Users baffled after discovering this 90s Nintendo console gets faster as it gets older
It's fully accepted in this modern technological age that the older a device becomes, the slower it gets, so it's understandable that many have been left baffled by a 90s Nintendo console that seems to be getting faster over time.
That dusty old console you've had stored in the attic might not just be worth a wad of cash, but it could also be technically the fastest its ever been - to the point where the games being played simply can't catch up.
At least, that's what seems to be happening with the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, more commonly known as the SNES, which is one of the most popular and iconic consoles that Nintendo has ever released.
It was the home of the first ever Mario Kart game, alongside legendary titles like Earthbound and Donkey Kong Country, but dedicated speed runners have accidentally figured out that one key part within the box is running faster than ever, as reported by the Metro.
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The team behind TASbot, a tool used to assist speedrunners, discovered that the audio processing unit (APU) within their SNES test unit was running at higher hertz measurements than when it was originally released.
Unfortunately, this doesn't mean that your games will suddenly run better - so put that dream of running Cyberpunk 2077 on your SNES to rest. Instead, game audio such as music and sound effects will play at a higher pitch, which isn't exactly ideal.
Thankfully it doesn't seem to be an issue for most players out there as it's unlikely to damage the system, but for TASBot the concern lies within how it'll affect speedruns, as outlined by one user in the replies to the post.
"I suspect the concern is that a higher clock speed means faster speed runs on SNES games today than when they were first manufacturered, with no improvement in skill," with another adding: "Or inputs on older speedruns would sneak in on an earlier frame than intended, causing a desync."
This could have major ramifications on existing records and times for these older SNES games, as every millisecond counts when it comes to soaring up the speedrunning leaderboards, and achieving that through a simple hardware advantage isn't exactly fair.
In order to test whether this was just their system or a widespread issue, the TASBot team put a survey out for others to submit their data:
"Help us collect data. Do you have an SNES and a flash cart? [sic] Run the smpspeed ROM test from lidnariq on your console," the team outlined in a post on Bluesky.
Reporting their own data, they illustrate that "the main 21 MHz CPU clock uses a quartz crystal. It is fine. The 24.576 MHz APU clock uses a ceramic resonator. It is not. It seems to run faster years later. It also seems to speed up when warm."
Upon receiving over 90 survey responses, the team then concluded that "the average DSP sample rate is higher than it was. It is at least 32,070. It may be ever higher."
Definitely something to think about if you happen to still have an old SNES lying around, as with a bit of training who knows what lightning fast speedrun times you could achieve!