If you grew up in the 1990s , there ’s a good chance you played such hit asSuper Mario World , Star Fox , andThe Legend of Zelda : A Link to the Paston the beautiful Super Nintendo Entertainment System , or SNES .
If you still have the cabinet , you may want to pluck it up and give it another play . Because users have noticed something a little unknown over the last few weeks ; the console table appear to have sped up as it has get on .
Back in February , the team behind TASBot – a shaft - serve speedrun bot that sends control inputs to retro console – put out an intriguing content to appeal for more data .
" SNES consoles seem to be getting faster as they maturate , " the TASBot team wrote onBlueSky . " Help us collect datum . Do you have an SNES and a flash cart ? campaign the smpspeed ROM trial from lidnariq on your console . "
Other exploiter partake screenshots record the strange speed increment .
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On Thursday , the TASBot team came back with their findings , after 143 people tested their own consoles and sent in the data .
The test substantiate that SNES console are running ever so slenderly faster than their 1990s specifications . The weird speed cost increase is in the console ’s audio processing social unit ( APU ) , and could potentially result inhigher - shift noisesemanating from whatever atrocious cathode ray TV you select to playDonkey Kong Countryon . Other parts of the console appear to be unmoved .
" The chief 21 MHz [ central processing unit ] clock apply a lechatelierite crystal . It is fine , " the TASBot teamwrotewhile the datum was still coming in . " The 24.576 MHz APU clock uses a ceramic resonator . It is not . It seems to lam faster years by and by . It also seems to rush up when tender . "
Ceramic resonators have several advantage over crystal resonators , including faster startup time .
" The oscillator frequency of the ceramic resonating chamber can more easily be tuned to the desired frequency , " Microchip Technologyexplains . " But , it is also more raw to temperature and load change , have undesired frequency variance . "
The increase speed is improbable to lead in firm swiftness runs , unless hear a slightly higher - pitchedMariotheme really adds the spare sense of urgency you need to crush Goombas . Nevertheless , the squad is continuing to inquire the matter .
" [ TASBot squad memberdwangoAC ] has many more conclusions to share , " the TASBot teamadded . " He froze a console and measured it . It increased 32 Hz . The 217 Hz range of samples was much larger . It mean Hotplate% will not help as much . A ' fast ' DSP charge per unit is still improbable to bear upon speedrun leaderboards however . More psychoanalysis is necessitate . "
