a lot of things and has a lot of neat features, even the same savestates as Fusion/Gens.

Genesis Plus
One of the most accurate emulators. Not many other features. Has been ported to GC, Wii and DC

Genecyst
DOS emulator. Got some cool features like real time VRAM/palette viewing but obsolete otherwise.

Genem
DOS/Win9X emulator. Buggy and obsolete

Generator/Generator32
Lots of programming shortcuts. Features a port to Amiga called AmiGenerator. Obsolete.

Megadrive
DOS.First public emulator? Capable of playing Sonic the hedgheog very slowly with no sound and many glitches, and it can do very little else.

Megasis
Features over- and underclocking, not much else noteworthy.

st0rm
DOS. It has bad emulation, most games don't work and there's no sound emulation at all.

VGEN (Virtual Genesis)
DOS. Some debugging options. Obsolete.

Triton (Formerly Xega)
Decent? Probably discontinued. Obsolete.

Genital
Bad emulator. Discontinued.

XGenEM
Apparently discontinued emulator for Unix/Linux. Features speed up.

Pocket Genesis
Emulator for PocketPC, Compaq iPAQ, and Casio Cassiopeia

PSPGenesis
PSP emulator. Nothing noteworthy

GenaDrive
Xbox and windows emulator. Bad.

PicoDrive
Pocket PC emulator later ported to PSP, DS (PicoDriveDS), iPhone (genesis4iphone)

Gensoid
Android emulator. Features savestates and fast forward.

MD.emu
Android. Based on PicoDrive, Gens, Plus etc. Not free.

TigerGens
Android. Savestates. Wiimote support.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: CrypticJacknife on January 22, 2014, 06:19:51 am
Hairy issue we have here for sure, this news of so many TAS-ready equipped emulators is worrying.

The older systems certainly require some type of monitoring. Even extremes similiar to the idea of a SDA-approved DOSbox would be useful, but let's face it, we are far too deep into competition to introduce something like that without stepping on many many toes for it to work. Many, MANY people know much more about the workings and progression of these emulators features than I do, so I will hold my tongue here on this.

I don't know about BizHawk, but wouldn't Gens be widely used enough to have a significant amount of records pulled even by proven legitimate runners? (nvm they will be grandfathered I've been told). I always thought that was a popular one, could be wrong though. Also, would this not result in extra infrastructure to note what emulator was used in any submitted stats?
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: SpinDashMaster on January 23, 2014, 09:27:32 am
The thing about Gens Plus (which is what I use) is that it has one nice implication for it's .giz recording functionality.

It also has no direct TAS functionality. Savestates cannot be used while recording, because the .giz only records controller input. The only way someone could possibly cheat with Gens Plus is a frame-advance while freezing the emulator. Note that even to do that, you would need to hold whatever controller buttons are necessary throughout the pause. This form of cheating through the emulator would thereby be very easy to detect.

Not trying to rock the boat in one way or the other anymore because I have more important things to worry about at the moment. I just want you guys to know the reliability that I've had in Gens Plus.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: SB737 on January 28, 2014, 01:06:22 pm
Looks like it's time to hear a Gens11 emulator user's point of view on the matter:

So the way this topic is going I'm getting the general implication that people are taking the view of what's the point of using an emulator with TAS functionality, when their are perfectly good alternatives?
Well the reason I use Gens11, is due to its GMV functionality, which is very useful for recording videos (if I wasn't gonna record a video than an emulator that can use savestates to put at the start fo levels would be enough for me), if I record without a GMV and use the emulators built in screen recorder on a screen recorder or whatever then this has a few disadvantages -
1) It uses up quite alot of space on my HDD, however granted you could just regularly delete the video files, however the beauty of a GMv file is that I can do as many attempts as I want for as long as I want, and the finished product? - a file of just a few kb in size - so much more eficient, and this functionality also outweighs Gens+ as you have to reload the savestate and then start the .giz recording again, which, for speed running where lots of attempts happen every 30 seconds or so, leads to a lot of repetitivity.
2) If I use Gens11 built in AVI recording function then I do find that the emulator does tend to lag somewhat and drop frames, making it difficult to play. Perhaps other emulators dont have that problem, although with fusion I had trouble with the output recording, sometimes it didnt encode correctly and it was unwatchable, however that may be something to do with the codec used?

I did for a period try to use official consoles for speed runnning and recording, however I found it difficult, mainly because I've grown used to the controller I used on PC, I totally suck at GC/SMD spindashes lol. So I also tried Sonic Mega Collection Plus on my PC, however because my PC was Windows 7 the specs were too high so it didn't work well at all, like none of the menu writing came up and stuff. But anyway I'm going off topic a little, the point was returning to emulators was so much nicer, for speed running, mainly for the recording, much simpler, quicker and easier.

Banning these emulators would be a massive change to TSC, and I know you're saying that we wouldn't delete stats that use these emulators from the past, however their is a rule that says something along the lines of "any stats submitted before a rule is placed that violate that rule are void" (I forget the exact wording), so if we want to keep consistency across TSC then all previous stats would need to be deleted using emulators, which is a pretty much impossible task.

I know how you feel timpz, it frustrates me too to see stats and think they must be BS, but having no way to prove it, I've come across stats like that myself that still stand, yet there's no real proff against them. :V

So personally I vote to not ban emulators, and that's my reasoning, I can't help feel that I've missed something that i was gonna say, so I might post again/edit this. So that's where I stand on the matter at least, and maybe other people who use these emulators feel the same.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: TimpZ on January 28, 2014, 04:12:06 pm
First of all I feel like I need to repeat myself. I am not saying emulators should be banned, nor do I think that you can't submit times using an emulator like Gens Rerecording 11b. However, if you are competing with these kind of emulators, having a youtube video recorded with one should not count as evidence should you be called out.

If someone makes a BS call, linking to a youtube video of a gens recording is not proof at all because cheating tools are readily available, thus there's no real point in recording such videos for pure competition purpouses.

Secondly, ANY emulator that features input recordings and playback is susceptible to TASing because all it is, is inputs. This is especially a problem for e.g. Gens Plus since TASing on other Gens variants is so popular. I do not know much about the Ages demo file playback nor about the emulator itself, but if you were to convert a Gens TAS file to Ages I wouldn't be surprised if it desynched. With Gens Plus however I wasn't so sure.

It also has no direct TAS functionality. Savestates cannot be used while recording, because the .giz only records controller input. The only way someone could possibly cheat with Gens Plus is a frame-advance while freezing the emulator.

I went ahead and tested this, with good results (or bad depending on how you see it). Converting a Gens Rerecoding 11b TAS file to Gens Plus input movies is surprisingly easy once you know what you're doing. The first time I did it, it took me about 3 hours. The second time it took me 1 minute. The process can easily be streamlined and is not complicated at all (although I will not detail the process here). The following is Marzojr and Aglar's S3K S&T TAS that's currently on TASvideos, in GIR format playable on Gens Plus: https://www.dropbox.com/s/6rahfjbpuwi8108/marzojr3-knsonic3.gir

Note: It synchs perfectly but it stops in SO1 because Gens Plus has a #frames in the header while Gens Rerecording doesnt and I haven't bothered to figure out the syntax of it and just put in an arbitrary high number.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: SpinDashMaster on January 28, 2014, 06:51:35 pm
And can this process be replicated using, say, a .giz as the target file type (which embeds a savestate at the beginning)?
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Cream147 on January 28, 2014, 06:53:45 pm
One of the attractions of this website is the openness of the rules compared to other similar websites, the so-called "honour system" or what have you. Lose that and this website loses one of its USP's. However, with things the way they are, I've always felt an undercurrent of mistrust throughout the community that from time to time, gets proved right when people are caught out.

For this reason, if it can help give this site's records a bit of authenticity, and give people more peace of mind, then I would say that I'm for this move of banning emulators with TAS features, as long as there are enough emulators out there that people are still able to use them to compete in all the games they are currently commonly used to compete (Genesis, Game Gear, GBA I would think being the crucial ones) on the main OS's. Make the rules too restrictive and we risk sucking the life out of the competition on these games, but I would have thought the necessary emulators do exist (With Fusion being given as the example that works for Genesis and Game Gear).

Obviously I'm against the retrospective removal of stats using the banned emulators - that would be total chaos and would also involve the removal of pretty much all of my Sonic 1 stats, done using Gens (though if I TASed those stats I did a pretty horrible job of TASing). SonicBoom mentions another TAS rule that says "Note that if a new rule is enacted, anything already submitted in violation of that rule is void.". What this proves is that to every rule there should be an exception, and this is it.

So my opinion is, make sure that enough viable emualators exist such that we're not essentially banning emulators here, and then go for it. This is a small (and obvious) point, but I would say it would be far better to have a whitelist of legal emulators rather than a banlist if this is the way we choose to go, for practical reasons.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: TimpZ on January 28, 2014, 08:41:17 pm
And can this process be replicated using, say, a .giz as the target file type (which embeds a savestate at the beginning)?

Gens rerecording saves savestates differently from Gens plus, so it's not as easy as from a reset. However, that doesn't mean it's impossible. You could easily create a level select in Gens plus, recreate those inputs in Gens rerecording 11b (#frames is all that matters from start of a level if even that), create a TAS after that and port it to Gens +.

I'll work on it for a bit and then post a proof of concept if I can make one. If I'm unable to create it I'd be fine with accepting videos for Gens given a GIZ from savestate is provided.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Parax on January 28, 2014, 10:20:34 pm
Something I brought up on IRC a while ago that might bear repeating here - if we're going to ban Gens/Bizhawk, why stop at that? Why not ban Dolphin, DeSmuME, Visual Boy Advance, and any other emulators that have TASing features for other systems? The Genesis and Gamegear aren't the only systems that you can TAS on.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: TimpZ on January 29, 2014, 03:17:05 am
There are also emulators for other consoles like Dolphin where there are no viable alternatives. I wouldn't call emulators for consoles like gamecube my area of expertise so all I'm suggesting right now regards the Sega Genesis games. However if someone else have any input regarding those then feel free to jump in with your thoughs.

The key difference here is that there are viable alternatives to Gens as opposed to Gamecube. It's not an unreasonable demand.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Parax on January 29, 2014, 03:27:08 am
Could the actual console not be considered a viable alternative? :P It seems weird to say some emulators aren't allowed because you can TAS on them, but others are fine even though they have the same TASing features simply because there's no emulators without those features. It puts us in the same awkward position of allowing times that couldn't possibly be proven beyond any doubt either way. The recent thread with supersonic917 is a good example of this.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Zeupar on January 29, 2014, 06:02:03 am
Could the actual console not be considered a viable alternative? :P It seems weird to say some emulators aren't allowed because you can TAS on them, but others are fine even though they have the same TASing features simply because there's no emulators without those features. It puts us in the same awkward position of allowing times that couldn't possibly be proven beyond any doubt either way. The recent thread with supersonic917 is a good example of this.

That's sensible reasoning, so I think we should be responsible and take this suggestion:

if we're going to ban Gens/Bizhawk, why stop at that? Why not ban Dolphin, DeSmuME, Visual Boy Advance, and any other emulators that have TASing features for other systems?
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Cream147 on January 29, 2014, 08:13:19 am
Something I brought up on IRC a while ago that might bear repeating here - if we're going to ban Gens/Bizhawk, why stop at that? Why not ban Dolphin, DeSmuME, Visual Boy Advance, and any other emulators that have TASing features for other systems? The Genesis and Gamegear aren't the only systems that you can TAS on.

To be honest, I kind of thought this was a given if we went through with this. With regards to finding alternatives, yes, you're right when you say that the actual console is an alternative, but as a random example, let's just guess that about 50% of the stats submitted for the GBA games are on VBA. If there wasn't an alternative to VBA after it had been banned, that would risk stifling competition on the GBA games quite a lot. Perhaps that's the price you pay for legitimacy, but it seems to be against the general ethos of the website.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Don on January 29, 2014, 08:20:07 am
Okay, so here's an even weirder thing:

There are emulators on hacked consoles. You can't TAS on them; does that mean they would be a viable alternative to computer emulators? Or do we have to do experiments for that?

I mean, let's not forget: Windows is not the only system that supports emulation of another system. For Example: I could emulate Sonic Advance on my Wii because i have the necessary emulator. It's a different kind of VBA, but it's on console so it's functions are VERY, VERY limited.

Obviously that kind of alternative would require another, different console. It's an alternative none the less, if you don't have the actual game but want to compete, isn't it?
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Zeupar on January 29, 2014, 09:51:53 am
If there wasn't an alternative to VBA after it had been banned, that would risk stifling competition on the GBA games quite a lot. Perhaps that's the price you pay for legitimacy, but it seems to be against the general ethos of the website.

There are a few good alternatives (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Game_Boy_Advance_emulators).
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Brian on January 29, 2014, 04:00:10 pm
Something I brought up on IRC a while ago that might bear repeating here - if we're going to ban Gens/Bizhawk, why stop at that? Why not ban Dolphin, DeSmuME, Visual Boy Advance, and any other emulators that have TASing features for other systems? The Genesis and Gamegear aren't the only systems that you can TAS on.
I'm not a Genesis speedrunner, but since Paraxade brought this point I want to say that I think it's totally fair and not harmful to ban submissions from TASable emulators, unless there's a clear way of saying if a video is a TAS or not. It works for the better, and I'm sure that people can find new ways of recording their runs, which is the only "problem" I can see here, since in theory, switching to another emulator shouldn't change the gameplay of any game.

Also, there's no way that past submissions would be erased if a ban is raised, I think that wouldn't be a good thing to do.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: TimpZ on January 30, 2014, 12:29:30 am
And can this process be replicated using, say, a .giz as the target file type (which embeds a savestate at the beginning)?

LOOK GUYS I GOT A 23 GH1!!! And 13 GH2! And then TeeNTee's TAS desynched because a badnik was in a different position since I used a savestate while he did it from hard reset causing Sonic to die. Anyway here you go, a proof of concept: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ivdgv2w7dq5927c/s1%20TAS%20test.giz (Note: Use revision 01 or it will desynch in GH2 because of a difference in lag frames when loading the level).


It puts us in the same awkward position of allowing times that couldn't possibly be proven beyond any doubt either way. The recent thread with supersonic917 is a good example of this.

So basically you're saying that just because you could TAS the same way on Gamecube or Wii (although it's a lot more complicated to get it to synch properly) that we shouldn't take precautions for other consoles where a ban on a specific type of emulators would be a big help against BS:ers like the example you just posted? What?

Do you also think that just because you can't stop murders simply by outlawing weapons, that people should be allowed to have handguns with them at all times? Oh wait, bad example, you're from the US :p.

Anyway I don't follow your logic. The only implications of such a rule would be that if you get called out for getting fantasy times, you can't point to a video made on a TAS emulator, for cases where there's no real reason to such as Genesis.


let's just guess that about 50% of the stats submitted for the GBA games are on VBA. If there wasn't an alternative to VBA after it had been banned, that would risk stifling competition on the GBA games quite a lot.

That is why I'm not suggesting that. Though it should be discussed as well just as Zeupar mentioned, it's nothing I know much about and thus I didn't bring up those emulators myself.


I could emulate Sonic Advance on my Wii because i have the necessary emulator. It's a different kind of VBA, but it's on console so it's functions are VERY, VERY limited.

One of the limitations are inaccurate emulation. That shit lags like hell and wouldn't be allowed in the first place.

Console or not console doesn't matter. It's the functionality of the emulators that are being discussed and I believe some of those functions don't have any place to be judged upon on a serious site focused on speedrunning. It'd be like me using Mupen64 to do runs of OoT and then just upload videos on YT. You think anyone in the zelda community would believe me if I got a record :p? Yes, I know we're not the zelda community but the point still stands.


Brian, no past records wouldn't get erased in theory. All I'm suggesting is that you can't use such a video as verification. Otherwise I could just as well get all the records using the method demonstrated at the start of this post.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Parax on January 30, 2014, 12:38:40 am
It puts us in the same awkward position of allowing times that couldn't possibly be proven beyond any doubt either way. The recent thread with supersonic917 is a good example of this.

So basically you're saying that just because you could TAS the same way on Gamecube or Wii (although it's a lot more complicated to get it to synch properly) that we shouldn't take precautions for other consoles where a ban on a specific type of emulators would be a big help against BS:ers like the example you just posted? What?

Do you also think that just because you can't stop murders simply by outlawing weapons, that people should be allowed to have handguns with them at all times? Oh wait, bad example, you're from the US :p.

Anyway I don't follow your logic. The only implications of such a rule would be that if you get called out for getting fantasy times, that you can't point to a video made on a TAS emulator, for cases where there's no real reason to such as Genesis.

That's what we call a straw man. I never said that we shouldn't take precautions, and hell, I didn't even mean it as a reason why we shouldn't ban Gens and Bizhawk. I said that if we ban Gens and Bizhawk then we should also ban other emulators on other systems that have TASing features. Good job responding to arguments I never made and making assumptions about my position on completely unrelated issues.

I'm confused what you're arguing for, though. Do you want us to ban those emulators from submissions or do you just want us to not consider runs done on them to be acceptable proof in the event someone gets called out? Because the former makes sense, but I don't understand the point of the latter because there's no hard rules for what qualifies as acceptable proof anyway. We already determine that on a case by case basis. Plus if we allow those stats on the site in the first place, then if someone gets accused there's really nothing they can do to clear their name, and we like to give the accused a fair chance to prove themselves, so that won't work.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: TimpZ on January 30, 2014, 03:15:34 am
Call a straw? The analogy might've been in poor taste and I apologise if you took offence in some way. But it still stands true to how I interpreted your post, which is pretty much the polar opposite of what you wrote just now. Either way, banning TASing emulators for other consoles (or not) should have no effect on banning them for Genesis since the pool of emulators and accuracy of emulation differs so much.

When I originally wrote the topic, I did it with the mindset that I thought that Gens shouldn't be used in competition at all. However I realised that wouldn't work since most submissions are without proof. Hell, I barely even submit comments for my stuff a lot of the time. There's no way to tell what emulator was used if there's no recording of it so it's a void argument in the same way there's no way to tell if debug was used to obtain a time or score.

However, in the case where a user gets called out for a stat and provides a link to a youtube video or similar, I would not say a run done on Gens for example should be sufficient. If allowed, it will only lead to arguments like the supersonic917 one. Remove the variable of possible TASing and there's no problem.

The key here is the value of proof. Yes, it's judged on case by case basis, but I would argue a video with hand-cam with accompanying video of the original console weighs more as proof than an encoded Gens video. Making it clear that the latter won't be accepted should erase a lot of doubt in the process of verification.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Parax on January 30, 2014, 03:26:45 am
Then you interpreted my post wrong. What you replied to is not what I said or meant at all.

Yeah, I don't get this. So you're saying we should allow the emulators in competition, but not allow videos made with said emulators as proof?

So say someone gets a good time using Gens, and records their run. This is perfectly allowed. Then someone has doubts about it, and the person gets called out. They've got a recording of the perfectly TSC-legal run they did, but apparently this isn't sufficient proof? What else are they supposed to do then? We won't take the emulator video. Nothing they can do on Gens proves they didn't TAS. They can rerecord it on console or a different emulator, but this wouldn't be considered acceptable proof either because it was done after the BS call was made. There's nothing they can do to prove they got their stat fairly, which by your rules would mean an automatic ban - all this despite the fact that the user didn't actually break a single rule.

Do you see why this is problematic? We can't just say "it's fine to submit stats with Gens, but Gens videos aren't sufficient proof".
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Zeupar on January 30, 2014, 07:19:04 am
First of all, please moderate your tone, TimpZ. One should be clever enough to realize that, sometimes, irony, sarcasm, caps, etc., make it harder to take them (and their ideas) seriously.

When I originally wrote the topic, I did it with the mindset that I thought that Gens shouldn't be used in competition at all.

I want to make it clear that I like the suggestion you made in your first post in this topic and still support it. However, the idea that we should allow emulators for competition but not to prove the result of said competition is ridiculous.

Quote
However I realised that wouldn't work since most submissions are without proof. There's no way to tell what emulator was used if there's no recording of it so it's a void argument in the same way there's no way to tell if debug was used to obtain a time or score.

You yourself unwittingly pointed to the flaw in your own reasoning by bringing up the use of debug mode, which we have forbid for a decade now.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: TimpZ on January 30, 2014, 10:54:18 am
I can't moderate my tone if I don't see where I have been aggressive or profane other than possibly one bad joke in poor taste (which I excused for) so you need to point out specifics if you think it's something that should be considered a problem in my argumentation throughout.

I personally don't see a problem a big problem with not allowing proving your stats while still allowing the use of the emulator other than consistency.

Let's say you're playing Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and get a 17 Emerald Hill 1. There are several ways to achieve this (very few non-cheating), the easiest being enabling level select and use the "increase frame" function some seconds before the goal.

Now let's say you want to submit this time. If you simply post a photo then that wouldn't be considered sufficient proof because there's too many easy ways to cheat and the time is unreasonably hard to get. I want Gens to fall under this same type of low-level proof if it is to have any credibility at all.

If it states in the rules that Gens cannot be used for verification should you get called out but due to the honour system in place using it for submissions is fine since we assume all stats are correct to begin with, then I don't see any problems at all. Using Gens would be equal to playing on a real console without recording. If someone would BS it doesn't matter if they're on emulator or console, if they have no acceptable proof they get banned. Therefore we should make clear that recordings from such emulators won't be accepted.

However, the idea that we should allow emulators for competition but not to prove the result of said competition is ridiculous.

I see your logic and I agree to a large extent. However like someone pointed out this would void any previous stats done on Gens which I think is valid complaint but not a reason not to implement it in the future. When a law is passed, you don't get punished in retrospect and if the same thing would apply here I would change my stance back to my original one.


EDIT: Parax brings a valid point about automatic bans even if you follow the rules. He is right about this being a problem and I don't have an argument against at this point.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: SpinDashMaster on January 30, 2014, 12:38:56 pm
Using Gens would be equal to playing on a real console without recording. If someone would BS it doesn't matter if they're on emulator or console, if they have no acceptable proof they get banned. Therefore we should make clear that recordings from such emulators won't be accepted.

However, the idea that we should allow emulators for competition but not to prove the result of said competition is ridiculous.

I see your logic and I agree to a large extent.

Huh?

Let me just make clear why we accept these videos from emulators even if they can be TAS'd. Zeupar already excellently made this point clear, but I just want to add a little more detail. It is a simple expansion of the honor system. If you trust a player to submit a stat without recording, and you trust that player to submit a stat without recording, it follows that a video submission from the same actions should also be assumed trusted, regardless of if you can bring even Jesus in to intervene for you to help you TAS the game.

No doubt, there's ways to go about the system and find ways to cheat, and make it look spotless on a recording. No matter how many rules and edicts we put in place, it's always going to happen. While I understand your intent, this rule would simply implement far more hindrance on players and reduce several convenience factors on fair players, while not really doing much to the general state of affairs.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Cream147 on January 30, 2014, 02:50:00 pm
No doubt, there's ways to go about the system and find ways to cheat, and make it look spotless on a recording. No matter how many rules and edicts we put in place, it's always going to happen.

Just because we will never be able to stop cheating does not mean that we shouldn't make rules that make it harder to cheat. Perhaps this is a fair argument to not ban Gens+ because it would seem to be fairly difficult (or at least require a fair amount of technical knowledge) to cheat using it. However, cheating using the TAS features on Gens right now seems to be downright easy to me. Certainly easy enough for myself to do it, and easy enough that people have been caught cheating this way from time to time.

Also, yes, TSC does operate using the honour system. However, when video proof is requested, it seems to me that the honour system has stopped there because the person's integrity has been questioned (if only in a small way). When you have suspicions of someone, and then the proof given is a video that could very easily have been TASed, I can see why it might be hard to shake those suspicions off.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Brian on January 30, 2014, 04:23:10 pm
Just keep it simple, ban the TASable emulators and everything will be fine. It's plain troublesome to allow submissions from those emulators but not accept videos from them as proof, it's really stupid IMHO, so I think that idea should be totally discarded.

And it really doesn't matter too much if there'll be ways of TASing a run and submit it as non-TAS if it'll be a much harder process. These people most likely are too lazy to be able to do that, because that's partially the reason behind their actions, at least as I see it. So banning these emulators won't necessarily make legit people stop submitting, but will get rid of trouble with this kind of scrub that likes to cheat in order to look good on the charts.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Inuyasha on January 30, 2014, 05:25:19 pm
Everyone here is being idiotic.

Banning TASable emulators involves banning all open-source emulators.  Banning open-source emulators is the opposite of what you should be doing if you want people to use good, accurate emulators; most of the people I've seen nowadays encourage making emulators open-source so that the community can get involved and assist with fixing emulation issues and adding to the emulator's feature set.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Ben on February 01, 2014, 01:00:29 pm
Dunno about anyone else but knowing most people use emulators in the older games really put me off ever bothering to compete in them on TSC. If someone puts that much time and effort into a game, surely they can just buy the relevant game/console and play it legitimately?

As for newer hardware like the DS and Gamecube, there is really no excuse for resorting to emulation. Those consoles are readily available and there are loads of options for recording your runs.

Quote
One of the reasons TSC came up in the first place was an intent to distinguish a competitive community apart from Cyberscore, where players often would get banned or have stats removed without being given a chance to prove oneself.

Really? First time I've heard of that.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Groudon on February 01, 2014, 01:12:05 pm
As for newer hardware like the DS and Gamecube, there is really no excuse for resorting to emulation. Those consoles are readily available and there are loads of options for recording your runs.

I can only think of 2 for DS games, which doesn't sound like "loads of options" to me.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Cream147 on February 01, 2014, 01:18:50 pm
Dunno about anyone else but knowing most people use emulators in the older games really put me off ever bothering to compete in them on TSC.

Why? That's simply absurd. I have a Mega Drive and all the Sonics on it, but for reasons of convenience I would usually choose to compete via an emulator. I don't get the issue - you can still get all the same times on a console. Some of my times were in fact set on console. It's unimportant.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: SB737 on February 02, 2014, 07:17:24 am
Whilst I find using an emulator like gens more convenient, I realise that TSC will probably benfit more from banning emulators with TASing functionality readily available, at the end of the day, and I'm sure everyone feels this way, I'd rather be competing on a site knowing that all the competiton is legit (or at least more likely to be), rather than competing against lots of iffy stats, with the only benefit being a little convenience, and at the end of the day, fusion does a decent enough job at emulating.

So yer my outlook on the matter has changed a little. I'm more neutral on the matter, but if it's for the best for TSC, then maybe it's the way to go.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Werey on February 02, 2014, 07:27:38 am
^ but you still have no indication everythings legit even if that rule was banned, so...
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: InferSaime on February 02, 2014, 08:20:22 am
I geuss I could say my opinion on this. I'm neutral about this at one side banning the emulators is a good thing but by doing that you have all those that are done on those emulators already so it seems kinda pointless to me. And some people might not want to compete anymore if they can't compete on a specific emulator or no emulator at all.
Also if you're going to be ban some emulators wouldn't it be better to ban every emulator? It just seems a bit stupid to only ban some specific ones where the TAS features are easily available.

But if I would have to choice between banning or not banning them. I would vote for banning them.

Oh also why aren't Dolphin and other gamecube and DS emulators banned in the first place?
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Parax on February 02, 2014, 08:26:16 am
Also if you're going to be ban some emulators wouldn't it be better to ban every emulator? It just seems a bit stupid to only ban some specific ones where the TAS features are easily available.

Banning all emulators is what makes the most sense to me, and if we were starting from scratch that's what I'd vote for, but it seems kinda pointless at this point. Plus there'd be so much backlash.

Even aside from TAS, they introduce tons of legitimacy issues, like whether the emulator is accurate or running at full speed.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Brian on February 02, 2014, 09:41:30 am
C'mon guys see the point please, this discussion is to determine if it's good or not to ban TASable emulators just because in the case of a video being asked as proof, the person won't have such an easy time faking a TAS. So even if you'll have no real insurance that the stat is legit, if someone gets called, the guy won't have an "easy way out".

And no InferSaime, it's not pointless to ban these but leave the old stats on the charts because this will do no harm to the competition that has been going on until now, but will get rid of some possible BS on the future, which is better than a complete wipeout, what should be out of question for me, or just leaving the matter the way it is now, at least for me, even though I don't compete on any genesis game.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: RigidatoMS on February 02, 2014, 11:06:20 am
This is going too far. My true opinion is that this topic is nothing more than a lose for TSC. TimpZ,  if I was an admin, I should close this topic, because there's no rule for banning specific emulators. And why are there emulators? Because some people don't have the console, so they install emulators to play. If they are TASable, that will not affect nothing if they can load a game in full speed. If a proof is needed, there's a simple way to avoid fake videos: not letting them to record with the emulator or screen recorders. To show the proof recorded, use a camera or a cellular phone and play in windowed mode. And how many emulators exist for playing Wii on PC? One, and TASable. The probable banning of emulators will affect negatively the competition of this site. The players can choose freely the games and where they will play it, in console or in emulator, to compete. And this rule: if a new rule is enacted, anything already submitted in violation of that rule is void.
I believe a lot of guys in TSC played in TASable and non-TASable emulators, so that's a problem. That's all for now, because I don't have a excellent english
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Parax on February 02, 2014, 11:20:05 am
To be honest I'm still not entirely convinced things aren't fine enough the way they are now. I know it's not a perfect solution, particularly because it doesn't inspire confidence from the outside looking in, but we've been able to do a pretty good job identifying TASers by picking out little clues from their videos before. I dunno, allowing people to actually present something as proof and then actually looking at it and evaluating how likely it is to be legitimate instead of just immediately writing it off as inadmissable seems more sensible and fair to me.

Inuyasha also brought up a valid point that no one's responded to about emulators with TAS features also tending to be the most accurate ones because they're open-source. I'm no emulator expert here but if anyone wants to list some highly accurate, closed-source emulators without TAS features, be my guest. Inaccurate emulators are just as bad as emulators that facilitate cheating.

Quote
If a proof is needed, there's a simple way to avoid fake videos: not letting them to record with the emulator or screen recorders. To show the proof recorded, use a camera or a cellular phone and play in windowed mode.

Um, you do realize it's trivial to record a video and then play it back and record the recording on a camera, right? That does absolutely nothing.

By the way guys, just for the record - if a rule change does happen as a result of this thread, anything submitted before the date of this particular rule would be grandfathered in. I'm not interested in scouring the site to find every single stat that was run on an illegal emulator over the last decade, and so far I haven't heard any volunteers. :P Yeah, it's a general rule that new rules render old stats in violation of the new rule void - we can make an exception. Not a big deal.

EDIT: Something similar to what Infersaime brought up on IRC a while ago - maybe what would make more sense is adding tighter restrictions to emulator stats. Like for example, say that all stats done on an emulator are required to have a video/emulator movie file attached. That would still allow people to run on emulators while also making it a bit easier to catch out cheaters.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: RigidatoMS on February 02, 2014, 11:48:49 am
Quote
Quote
If a proof is needed, there's a simple way to avoid fake videos: not letting them to record with the emulator or screen recorders. To show the proof recorded, use a camera or a cellular phone and play in windowed mode.

Um, you do realize it's trivial to record a video and then play it back and record the recording on a camera, right? That does absolutely nothing.
Wrong. If they want to record it, they may be playing it. No playbacks.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: fastnaturedude on February 02, 2014, 12:33:02 pm
It would be splitting hairs and pissing off a lot of people if we simply banned emulators that had TAS capability (Heck, I even know about a method where one could pseudo-TAS through Gens Plus).
I don't recall "it would be an unpopular decision" ever being a motive for whether or not to add/change a rule in the past here.

For what it's worth, I'm all for banning whatever TAS-capable emulators we need to, because I actually own at least one physical or digital copy of every Sonic game I own <_< All the classic Sonic games and quite a few of the new ones are easy to get on Steam, and they go on sale for ridiculously low prices very often.

Aside from actually buying Sonic games, I suppose an approach TSC could take would be to sort of adopt an unofficial official Genesis emulator for everyone to use for competition? I dunno, I'm not a high-up Genesis game competitor or anything, just throwing in my two cents. I'd much rather be a little inconvenienced with an emulator that doesn't have some nifty feature than have anyone be able to TAS a run...
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Brian on February 02, 2014, 12:34:47 pm
I actually thought about the same idea Infersaime had, but I thought that most people would say that by doing this you'll get less people to submit stats since some won't want to bother recording their runs or some BS like that. But I really think it's a very good idea. One more thing is that banning TASable emulators for a given platform is something that should only be done if there's any other candidates that can run the game flawlessly, otherwise it's obvious that it wouldn't be good. Last thing is the fact that old consoles have tons of options of emulators, so I don't really think that there'll be no emulator that can run the games without emulation problems but doesn't have any TAS features.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: TimpZ on February 04, 2014, 09:47:43 am
Huh?

I don't see your problem. The first paragraph you quoted comes from me proposing a rule that would allow people to use whatever emulator they choose, even put videos on youtube for their fans or whatever, while not giving them the benefit of using very simple methods to cheat if they get called out.

The second paragraph is me aknowledging the fact that it might seem silly to allow the use of an emulator but not using it for proof, even backfiring on legit players. However I do think that no'one in their right mind trying to prove their legitimacy would use a tool so readily available for cheating in the first place when good alternative solutions exist. And if allowed, should put the provider of proof at a disadvantageus position in some form which would need to be formulated among the rules.


If you trust a player to submit a stat without recording, and you trust that player to submit a stat without recording, it follows that a video submission from the same actions should also be assumed trusted, regardless of if you can bring even Jesus in to intervene for you to help you TAS the game.

No doubt, there's ways to go about the system and find ways to cheat, and make it look spotless on a recording. No matter how many rules and edicts we put in place, it's always going to happen. While I understand your intent, this rule would simply implement far more hindrance on players and reduce several convenience factors on fair players, while not really doing much to the general state of affairs.

Huh?

This is why I changed my initial stand point slightly. If I trust someone with their stats I honestly wouldn't care if they used Gens Rerecording or not. It's not a question to begin with since no explicit proof is necessary at all. But if they do fall under the radar, they shouldn't be able to slip away so easily if they do use for example Gens Rerecording 11b.

The second part makes it sound like laws shouldn't be enforced, because there will always be criminals. There's always a balance between too few rules and too many since you don't want it to be easy to cheat but you don't want to make it hard to compete. I personally don't think that banning a TASable emulator (for Genesis at least) from competition would provide such a hassle that someone wouldn't bother to compete at all, while being completely ineffective at stifling cheaters.

The only person I've heard complain about that so far is Sonicboom and he even said he would accept such a minor inconveniance if it would help the site in general to catch cheaters. As for your case, I don't know enough about your setup but it initially seems there are a few ways you could improve your setup for doing attempts, while not using Gens, without paying a dime.

There are also some tradeoffs you could do. For example if you're so desperate about using GensPlus or its record/replaying features, provide a community savestate on the level select and tell people that you must load that first, then create a giz. Synching a Gens Rerecording TAS to GensPlus from a savestate was fairly hard but was made a lot easier because I could create the starting point myself. If someone were to not use it there are ways to tell I'm pretty sure at least given someone creates a giz within a few minutes (or hours? Days?) and always loads the savestate before going into a level.


Inuyasha also brought up a valid point that no one's responded to about emulators with TAS features also tending to be the most accurate ones because they're open-source. I'm no emulator expert here but if anyone wants to list some highly accurate, closed-source emulators without TAS features, be my guest. Inaccurate emulators are just as bad as emulators that facilitate cheating.

Just like converting a TAS to a non-TAS emulator with replaying features is a bit of work, rewriting the source for one to include such a feature is a lot of work for something as simple as submitting a stat for this site. There has to be some form of line where the amount of work to cheat is considered unreasonable. You could disassemble the game, hack an input-player in and put a TAS in a table that executes when you hold B while going into a level which plays a TAS that was made with certain timer values in mind which are written in RAM at the start of the level, then buy a flashcart and play on a real console. But no'one would question something like that unless it's obviously TASed because that amount of work to get it going would be completely unreasonable for the achieved result. There are currently no restrictions on what emulator a person is using except the obvious like reasonable accuracy, full speed etc. Given the amount of work I had to put in I don't think it's a stretch to ban for example GIR's (that don't use savestates) while banning Regen (which I think is closed source?) if it is released open source some day would be.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: SpinDashMaster on February 04, 2014, 11:58:55 am
Yeah... I'm about done with the walls of text loaded with straw man/slippery slope/hasty generalization fallacies left and right coming from TimpZ.

The bottom line is this: you either ban all emulation outright or you don't. Anything in between is an awkward attempt to make ends that partially justify the means.

In other words, take your hand out of the cookie jar when you're discussing this, please.

Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: TimpZ on February 04, 2014, 04:13:45 pm
Maybe you should start pointing out the flaws in my post instead of relying on generalising my arguments as "hasty generalisations". Personal attacks gets you nowhere in an argument.

I strongly disagree with your statement that emulators are a do or don't. It's not all black and white, a gray area exist that I believe should be discussed. Or maybe you feel like if all emulators would be banned, all the official ones should be banned as well on GC, PS2, PS3, XBOX, XBOX360, Steam etc... That's a gray area right there.

But I believe I've repeated myself enough in this thread so I'm done posting for now unless something new comes up.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: SpinDashMaster on February 05, 2014, 12:20:14 am
The last fourteen times I called you out, you either misinterpret the entire thing or you come back with something even more jank than the previous remark.

Maybe we don't feel like trodging through all that text anymore. I know I sure as heck don't.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Brian on February 05, 2014, 09:57:57 am
This is probably my last post here, just to summarize my thoughts: Ban only TASable emus, unless there are no other good alternatives out there. The "ban all or don't ban any of them" would do no good if either option is chosen IMO.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Cream147 on February 05, 2014, 10:33:53 am
If we're limiting the scope of the conversation to ban all emulators or ban none, then the answer is ban none. I personally don't understand why we can't have a more nuanced position, but this conversation has got boring and is not advancing.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: SpinDashMaster on February 05, 2014, 11:15:39 am
All emulators are TAS-able in some form or another.

Where it gets hairy is defining what qualifies as a TAS-able emulator, at which point the shit hits the fan since the cheating can jump from emulator to emulator, as TimpZ has already pointed out.

With that line blurred, "all emulators" and "TAS-able emulators" are in an inseparable group. Therefore, we find ourselves forced into a simple crossroads: You either ban all emulation here and now, or you don't.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Cream147 on February 05, 2014, 11:30:59 am
Yes, but we don't need to mess around with defining "TAS-able" emulators in any precise way. We make a rational decision of which specific emulators are acceptable, and create an "emulator whitelist", with all other emulators banned. That would be my proposal.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: SpinDashMaster on February 05, 2014, 11:41:06 am
To make such a whitelist would be exactly the same thing. You can't even do that, because the whitelist will dwindle as each emulator is shown to be TAS-able in some form or another.

You basically just said: don't do X, do X.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Cream147 on February 05, 2014, 12:20:28 pm
I don't want to trash the forum with continuous discussion between us here, but nevertheless, I must respond to this. With regard to your point that "the whitelist will dwindle as each emulator is shown to be TAS-able in some form or another", this is the point that I think we're getting tied up on.

Yes, it is possible to do some kind of TAS on any emulator. However, it's all about how difficult it is to do it. With Gens the tools are right there, right in front of you. Even I could do a TAS with Gens, and I'm not the most technical of people. With Fusion, maybe it is possible to TAS in some way, but you'd better believe that it's a whole lot more difficult. I'm not going to be doing a TAS with Fusion. Where do we draw the line here? We draw it wherever we feel it should go using common sense, rather than any precise rule.

We're never going to stop all cheating, so if the attitude is stop all cheating or don't bother doing anything, then we might as well not bother. However, I feel that this measure would decrease the amount of successful cheating, and not horribly inconvenience people. Now I'm definitely fed up of discussing this, so for now, this is my final word!
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: SpinDashMaster on February 05, 2014, 12:35:12 pm
Difficulty index is subjective. We mentioned this in the chatroom discussions of pre-act slope glitch savestates. They are the same in essence as beginning with an elemental shield, regardless of if one takes 10 minutes and the other takes three.

The same approach applies to how difficult it is to TAS in one emulator versus another. The line cannot be drawn at a subjective matter such as difficulty, but instead a tangible one such as capability.

And that puts us right back at square one -- the same two-forked road. Because all emulators are TAS-able in some form or another, you have to ban them all or not at all.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Brian on February 05, 2014, 01:42:01 pm
Where it gets hairy is defining what qualifies as a TAS-able emulator, at which point the shit hits the fan since the cheating can jump from emulator to emulator, as TimpZ has already pointed out.

With that line blurred, "all emulators" and "TAS-able emulators" are in an inseparable group. Therefore, we find ourselves forced into a simple crossroads: You either ban all emulation here and now, or you don't.
Really? Is everyone a robot that can only accept something that's not subjective? Why there can't be a rule that says something along the lines of: "No emulator that has built-in these functions are allowed to competition: Re-recording, frame advance, slow motion or any type of frame rate control, (insert here any other TAS capabilities that could help making a fake video)." Is it really that hard to distinct the "easy to TAS" emulators from the "hard/impossible to TAS" ones? Hell, there could be a list as Cream said, and I'll doubt until someone proves me wrong that it's not possible to draw a line that separates the easy ones from the hard ones, even if arbitrariness needs to come into play, which is not something that has not been done before in any where that have rules(and actually goes well with them).

Sorry for the rant, but this argument about all emulators being TASable in some form, thus making all of them fall into the same category and eliminating any chance of making a rule that could ban only a portion of them based on their TAS capabilities really made me want to say something.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: TimpZ on February 05, 2014, 03:08:02 pm
All emulators are TAS-able in some form or another.

As I pointed out, you can also TAS on the console itself. In fact it would probably even be easier than TASing on Fusion. But you have to agree that TASing on emulators with that function is different from hacking a ROM or building a TASbot, hacking an emulator or building a TASing shell specifically for that emulator. I say ban the easy alternatives.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: SpinDashMaster on February 05, 2014, 04:55:12 pm
Drawing a line between easy and difficult is subjective.

No matter how "human" nor "arbitrary" one might think a partial ban might be, the list would be just that -- partial. Partial to players who want to continue playing on emulators, despite the fact that one could still cheat on them; difficulty of said cheating aside.

With no way to separate the types of emulators without approaching from a difficulty perspective, one cannot implement a partial ban without being partial to a specific group of players.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Brian on February 05, 2014, 07:11:09 pm
I just made a bet with a friend of mine that SDM would say that XD

"one cannot implement a partial ban without being partial to a specific group of players." I really would like to know what's the problem with this, even though I don't think this is a valid affirmative because I don't think that the majority of the emulators for a given platform (in this case, genesis) are being used by the player base, which always tends to gravitate towards a selected few options in these cases, at least as I see it.

And there's one more thing, you say that as if some players would all of a sudden have an advantage over others, as if "being partial to a specific group of players" (which as I stated before, is something that I think is avoidable, despite my lack of knowledge of which options of emus there are) would affect the competition in such a big way that it's better to stay the way it is or ban all of them. Seriously I don't think that'll be the case. If that's not what you meant with that line, sorry.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: SpinDashMaster on February 06, 2014, 01:52:44 am
The problem with being partial to a specific group of players is rather obvious. You unlevel the playing field when any group of competitors has any advantage over another. Especially when it comes to burden of proof through said videos, where one person's recording might lie on a banned emu, but another's just so happens to be on an accepted emu. Looks like the unlucky player has to re-record everything using a different emulator. How fun!
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Parax on February 06, 2014, 04:18:05 am
Just like converting a TAS to a non-TAS emulator with replaying features is a bit of work, rewriting the source for one to include such a feature is a lot of work for something as simple as submitting a stat for this site.

You are completely missing the point. The problem isn't that someone might add a new feature. The problem is that the emulators with TAS features are also the most accurate emulators, which means banning them forces players to play on less accurate ones.

Let me ask a question to hopefully make this debate a little more clear. What TAS features, specifically, are we talking about banning? Obviously frame advance is out. What about save states?

Personally, I don't think it's impossible to have a subjective rule in place, but I also don't think it's entirely unreasonable to expect someone to get an official release of the game if they want to compete on it. So eh. With that in mind, here's another question: Who here would be personally bothered if emulators with TAS features were banned? Similarly, what if all emulators were banned?
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: DawnyDaz3 on February 06, 2014, 04:29:26 am
Is it possible to submit a legit stat when played on the emulator with a controller without any TAS features? The controller (Not the Keyboard) might help to avoid TASes especially when played on Genesis emulators and such.

Say for example, you are playing on the Genesis Emulator and you quickly spam the 3 buttons to get maximum speed for a spin dash in the keyboard. That might not be possible if one with the controller was to do the same thing.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: TimpZ on February 06, 2014, 05:40:30 am
The problem is that the emulators with TAS features are also the most accurate emulators, which means banning them forces players to play on less accurate ones.

This is not true.

Here's also a useful guide to deciding on what emulator YOU should use, depending on your computer and preference to accuracy: http://segaretro.org/Comparison_of_Sega_Mega_Drive_emulators

Acording to this list, Regen, Fusion, HazeMD and RetroDrive are all emulators that are more accurate than the ones designed for TASing.


Let me ask a question to hopefully make this debate a little more clear. What TAS features, specifically, are we talking about banning? Obviously frame advance is out. What about save states?

Save states is a feature that's easily detectable if you were to make a video and it's also a feature in some of the official releases. I would not mind allowing that. Reading RAM in real time or the ability to dump it somewhere are other features I would want to ban.

EDIT: I know 50fps is allowed normally, but I wouldn't oppose to require 60fps if an emulator is used.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Brian on February 06, 2014, 10:45:53 am
SDM, this problem is avoidable by doing 2 things: Let's say the rule is in place and no stats submitted prior to the creation were erased. If someone get called and gives a video done on one of the banned emus as proof, if their stat was submitted after the rule, then it will be erased, since it is in disagreement with it in the first place, but if it is one of the stats that were submitted before the rule, then it should be looked at normally. That's what I think it's fair to everyone regarding the rule. Also, if this rule gets approved, I believe a major post will be done and put on the front page, so no one can miss it, and therefore any one who doesn't know about it and submit a stat using one of the banned emulators is the sole causer of any problems regarding that stat in the future.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: fastnaturedude on February 06, 2014, 12:24:03 pm
The problem with being partial to a specific group of players is rather obvious. You unlevel the playing field when any group of competitors has any advantage over another. Especially when it comes to burden of proof through said videos, where one person's recording might lie on a banned emu, but another's just so happens to be on an accepted emu. Looks like the unlucky player has to re-record everything using a different emulator. How fun!

What?

This topic isn't really about the burden of proof argument, it's whether or not we should ban TAS-capable emulators from competition. Neither adopting an official emulator nor banning all emulators from competition gives any player any kind of advantage over any other player, so long as we make it known that "hey, you can't use x or y emulator when submitting stats, or it doesn't count, sorry!" All emulators are pretty much equally as easy to get and use in my experience.

Partial to players who want to continue playing on emulators, despite the fact that one could still cheat on them; difficulty of said cheating aside.

No, we adopt an emulator that you can't savestate/frame advance/TAS/whatever on. Period.

I mean, if it comes down to either letting the potential for TASing continue or banning all emulators, I'm all for the latter. SDM's right in saying that we can't halfass this if we're going to do something about it.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Gpro on February 06, 2014, 02:21:49 pm
One thing I want to know is this: Why would it be a problem switching to a different emulator? As TimpZ said, the non-TASable emus have better accuracy. For recording, all you'd need is something like Fraps or Bandicam or something like that (or even using local recording via XSplit or OBS). And all of these are easily accessible, if I'm not mistaken. And most Genesis emulators aren't that hard on PC usage, I don't think.

And the thing Brian_pso brought up about the whole ruling thing... That's also a pretty good compromise if you ask me. While it might seem like it's being contradictory, why should someone who broke the rule before it was implemented be punished in the first place? For one like this, anyways.

The last thing I want to speak about is that this rule would be a little bit of a failsafe against potential BSers, which is pretty obvious (yay for reiterating obvious things >,>). It's to help make sure the competition stays clean. I like the honor system, but even you guys know there have been countless BSers in the past. This can help lessen that amount. Not to mention the fact that people that were to TAS the 2D Sonic games... If they're smart or good enough, they'd be impossible to catch in the first place. The only thing to go by would be speculation and would allow them to get away with posting TASed stats. I dunno about anyone else, but this seems like a pretty good reason to go by this.

The only hole I can think of is if they don't make videos for their stats, which I guess could be avoided by requiring videos for a certain percentile or something like that? I dunno, this last part
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Brian on February 06, 2014, 03:33:54 pm
Requiring videos for each stat is a nice thing, but as I said before, some people may just not like it. But speaking of methods to help having a more clean chart, allowing just non-TASable emus to be used, and requiring a video of every stat to be recorded - not that you NEED to upload it too, it's just for the cases where someone gets called, in which case, the absence of a video voids the stat right away - would be a good way to do so.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Inuyasha on February 06, 2014, 03:57:00 pm
I do love how you guys take a random chart that lists the status of emulators *now* as if it means that the emulator will always be at that state forever.  The chance of one person fixing a flaw in an open source emulator is much, much higher than the chance of a flaw being fixed in a closed-source emulator just due to the nature of the projects.

Also, it's piss easy to splice two parts of a video together in a pause, and pause-buffering is still allowed. >>;
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: TimpZ on February 06, 2014, 04:46:22 pm
I do love how you guys take a random chart that lists the status of emulators *now* as if it means that the emulator will always be at that state forever.  The chance of one person fixing a flaw in an open source emulator is much, much higher than the chance of a flaw being fixed in a closed-source emulator just due to the nature of the projects.

Also, it's piss easy to splice two parts of a video together in a pause, and pause-buffering is still allowed. >>;

None of those emulators I listed in my previous post are open source as far as I know. One of them are even discontinued. If you're talking about flaws as in inaccuracies, who knows what will happen in 2020, it does not concern the current situation and will have to be adressed in the future if it is a legitimate concern.

Splicing videos together without savestates is not "piss easy" by any means. Also as mentioned, savestates is a feature in official emulation as well. In any case, it's irrelevant to the current discussion. Just because it might be easy to cheat in one way does not mean measures shouldn't be taken to make it harder in another.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Brian on February 06, 2014, 05:11:25 pm
Just because it might be easy to cheat in one way does not mean measures shouldn't be taken to make it harder in another.
This, the guy missed the point completely. But responding to something he said: We are talking mostly about genesis emus here, and holy shit, if there's so few emus out there that emulate sonic games properly, than what the fuck does the genesis have to make emulation such a hard task? I think we have many emus that run the games without problems, so this argument about emulation acuraccy should be outright forgotten from now on.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: SpinDashMaster on February 06, 2014, 05:18:45 pm
Not requiring videos from players rolls us all the way back to the start. If you trust a player to not show a video, you may as well trust them to use whatever the heck emulator they want.

Any further discussion in this thread if it were to implement anything pertaining to emulators must result in required proof in every stat. Otherwise players can goof off all they want inside the domain of other emulators.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: TimpZ on February 06, 2014, 05:39:47 pm
If you trust a player to not show a video

And what if you don't?

You're not even reading my posts. You're just avoiding them by invalidating them, just to bring up the same point later that I have already adressed without taking into account what has already been said in the thread.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: SpinDashMaster on February 06, 2014, 05:47:02 pm
Quote
You're not even reading my posts.

There's a few reasons for that.

Quote
And what if you don't?

There's one of the reasons. If means if. Since you don't trust the player, then video proof is to be required for everything. Therefore the question doesn't pertain to you.

It boils down to two simple mechanics. You either trust the userbase outright and allow the whole system to go unchecked, or you require videos from everyone on everything. Anything in between is partial as defined before.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Brian on February 06, 2014, 05:58:17 pm
If I were to vote, I'd vote to require videos for every stat upon submission, AND the idea of banning a portion of the emus.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: TimpZ on February 06, 2014, 06:01:25 pm
It boils down to two simple mechanics. You either trust the userbase outright and allow the whole system to go unchecked, or you require videos from everyone on everything. Anything in between is partial as defined before.

I trust most people on here, but in general I believe trust has to be earned. If you submit unlikely stats, you get a BS call. In most cases, these are resolved adequately, I'm merely arguing for a way to make it harder to cheat in them. If your name is Romulo, I trust you not to cheat no matter if you're using Gens or a potato.

Calling out people that get times that the community deems as unlikely have never been a problem before, no matter if you deem it partial to oldbies or newbies. They got a time you don't trust they got and you want adequate proof. Generally a video is regarded as better proof than a photo or simple explanation of the route and might even be required in cases where a really good time was achieved. I don't think Gens videos provide that kind of adequate proof and therefore I'm arguing against its validity as such.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: SpinDashMaster on February 06, 2014, 06:07:37 pm
Oldbies are just as fair game for BS calls as newbies. Consider the cases of smizzla and Strong Bad, both longtime users of the site whom both have ended up banned for their eventual call-outs.

I don't care if you're romulo or a potato, if we're going to start requiring video proof, we have to require it for everyone.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: RigidatoMS on February 06, 2014, 06:23:58 pm
Requiring videos for each stat is a nice thing, but as I said before, some people may just not like it. But speaking of methods to help having a more clean chart, allowing just non-TASable emus to be used, and requiring a video of every stat to be recorded - not that you NEED to upload it too, it's just for the cases where someone gets called, in which case, the absence of a video voids the stat right away - would be a good way to do so.
You're totally right, but that will be a problem for me. I use non-TASable Android emulators and, usually, in my little Galaxy Pocket. When I'm not, I'm playing in my Tablet, but I fell sometimes more accurate in one or in other. And I can't work with videos, because I'm more concentrated in SHeroes, where I can do video proofs a bit better. And I never expect to get a personal record while recording. That's why I have a lot of screenshot for proof, including Sonic 2 Android stats that I needed to erase to do the Emerald Hill 1 RAing.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: fastnaturedude on February 06, 2014, 06:45:22 pm
This thread seems like it's more of an argument over video proof and whatnot between TimpZ and SDM than an actual debate over emulators. :|

This isn't whether or not we require video proof for every stat; this is IF we ask for video proof and it's given on an untrustworthy emulator, then it's insufficient.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: SpinDashMaster on February 06, 2014, 06:50:39 pm
We've been down that road already too. You can't run on the thesis of only not trusting an emulator when it comes time to show proof via a video.

You can't allow an emulator to be used if a video from that emulator wouldn't even be accepted. That's complete bull.

If there is no video requirement for certain situations, then the player must be allowed to use whatever emulator they want since they aren't being tracked nor asked to show proof.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: fastnaturedude on February 06, 2014, 07:07:36 pm
... that'd be the point of the rule change, making a certain emulator be used by EVERYONE so that if one person gets called out, there's no long debate about whether or not it's a TAS, no grey area? Right?
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: SpinDashMaster on February 06, 2014, 07:10:48 pm
There lies a problem with that position as well, since we have already shown that effectively all emulators are TAS-able in some form or another. We can't settle down into a "whitelist" or even a single emulator, because it becomes impossible to draw a tangible line between TAS-able and non-TAS-able.

This forces two lines to be drawn into the sand.

Either all emulators must be allowed or none at all.

Either all stats must require video proof or we continue only requesting videos when needed. (In the case of the latter the videos would undergo the same scrutiny they always have.)
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: TimpZ on February 06, 2014, 08:46:41 pm
it becomes impossible to draw a tangible line between TAS-able and non-TAS-able.

In theory, everything is TASable. Nothing is unTASable, including a model 1 Genesis running the original carts.

There is a very obvious spectrum of difficulty regarding TASability tough. On Gens Rerecording it's as easy as using the instruction manual for the emulator. On Gens Plus it requires a bit of hex knowledge and google-searching skills. For Fusion, it requires very advanced coding knowledge and tens if not hundreds of hours of dedicated work.

I don't think drawing a line at some point would bring anything but gains in the verification process nor that it would bring a major discomfort for everyone using emulators assuming a very clear rule is made. Exactly where the line should be drawn can be discussed by the community as a whole, but putting it anywere lower than Gens Plus would be slightly ineffective without additional rules since it would be harder to determine the exact variation of emulator used.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Brian on February 06, 2014, 09:25:47 pm
There lies a problem with that position as well, since we have already shown that effectively all emulators are TAS-able in some form or another. We can't settle down into a "whitelist" or even a single emulator, because it becomes impossible to draw a tangible line between TAS-able and non-TAS-able.
Ok, I'm done with this, I already said that ruling out some emulators is as easy as listing which built-in tools should make an emu forbidden for competition purposes, hell, I even listed some of them!

And as TimpZ said: "In theory, everything is TASable. Nothing is unTASable, including a model 1 Genesis running the original carts." So the whole point here is to make a rule that makes doing a TAS much less easy, that's all.

I already said my opinion and proposed a solution, always trying to be as clear as possible, but I'll do it one last time.

Ban some emulators based on their built-in tool, such as anythin regarding slowing the game's speed, or re-recording, I don't know, think of something.

Now you got 2 options regarding videos:

You can require them upon submission, or you can just require them for LD cases. Now don't come saying that doing this is the same, as anyone would still be able to pass out unnoticed until we call them, just like it is now, because in the case that someone is called out, not having a video or having one made on a banned emu would void your stat right away. But remember, you can always choose to require the videos for every submission, so don't make a big deal about the second idea.

I'm really tired of this topic.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Parax on February 07, 2014, 01:33:05 am
I dunno, it seems like it'd be incredibly easy to effectively TAS a run with just save states. Disable status messages, savestate wherever you want, and record your run in real time rather than with an emulator recording feature. Then after you finish it's a simple matter of cutting off the video where you save state and joining it back on the first frame after that in your next successful "segment". If we're talking about banning features that make it easy to cheat should we not ban save states?
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Brian on February 07, 2014, 08:51:49 am
I thought about that, but there's 2 main problems, most if not all emulators have save states, but if there's a good emulator out there that doesn't have it, then it's fine, or not, because the second problem is that some people could say that not having save states available makes the process of speedrunning much more time consuming and blablabla. But if I could choose, I'd choose making save states a bannable tool for any emulator.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: RigidatoMS on February 07, 2014, 11:44:39 am
I thought about that, but there's 2 main problems, most if not all emulators have save states, but if there's a good emulator out there that doesn't have it, then it's fine, or not, because the second problem is that some people could say that not having save states available makes the process of speedrunning much more time consuming and blablabla. But if I could choose, I'd choose making save states a bannable tool for any emulator.
But the save states are already banned, right? This topic is going too far and there were more than 100 replies. And we're losing our time with this topic that I consider pathetical.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Brian on February 07, 2014, 12:00:07 pm
I was talking about banning emus that have built-in the save state tool. I'll fix the sentence: "I'd choose making save states a bannable tool for any emulator to have."

But I don't see this being approved anyway, just throwing out the idea. At least Paraxade got the point about banning the tools as a way of making this rule, so I don't have to explain that again.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: SB737 on February 07, 2014, 02:08:27 pm
I dunno, it seems like it'd be incredibly easy to effectively TAS a run with just save states. Disable status messages, savestate wherever you want, and record your run in real time rather than with an emulator recording feature. Then after you finish it's a simple matter of cutting off the video where you save state and joining it back on the first frame after that in your next successful "segment". If we're talking about banning features that make it easy to cheat should we not ban save states?

Official emulators such as Sonic Mega Collection Plus and Sonic Gems Collection, have savestate functionality available, would they get banned too? Personally I think banning savestates is a step too far, there's been a lot of discussion lately about where TSC's going. And personally I don't think that everyone in this topic knows what's trying to be achieved by it, or everyone has different ideas. Generally, from this topic, I get the idea that people are just throwing ideas around, and looking for a solution to make it as hard as possible for people to BS. BSing is always gonna happen, nothing can be done about it, you can ban emulators, even official emulators, but that doesn't stop someone BSing. The reply people will give me to that is that when people get called up they can't provide proof from a TASable emulator (or from what is seems now any fricking console as you can TAS with anything apparently). My outake on that is let the Admins do THEIR job, they've done a fantastic job at picking out BSers (and that's not the hard part from what everyone's saying), and then getting to the bottom of people's activity, and coming to the correct conclusion, if they get presented with evidence it's their decision on whether it's valid or not. To be honest there are ways around everything, if someone wants to BS, and know what they're doing, then they'll manage it. To get 80% at a game and get a decent chunk o sitewide points you only need a bunch of orange stats, with some record ring attacks and you'll get it. Submitting fake stats like that and slipping under the radar isn't really hard, obviously the more it's done, the more noticeable it becomes, and if someone stays outside the community and never proves their skill in some way, then suspicion will arise, but we have admins for a reason and I'm gonna stop talking because I'm beginning to waffle on somewhat :V. lol

So what I'd like to know is where is this topic going? From the title I get the idea that TASable emulators are wanted to be banned, however alot of other things are being discussed here, perhaps around that ultimate subject, however (and can you even use however straight off the back of another however in a sentence lol) to come to an agreement we need to know what people are trying to achieve.

So could someone officially say exactly what is trying to be achieved? Ban Emulators, ban TASable emulators, require videos for everything, require videos for red stats, have a go at someone's sarcasm? yer i'm confused :P

And sorry for the wall of text.. I got a little carried away, and if I've said something that isn't relevant or has already been addressed then I apologise as all the posts I was catching up with were quite alot to take in.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: SpinDashMaster on February 08, 2014, 10:54:37 am
I already laid the battle lines down. People just want to try to shift it away from that. The only balanced decisions that remain are banning ALL or NO emulators, and requiring ALL stats to have videos attached or to never make videos mandatory (TSC's current stance as the rules are written is the latter for both).

The fact that nearly every emulator has a savestate function and could sneak that into a video blurs the lines between TAS-ability even further.

Anyone trying to take discussion away from those two decisions is bringing us in loops. No matter how hard you try, it will always return to this ultimatum.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: fastnaturedude on February 08, 2014, 12:20:47 pm
I already laid the battle lines down. People just want to try to shift it away from that.

Maybe because not everyone in the topic agrees with you? This is a group discussion, forcing your opinion on everyone doesn't help anything <_<
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: SpinDashMaster on February 08, 2014, 07:44:15 pm
This isn't me forcing anything, especially not an opinion, and definitely not my opinion.

And from the looks of it, this "group" is going in circles and getting pissy with each other. It's time to bring an end to this.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Brian on February 08, 2014, 08:37:24 pm
Ban all emulators that have no TAS tools other than save state and require videos upon submission. Or if you really can't see the middle ground between your 2 options, just go by allowing all emulators but require videos for all stats. That's all for me, from now on I'll just watch, see ya guys o/
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: RigidatoMS on February 09, 2014, 07:10:32 am
I'm sure that I'll listen Brian_pso, vote for banning none emulator and requiring videos for all stats without playback and watch this topic until admins close this 4ever. That will be hard, because I can only take screenshots.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Naegleria on February 12, 2014, 07:14:46 am
I think upon making a submission, users should be asked if the runs were done on console/emu and which one in particular.

If they say emu then ban their ass.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Parax on February 12, 2014, 07:48:57 am
I honestly think just leaving all emulators unbanned and strengthening proof requirements for all emulated runs is the best option. Most of the suggestions in this thread are really messy and weird half-solutions that won't really accomplish anything.

Also, I don't think faking runs by TASing is as big of an issue as some people in this thread seem to think it is. Most competitors submit legitimate stats and the ones that don't usually leave a tell somewhere and get caught, like SonicBoom said. With higher proof requirements it'll be even harder for them to slip something by.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: SpinDashMaster on February 12, 2014, 10:14:44 am
I agree with that ruling, Parax. To solidify it in the competition rules, it would go something like this:

* You may use any emulator for competition; however, any action performed during the run (be it an in-game action or use of an emulator function) that cannot be replicated on console voids your stat, and a recording must be submitted to the website for each stat you would submit this way (Emulator-provided videos such as .gmv's or .giz's, or raw video files will suffice).
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: TimpZ on February 12, 2014, 12:59:37 pm
I would think that requiring the input files would be a good compromise regarding emulators that support it. However requiring raw or encoded files from all emulators for all submitted stats would probably mean people would opt to use the ones with TASing functionality, which is against my original intention of at least putting people at a disadvantage using them. Though catching cheaters with an input file would probably easier anyway honestly.

I'm presuming emulators such as Genesis Plus GX for the Wii would fall under the same rule?
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Brian on February 12, 2014, 03:23:09 pm
This does the job, I like it.

Editing just to say that I just loved the new forum layout, it's so much easier to not get lost between posts and explicits the level of power that someone has, which is useful for newcomers, great job to whoever did this.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: SpinDashMaster on February 12, 2014, 05:49:52 pm
@TimpZ, yes, pretty much any emulator usage will warrant video requirement. We are considering making exceptions for minor games such as SPA/Rivals etc.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Biblet2014 on February 12, 2014, 10:30:53 pm
I agree with having people have video proof of the time but some people do not have a capture card so they cannot capture it from TV and theu do not have the game or console so I dissagree on the Emulator part.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Parax on February 12, 2014, 11:20:27 pm
Surprised you all actually agree on this. Okay then. :P

Only issue now is where should people host these files? An ideal solution would be uploading straight to TSC, but that functionality doesn't exist, so people will need to either upload to an external site (no idea which one), or they'll have to attach it to a forum post.

I guess we could say you need to post the giz in the random .giz thread, and then link to your post in the stat comment? Or maybe there should be a separate thread for that, especially since this wouldn't be limited to .giz files.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Parax on February 13, 2014, 02:09:02 am
Before I even begin, making exceptions for certain small games in this ruling is a partial solution within itself, and will fail. Speaking of "partial solutions" and then coming up with something like that is contradictory and detrimental to the intent of an implementation like this.

I don't believe I ever said we would create exceptions for small games. The subject came up on IRC and I wholeheartedly disagree with it. It's nonsensical.

Quote
Firstly, this is still a very slippery slope. While I do support the fact that proving statistics is never a bad thing, I refuse to believe that "forcing" any amount of proof is the answer, or ever will be the answer. I remain of the opinion that encouraging, not forcing, proof (unless called out, of course) is the "best" answer. I'm not saying this way is perfect, either, but I do feel it can only get worse.

I'm gonna have to disagree with you here. It is not all that complicated to provide proof of your stats. If you're a legitimate player why not put in the tiny amount of extra effort to make sure everyone knows you followed the rules?

Quote
If we no longer trust the players, then why should requiring proof stop here? It was said in this very topic that even consoles can be TAS'd (even if it is complicated to pull off). Then why not go all the way, just require proof for all stats? That's the biggest reason I don't support an idea like this, or any similar idea - I feel it does more harm than good, and once a requirement starts, the next thing is requiring proof for all stats, or all stats above a certain level. As much as you're about to say "That's not going to happen", it will. Sooner or later, it will.

Actually, I would like to make something like this happen in the future, but that's for another thread. Our proof standards in general are far far lower than they should be. I agree that strongly enouraging proof rather than outright requiring it is probably one of the best options as far as this is concerned, but I also think there's situations such as this one where the method used to obtain a stat is iffy enough that requiring some form of verification for it is not unreasonable.

Quote
Let's say this was implemented. Firstly, not having proper site functionality for this would be silly - all a person has to do is say "I did this on console". Bam, done. No proof required unless said person was called out. Only problem is, there's already a rule that states something along the lines of not allowing anything done on an emulator that can't be replicated on a console, among other emulator specific rules. Since we're requiring proof for emulated stats, there's practically no way that someone can't just come in and post some good times, claim to do them on console with an official release of the game, and not have to prove a thing. Save for a person posting outright impossible times, that's the first thing people will hide behind.

This is a valid point, but there's also nothing to stop people from doing that right now. We've seen several BSers somewhat recently posting TASed videos and passing them off as console/unTASed runs. Why would they do that when they can simply submit a time without "proof" attached and be done with it? This rule is aimed to help curb those sort of situations. There are already no proof requirements, so this isn't really much of a strong argument.

Quote
In addition, while I also believe that this is probably the "best" proof requiring idea I've seen thus far, I still must make the case of the fact that it will reduce competition (even by a little bit). Requiring anything will possibly prevent people from competing in certain games. It could stop new members from joining. It could stop existing members from competing altogether, possibly (though not likely).

I could counter that not doing it will reduce competition even further because people outside the site who would be prospective new members will be turned off by the lack of verification here along with the simplicity of posting times you didn't get. I maintain that it's really not that hard to provide proof of your emulated stats. If requiring some standard of legitimacy is enough to turn some people off from competing here, then oh well, I guess that's the price we pay.

Quote
Next, these required proofs cannot go unchecked by the site staff. Someone, or a few people, are gonna have to do this job. While I mean absolutely no offense to the current staff (even if recent changes to said staff are about to change this next fact), the past has shown me that if we cannot properly maintain a videos section that is reasonably up to date and free of deleted, or improper, or slowed down, or outdated videos, then it follows that this will not be properly maintained as well.

The videos section is not even remotely a valid comparison. The videos section is a single page listing all videos available for a given game. The reason it's so out of date is because the system does no checks whatsoever before posting new videos, nor does it automatically obsolete old ones when better ones are posted, and the process to manually obsolete videos is a giant pain in the ass. There would be no such page for this - we'd simply request people link their proof in their stat comments. No admin maintenance required. If somebody posts a video that doesn't actually prove their stat, then somebody will probably notice and notify an admin, and in that case a BS call would be made.

It would be better to have a proper way to implement this straight into the site, but we don't have that right now. That being said, hopefully we will be able to do that in the future.

Quote
Finally, I'm not exactly comfortable with the fact that all prior stats will simply be grandfathered in with such a ruling.

Do you have a better idea? We can't fix all the stats that are already on the site, not only because it'd be an absolutely ridiculous amount of work but also because we just plain don't have the relevant information on every stat. That doesn't mean we shouldn't implement any changes going forward, though.

Quote
I'd be more in support of say, site implementations that allow a player to report what console or emulator they achieved a stat on when they submit, for example. I don't think that would be too much to ask for at all, at least compared to requiring proof.

I really don't see how that would help at all.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: SpinDashMaster on February 14, 2014, 02:55:13 am
Are you telling me that we came this close to finalization and this shit happens? As SkyLights would say:

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Okay. Time to sort this out. All that's really left to address is that player who passes off suspicious stats as an emulator player and passes them off as console. Call them out, and if their video proof is emulator, then they've already double-backed on themselves, resulting in a bannable offense.

Remember from this point onward we would assume any stats submitted without video were done on console.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Gvozdevik on February 14, 2014, 11:05:09 am
Is it me or we are try to make rules that already exist ?

Also, I saw that FCEUX rerecord count can be modified, maybe that's possible for gmvs
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: RigidatoMS on February 14, 2014, 11:36:22 am
Are you telling me that we came this close to finalization and this shit happens? As SkyLights would say:

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Okay. Time to sort this out. All that's really left to address is that player who passes off suspicious stats as an emulator player and passes them off as console. Call them out, and if their video proof is emulator, then they've already double-backed on themselves, resulting in a bannable offense.

Remember from this point onward we would assume any stats submitted without video were done on console.
So, is it where we close this topic with a golden key? Ok then.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: SpinDashMaster on February 22, 2014, 08:43:19 pm
Okay we're not the Azorius. Let's break the stasis and finalize this, please.
Title: Re: Gens/BizHawk and similar emulators should be banned from competition
Post by: Gvozdevik on February 23, 2014, 08:21:25 am
What about Steam SEGA Genesis & Mega Drive Classics? They exist too
It works like Fusion but w/o S2K. No AVI Capture. But Fusion is still better.