Originally Posted by EVN

Yet we allow a lot of modifications that deviate from what would be considered an "original configuration".

For example, why is taking a megadrive, swapping the jumpers and crystal to switch from PAL to NTSC or vice versa not an original configuration? That's how the factory configured them for PAL or NTSC distribution.

It's not just that for PAL vs. NTSC as many games are programmed to wait for the vsync & re-programmed for the regional variation.

Originally Posted by EVN

How far do you take it?

-Is adding RGB/S-Video/AV ok?
-Adding stereo audio?
-Replacing worn out capacitors?
-Replace voltage regulators?
-Can you use a modern power supply?
-Flashcart?
-Modchip?
-Optical drive emulator?
-Different colour power LED?

Common sense has to play a part though that is a rare commodity in this thread.

Which one of those affects the speed of the gameplay? Very few, on the face of it. For manually-timed tracks, the use of a drive emulator should disqualify the run as it will likely give a speed advantage over original hardware. In various ways the rest only change the experience and/or accessibility of the games. However, replacing the oscillator with a faster (or slower one) as in the PAL/NTSC you describe, will likely adjust the speed of gameplay. As the scoreboard performs the split to ensure comparing like-for-like performances, a 50Hz PAL console with an NTSC-speed rated components is invalid. It's a console which was never designed to run at NTSC-equivalents & theefore is no longer "original".

However, a PAL console which is both 50Hz and ~60Hz capable (PAL-region Dreamcast, PS1, PS2, Xbox and many others) as produced by the manufacturer is capable of NTSC rated speeds where the console and game combination boots as NTSC/PAL-60/PAL-M (all of which are ~60Hz outputs). (I don't believe there's an NTSC equivalent console but just in case: an original manufacturer NTSC console capable of both ~60Hz and 50Hz speeds would be accepted as PAL given the parameters of the performance).

However, a PAL console which is both 50Hz and ~60Hz capable (PAL-region Dreamcast, PS1, PS2, Xbox and many others) as produced by the manufacturer is capable of NTSC rated speeds where the console and game combination boots as NTSC/PAL-60/PAL-M (all of which are ~60Hz outputs). (I don't believe there's an NTSC equivalent console but just in case: an original manufacturer NTSC console capable of both ~60Hz and 50Hz speeds would be accepted as PAL given the parameters of the performance).

Although they are 60hz capable they do not run at correct speeds even on later consoles. if you look back at my posts in this thread I tested Ridge Racer V on a PAL console (running NTSC via FreeMCboot) and a real NTSC console and although the BIOS timer kept the two consoles in sync in terms of the ingame timer the game play speed was slower on PAL as RRV has a time out timer (kind of like a longer check point timer, it was around 7 minutes from memory) for races and i recorded both consoles side by side started at exactly the same time and the real NTSC console displayed the time out notice on screen FAR ahead of the PAL console running NTSC. I looked into it and in this case it is due to the video decoder and not the oscillator crystal like the older consoles. Newer consoles act differently it was too long ago now to remember but they don't depend on the oscillator crystal for in game speed its more down to the video rendering and timing. It's pretty technical which is why i support what i say below...

How far do you take it?

-Is adding RGB/S-Video/AV ok?
-Adding stereo audio?
-Replacing worn out capacitors?
-Replace voltage regulators?
-Can you use a modern power supply?
-Flashcart?
-Modchip?
-Optical drive emulator?
-Different colour power LED?

Common sense has to play a part though that is a rare commodity in this thread.

The way you get past this, is to keep it original! Then there are no questions, no chances of foul play intentional or accidental. Keep the hardware original, consoles original, in this day and age you can buy NTSC consoles as a PAL user (like i have multiple times)

Quit being cheap and invest, it's honestly not rocket science in my opinion. We seem to be looking at how to make all these variations, mods, etc etc legit on TG when the answer is simple... Do it the Donkey Kong way and keep it all legit and original. I know not everyone will agree with it for whatever reason but this is how I've done it and i don't see why anyone else can't aside from convenience and cost which is a cop out in my opinion.

Keep It Original really means Compete For A Limited Time Only

Time marches on. Technology fails. If your caps burn out you're not expected to buy an entirely new board are you? Also I think it's been shown that even original hardware units, over time, will begin to perform differently than one another. These are consumable pieces of technology, not permanent. Insisting it be all original all the time doesn't even eliminate the possibility of performance variances.

EDIT: I understand the temptation to close the book on it and say Keep It Original and there's no issues. But it's way more complicated than that. To your point, clock speed is very very VERY important especially when considering cross-region or multi-region competitors, but Keep It Original is a cop out.

Originally Posted by rotunda

Quit being cheap and invest, it's honestly not rocket science in my opinion. We seem to be looking at how to make all these variations, mods, etc etc legit on TG when the answer is simple... Do it the Donkey Kong way and keep it all legit and original. I know not everyone will agree with it for whatever reason but this is how I've done it and i don't see why anyone else can't aside from convenience and cost which is a cop out in my opinion.

LOOOOOL you have made this point lots of times and you keep doing it, so let me repeat this yet again. It is sooooo easy to keep it original and in your opinion "not be cheap" when you only play 1 game. For the rest of us who enjoy a wider variety of games is not that easy. I own at least 500 original games and aprox 20 consoles and that's still not enough for me.

I will keep downloading games, modding consoles and "being cheap", I don't care what purists say.

Originally Posted by bensweeneyonbass

Keep It Original really means Compete For A Limited Time Only

Time marches on. Technology fails. If your caps burn out you're not expected to buy an entirely new board are you? Also I think it's been shown that even original hardware units, over time, will begin to perform differently than one another. These are consumable pieces of technology, not permanent. Insisting it be all original all the time doesn't even eliminate the possibility of performance variances.

EDIT: I understand the temptation to close the book on it and say Keep It Original and there's no issues. But it's way more complicated than that. To your point, clock speed is very very VERY important especially when considering cross-region or multi-region competitors, but Keep It Original is a cop out.

This is already happening though.. Would i love to compete on DK arcade? hell yeah i would, Robotron? God yes! why don't i? because boards are rare and old. Same for Cosmic Avenger an arcade game that I'd love to try and get the WR for and I've been actively looking for years to find a board but there aren't any. Does this allow me to use a bootleg board on DK just because i can't find the real deal? Or emulator? Of course not so why should it be any different for consoles.

Most console submissions here are on readily available hardware and i used to repair consoles from Atari 2600 to xbox 360's and honestly mainly SEGA consoles are cap replacements which people can repair, NES have very solid caps, ps1/2 have laser issues but these can be bought and installed and consoles are all over the place. 2600 usually the 5v regulator goes out on them.. point being is this stuff is all repairable and there are more consoles around for purchase then the demand for us competitive gamers for the most part and will be for many, many years to come. Plus like you say time goes on.. people move on, most people growing up today won't care to compete on the games we see relevant right now. It's all natural progression.

I do see what you are saying but it's not a reason to accept a pretty obvious problem which is proven. If its left to continue then frankly the whole scoreboard doesn't have much integrity. Again though as i've said before... perhaps i just take this stuff too seriously i don't know. I guess i do compared to the vast majority here which is fine. The community decides what happens certainly not me. I'm just trying to keep the scoreboard integrity as high as possible and i (and a few others now) have proven that this is a real issue.

I dunno - replacing that laser in a PlayStation doesn't sound original to me...

I hope you get my drift. Keeping it original doesn't even guarantee everything runs the same over time. Simple as that. So, keeping it original doesn't solve the problem.

Originally Posted by rotunda

Plus like you say time goes on.. people move on, most people growing up today won't care to compete on the games we see relevant right now. It's all natural progression.

This is opinion and shouldn't even be brought into discussion as a context to what decisions we make today.

Originally Posted by Pixe Sukola

LOOOOOL you have made this point lots of times and you keep doing it, so let me repeat this yet again. It is sooooo easy to keep it original and in your opinion "not be cheap" when you only play 1 game. For the rest of us who enjoy a wider variety of games is not that easy. I own at least 500 original games and aprox 20 consoles and that's still not enough for me.

1 game? Erm, I had to invest and completely restore a Ridge Racer arcade cabinet as these aren't out in the wild anymore. I had to repair everything apart from the game board which cost about £800 + the cost of the cab in the first place... then i had to purchase a Ridge Racer 2 board set which was £170. Then i hired out the only Ridge Racer full scale arcade machine in existance these days. I've had to buy multiple NTSC consoles and games which wasn't cheap importing them, getting import tax on, then i also bought a PSP, 360, and Rave Racer PCB all of which would be a fair bit of money too. So your statement there is just plain wrong.

I'm not here to start a me vs TG community attack. I'm trying to help keep the database integral. If you see it differently then fine but it's not my intention.

I will keep downloading games, modding consoles and "being cheap", I don't care what purists say.

So piracy is ok too then? But anyway thats another issue I'm not even going to go down that rabbit hole. If your statement is the approach you wish to take then so be it but i fail to see how it helps Twin Galaxies in the long run when multiple people early on in this thread, from years ago have proven there are issues with it.

Sorry ben only just saw this after you edited the post:

EDIT: I understand the temptation to close the book on it and say Keep It Original and there's no issues. But it's way more complicated than that. To your point, clock speed is very very VERY important especially when considering cross-region or multi-region competitors, but Keep It Original is a cop out.

I'm not saying close the book and do what i say. It's my opinion on the matter and how i do my own submissions but the community as a whole will decide. This is just my personal preference. If others disagree that's fine. My only aim here from the very start is to show there is a issue which needs some sort of resolution. If the community feels it doesn't warrant change then so be it. Once again, perhaps i take it too seriously. But i hope we will all reach a solution and uphold the integrity of the DB.

Originally Posted by bensweeneyonbass

I dunno - replacing that laser in a PlayStation doesn't sound original to me...

I hope you get my drift. Keeping it original doesn't even guarantee everything runs the same over time. Simple as that. So, keeping it original doesn't solve the problem.

Ok, let me clarify as you aren't understanding what i mean by original...

Mod chipping a console for different regions, to play pirated games, third part firmware, running ROMs from a flash cart and many many other ways to play cross region hardware made for another region can lead to issues and/or manipulation of game timings and in my opinion should be banned.

Replacing a PS1 laser, replacing capacitors and the sorts of things which are factory replacements such a PSone BAM laser replacement SHOULD make no difference and thus i feel there is no issue or difference. That said though, I've never tested it so perhaps this is something else to look into. I'm not saying it's impossible. Lasers have different load speeds and revisions as do motherboards but I'm yet to prove any of this effecting actual game play.

The difference is, what I am saying should not be allowed has been PROVEN to be a problem. Repairing a console (to my knowledge) has not but if it has please do provide links so I can take a look i'd be very interested to see outside of speedrun loading times how a laser could benefit someone like me for example as Ridge Racer game data is stored directly to RAM the disc is only for in game music.

And yes i know i keep going back to that game, it's the one i know well thus i use it as an example I'm not saying this applies to all games.

Keep it simple and concentrate on third party mods, mod chips specifically as for now this is all that has been proven to cause a problem. Sorry i didn't explain my terminology of 'original' well enough but this is what i am talking about.

Originally Posted by rotunda

1 game? Erm, I had to invest and completely restore a Ridge Racer arcade cabinet as these aren't out in the wild anymore. I had to repair everything apart from the game board which cost about £800 + the cost of the cab in the first place... then i had to purchase a Ridge Racer 2 board set which was £170. Then i hired out the only Ridge Racer full scale arcade machine in existance these days. I've had to buy multiple NTSC consoles and games which wasn't cheap importing them, getting import tax on, then i also bought a PSP, 360, and Rave Racer PCB all of which would be a fair bit of money too. So your statement there is just plain wrong.

Yes, that's still just one game. I own every single original variation of Crazy Taxy out there, Dreamcast, Gamecube, Paystation, Xbox and PSP, all those count as one game. And last time when I said this, you said, "this isn't a pissing contest, blah, blah, blah". But you make it look like it is, by saying things like "Don't be cheap, invest. If I can do it, anyone can".

You have said in this post at least 5 times "maybe I just take this too seriously" and that is the absolute truth, you take it too serious and you want the rest of us to do the same.

Originally Posted by rotunda

So piracy is ok too then? But anyway thats another issue I'm not even going to go down that rabbit hole. If your statement is the approach you wish to take then so be it but i fail to see how it helps Twin Galaxies in the long run when multiple people early on in this thread, from years ago have proven there are issues with it.

Call it what you want, apart from my house, videogames is the thing I have spent most money on. My whole life I have bought videogames and I've spent thousands upon thousands of dollars in videogames in 25 years of collecting so I don't feel the least guilty when I download a few games and I play them to submit scores here.

If you don't see how submitting hundreds of scores is helping Twin Galaxies, fine, that's your opinion. LIke I said, I couldn't care less what purists think or say.