Emulator vs NES

Thread in 'Discussion' started by gmpoison, 8 Aug 2016.

  1. Hello, I've been playing the tetris that's played in tournaments, the original 1984 nes tetris. I get to about 350k points and level 16, but I just can't seem to keep up. Even when the board is nearly cleared, the pieces drop down so fast that it feels impossible for me to turn them and move them into place. Is there a difference between using an emulator on my pc with a keyboard, and using an actual NES console with the controller, and a CRT monitor? My fingers move so fast but it feels impossible to move them any quicker to be able to get the pieces into place at around level 16.

    Thanks for the thoughts! I only bring up a CRT monitor because I know for games like super smash bro's the lag difference between up to date LCD/LED monitors and CRT monitors makes all the difference.
     
  2. To make a long story short, there's probably a couple factors:

    LCD monitor: Depending on what one you have, it could be adding anywhere from 0 to 2+ frames (yyyikes!) of display lag.
    Emulator lag: I don't think there are any NES emulators that don't add at least 2 frames of lag.

    Basically you're looking at something like 2-4+ frames of lag on an emulator. That shouldn't really affect you at level 16 but it will make using DAS techniques properly at level 19 extremely hard and at the very least will mess you up when you play on a real console. I would highly recommend getting a NES and a Tetris cart if you plan on playing anything other than very casually; they're pretty cheap nowadays.
     
  3. Thanks. Yeah I was looking into getting an NES and the game to see the difference, they're pretty cheap at around $30 on amazon, I saw that the tetris game itself was going for more than the console, haha.

    I'll keeping practicing in the mean time. I use to play starcraft 2 if you know how intensive that is, and I can type at about 120 wpm, so it feels like it's going to be impossible for me to move any faster, but we'll see :p
     
  4. I just looked up DAS techniques as well, I had no idea about them! It makes sense though, because I always felt that if I started spamming the direction for the next piece before it even came out, that it would move quicker once it did come out. I just tested it and wow it's night and day that the pieces move, so much faster! I'll have to practice with that in mind. Guess there's a word for it, DAS! Lmao.
     
    Last edited: 8 Aug 2016
  5. Playing on an emulator will most likely net you at least one frame of input lag, which is enough to screw with your game, but not too much to make you unable to adjust for it (which WILL give you issues if you were to go play in a tournament on the real hardware though)

    But yeah, NES Tetris is practically unplayable on level 16 if you don't know at least the basics of the DAS tech, so that's most likely your issue at this point.
    For the record, 16 17 and 18 are all the same speed, so in order to get used to the speed, just start all your games from level 18 at this point on. It might seem brutal at first, but it's the only way to properly break you in.
     
  6. Thanks! How do you start at level 18 though? You can only select up to level 9 which is what I've been starting on... not sure how to get around that.
     
    Last edited: 9 Aug 2016
  7. Hold down A when selecting a level, it will add 10 to the number
     
  8. Does that work for the emulator on pc too? Nothing happens when I hold A, I'm using a keyboard btw not a remote. It's the fceux emulator.
     
  9. It should still work on Emulator, since that is running a ROM image captured from an actual cartridge. But you would need to press the button you have mapped to the NES A button, not (necessarily) the A key on your keyboard.
     
  10. Thanks, trying to find the hotkey for the A button on the remote in this emulator but not having any luck. Need to figure it out though because level 9 is too low of a level for me to be trying to practice with.
     
    Last edited: 10 Aug 2016
  11. Hold down whatever button you rotate clockwise with.
     
  12. What the others said. It's not a hack, but an intentionally built in cheat in the NES game, and completely acceptable for high score runs and competitions, to the level where no serious player would normally play a high score attempt from level 9. If you wanna compete in NES Tetris, level 18 start is a must.

    I guess a maxout is probably possible starting from level 9, but it's way more strict than starting from level 18.
     
  13. Thanks, I got it to work. The pieces fly down so fast at level 18! I try to utilize the DAS techniques but again those pieces just come flying! I'll keep practicing but I think I need to improve more before I think about seeing a 2-4 frame difference on a console haha.
     

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