Is playing on an emulator considered "tool-assisted" IF THERE IS NO SLOWDOWN, SAVESTATES, RERECORDS, FRAME ADVANCE, ETC USED? I dont even use the keyboard, I have a SNES controller plug-in. I am working on a console run of Super Mario World, but sometimes I make videos on snes9x only because it's really easy to record videos that way and get them onto the internet. Also the quality is really good. I am going to put some of these videos on YouTube, and I'm wondering if I should include a disclaimer that they were made on snes9x. I dont want to put a disclaimer up because people will think its tool-assisted if I say it's played on an emulator. Since I didnt actually use any slowdown, savestates, etc, would it be okay if I just labeled the runs as "non-tool"?
Personally, I say no it isn't. But you really have no proof that you didn't use any tools to assist your playing. It's extremely difficult to prove.
Edit: I notice your avatar, are you from SDA? I think no matter what you do, SDA won't accept runs done on emulator, tool-assisted or not.
It depends who you ask, in what context they're used, etc. Since there's no way of being sure if an smv hasn't been tampered with (editing the rerecord count to 0, for example), an smv is not accepted for official stuff like sending in to SDA or something, as I'm sure you're aware.
For me, if I trust the runner (which I do in this case), I have no problem with an smv being considered non-tool assisted. Be aware that others might feel differently though, because of the possiblilty of cheating or other stuff going on.
Edit: Another consideration is that if you do not state that your runs are made using an emulator (although non-tool assisted), if someone finds out and calls you on it, it would look pretty suspicious for anyone not aware of the details of the situation, ie why would you hide the fact they're made on an emulator if you didn't cheat?
Yeah I would agree. I went ahead and put the videos up with no disclaimers. I hope this is okay, I can change it if need be. The only ones I made with an emulator are "SMW Front Door - 358" and "SMW Star World 3 (key) - 192" as you can probably tell. ;)
EDIT: Yes I am from SDA, and dont worry, I know they dont accept .smv's. I just make them as a sort of WIP for showing my route and stuff.
EDIT 2: Fabian wrote:
why would you hide the fact they're made on an emulator if you didn't cheat?
No reason, its just that it seems weird to say "These 2 videos were made on an emulator. They're not tool-assisted though, because they dont use savestates, slowdown, frame advance, rerecords, etc and are played with an SNES controller plug-in." This might just confuse a lot of people, especially when the majority of my runs I put up were done on console (with extremely bad quality, which is why I decided to switch to the emulator in the first place).
Yeah I would agree. I went ahead and put the videos up with no disclaimers. I hope this is okay, I can change it if need be. The only ones I made with an emulator are "SMW Front Door - 358" and "SMW Star World 3 (key) - 192" as you can probably tell. ;)
EDIT: Yes I am from SDA, and dont worry, I know they dont accept .smv's. I just make them as a sort of WIP for showing my route and stuff.
EDIT 2: Fabian wrote:
why would you hide the fact they're made on an emulator if you didn't cheat?
No reason, its just that it seems weird to say "These 2 videos were made on an emulator. They're not tool-assisted though, because they dont use savestates, slowdown, frame advance, rerecords, etc and are played with an SNES controller plug-in." This might just confuse a lot of people, especially when the majority of my runs I put up were done on console (with extremely bad quality, which is why I decided to switch to the emulator in the first place).
I know and I agree, I wouldn't find it suspicious at all. My point is I can totally see people less informed about the nature of emulators and tool assistance than myself finding it pretty suspicious and weird that you would hide it if you had "nothing to hide", you know? Again, just another consideration, I doubt it would be that big a deal.
Joined: 5/1/2004
Posts: 4096
Location: Rio, Brazil
Still on topic, i'd like to remind that stuff like binding 2 keys to the same button or 2 buttons to the same key can be considered as a tool.
But i have a question... using emulator speed up (throttle) to skip boring scenes when speedrunning can be considered a tool? sure, slowdown is a tool made to make the game easier, but what about using speed up? it can make boring repetitive tasks easier, but it's also "harder" to use.
Because that gives some seriously crappy video quality (there's a rule about that on SDA too).
I wish emulators could be used, but for all practical reasons it's just too hard to verify. The only way would be if somebody wrote an emulator which had no tool-assisted features, and made it output AVI itself, with some kind of watermark.
So submit both videos, and just use the camcorder one as proof.
For my full 11-exit single segment run for SDA, I will definately be doing it on console and recording it via VCR. I am just putting emulator videos (not "tool-assisted" though) on YouTube that show some levels being done individually. The only issue is whether people will be mislead into thinking that these videos are tool-assisted when they're not.
Here is the updated YouTube link, I've added two more videos (played on emulator) since my last post.
If I may speak off topic, I don't like watching any SDA videos because they are segmented. It's like watching a TV show with commercials. I want a movie.
you can enqueue the files in a player (think about winamp). media player classic has such a playlist, you can toggle it, and drag&drop files into it.
if you have the encoding codec, you can rejoin the files together (it's quite easy and fast in VirtualDub, it's called direct copy).
I never sleep, 'cause sleep is the cousin of death - NAS
Off topic again but
I don't like downloading each segment individually anyway. SDA needs a torrent tracker :/
Segment 1: Character kills someone
Segment 2: Character goes down a hallway
Segment 3: Character encounters a wall
I don't want to deal with that.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Technically, yes, it is indeed tool-assisted because you use an emulator to be able to play the game. But really, it doesn't count in the context of the word. You should call that an "emulated speedrun" or a "speedrun made with an emulator". But make sure to always explain that you did not use slow-downs or save states.
Its possible to prove that savestates are used but not possible if slowdown was being used. You could very easily play a game conservatively using frame advance and pass that off as a near untouchable speedrun. Emu has inconsistencies in speed anyway. I think you would have to record using camstudio showing a windowed emulator e.g pro64 or other emulator that does not have slowdown or savestates.
If I may speak off topic, I don't like watching any SDA videos because they are segmented. It's like watching a TV show with commercials. I want a movie.
If I may speak off topic, I don't like watching any SDA videos because they are segmented. It's like watching a TV show with commercials. I want a movie.
YOU MAKE ME CRY. :(
I have yet to do a segmented run over at SDA. (And my Legend of Mana runs are fricken cool.)
Why would I ask at SDA? I dont plan on submitting these videos for anything official, they're just there for entertainment and showing my routes and strategies. The only reason I even asked here is so someone wouldnt find these videos on YouTube, think they're tool-assisted, and then get mad at me for not properly labeling them as tool-assisted (as happened with spezzafer's Mario 64 video on YouTube). If you want to see how they are "labeled," see here.
Is playing on an emulator considered "tool-assisted" IF...
It's considered "playing on emulator". Playing on emulator is considered "potentially tool-assited, but there's no way to know".
In my opinion, it wouldn't matter even if you used tools when you're just showing routes/strategies. If tools make something easier to do/show, it would just be useful.
FODA wrote:
But i have a question... using emulator speed up (throttle) to skip boring scenes when speedrunning can be considered a tool?
It's considered a tool because it helps and it can't be done normally on console.
Sir VG wrote:
YOU MAKE ME CRY. :(
It doesn't matter what he thinks if you don't agree with him.
