GeekNights: where we care too much about clocks.
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More like where we understand that making anything digital ācheet proofā is impossible.
@Naoza itās worse than that, half the games finish on āscreen fades to blackā or ālose control of the characterā so there isnāt even an input to track.
Also, would fiddling with the AC frequency to a console really affect things in-game? I strongly suspect noā¦
Iāve no idea if fiddling with AC frequency would do anything. I meant that is the kind of question that would come up if people wanted to track these records as accurately as Formula 1 track times.
Once youāre down to sub-second differences between runs, I think they should in most cases just count as ties. Thereās too much variability. Also, at that point, the interesting optimization wouldnāt be shaving 1/5 of a second off: it would be the new trick that saves multiple seconds.
Ok that is stupid. Why isnāt it to last input? Whether itās pressing through dialogue boxes or whatever. Thereās a final input to the game. Just because I can run around in circles until the credits roll doesnāt mean that those inputs are part of the speed-run. Unless that crap matters for those runs where like skipping shit mattersā¦ Yeah I think I just answered my own question.
Yeah this is definitely a non trivial problem.
As to fiddling with AC frequency. Iām imagining the consoleās PSU would handle it. Every console has one, even if itās just a DC converter. Iām no EE, but my guess is slight variances in frequency lead to more energy being lost as heat when it goes through the PSU.
Even last input isnāt always going to get it. For example, several (all?) Castlevanias end when you jump up and grab an item. The last input was when you were on the ground. Or maybe you didnāt jump, so it just falls on you. The last input could have been 10+ seconds ago.
Yeah, this is a challenging solve.
Every console I can think of has internal power regulation, and messing with the power source is more of a way to invoke glitches than effect speed.
It is feasible to swap crystals to change the clock speed of most older consoles or do other in depth mods to make things easier, but to avoid that level of stuff we get back to requiring competition approved hardware, precision timers, etc.
If you havenāt seen it, the Swordless Link to the Past run is so great (starts 7:45 into the video):
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I just watched the swordless run yesterday.
I love the runs where the commentary is really technical.
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It seems like the theme of this year was broken promises.
Portal no out of bounds spends several minutes out of bounds.
Mario kart no course skips uses them immediately.
I will catch up with these once Wimbledon is finished because tennis is currently taking up all my background-video-watching time.
If anyone else has recommendations, Iād love it if you put the video link in this thread, along with the time the run starts in the video, rather than just the name of the game and me having to search for it. Or, even worse, an acronym like āSotNā where I first have to google the acronym, and then also google the video. Thanks!
When you go to YouTube, the first and most upvoted comment on every GDQ video is a clickable link that takes you to the start time.
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If Iām watching it as an embed on this page, itās handier to have it here 
Just click the link to open full youtube.
Tetris Grandmaster.
2P1C.
TWO PEE ONE SEE
https://youtube.com/watch?v=t6-TGvIFipo
Run starts at 13:20.
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There is also a Super Metroid Randomizer tournament going on too. I have the Relay race in my āto watchā list because it is 10 hours long.
The European Speedrunner Assembly is going on right now - another Seven days of speedrunning - There are two streams at some points and donations are going to āSave the Childrenā.