Aging SNES Consoles Show Speed Boost: APU Frequency Rises by 182 Hz Over 35 Years

Alan Cecil, a seasoned security consultant and the man behind the TASBot (a Tool-Assisted Speedrun robot), recently stumbled upon something rather interesting about Super Nintendo consoles. It turns out they’re noticeably getting a tad faster, and it all comes down to one of their chips. A report by 404 Media dives into how the good old SNES leverages a Sony SPC700 audio processing unit (APU), which originally clocked in with a digital signal processing (DSP) rate of 32,000 Hz. But, back in 2007, eagle-eyed SNES emulator developers noticed a minor discrepancy—the chips were running slightly above that, at 32,040 Hz, to be precise. This little difference had to be factored into emulation to avoid certain games from going haywire.

The SPC700’s coprocessor finds its rhythm courtesy of a ceramic resonator humming along at 24,576 Hz. It’s a nifty piece of tech, but it’s not immune to the whims of heat and other environmental quirks, which can tweak its performance.

In a bit of detective work, Cecil took to Bluesky with the TASBot account in February, putting forth his theory and rallying SNES users for intel. Early findings suggest an intriguing trend: as SNES units age gracefully, their SPC700 chips appear to pick up the pace. The highest frequency reported so far hit 32,182 Hz. While that’s less than a 1% uptick from the original 32,000 Hz, it’s enough to potentially fiddle with game audio and even upset the balance of some titles.

### Quickening SPC700: A Speedrunner’s Quandary

Now, you might wonder how all this impacts gameplay. If you’re just having a casual gaming session, stressing over audio fixes might not be on your radar. But for speedrunners or anyone involved in crafting bots where precision timing is key, this acceleration can be a game-changer. Picture this: after completing a level, the screen temporarily fades to black while the console queues up data for what’s next—audio included. If the APU is quicker on the draw, courtesy of its enhanced frequency, loading times inevitably shrink.

For your everyday gamer, this might sound like a dream, but for the speed-running community, it’s a wrinkle that complicates record attempts. The good news? Human speedrunners remain unaffected by this slight advantage of the SPC700.

“We still need to quantify the full scope of its effect on longer speedruns,” Cecil notes. “We know it impacts data transfer speeds between the CPU and APU somewhat.”

However, when it comes to TASBot’s meticulous playthroughs, there’s more at stake. Given its reliance on split-second accuracy, such deviations could spell trouble. Cecil’s ongoing mission is to collect more data, probing into how time alters these consoles’ performance. Understanding and adapting to these changes is essential, not only for authentic emulation but also for preserving the classic gaming experiences that many cherish from their youth.