Duration: 6:09

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This video was originally made just to show how quick the excellent Retro Arch is compared to a SNES hooked up to a CRT TV. I had always noticed that Super Mario Bros on the NES always felt a little snappier than Super Mario World on the SNES which led me to see exactly how quick real hardware actually is. Much to my surprise I found that most games on the SNES have 2 frames of output lag where as most on the NES have 1 frame. When I finally installed Retro Arch on my gaming computer which has a much lower latency monitor hooked to it Vs. my computer upstairs which is hooked up to a typical Vizio TV which has around 5 frames of input lag. The difference was noticeable, so I had to compare it for myself and found that Retro Arch was only lagging by 1 frame and my monitor lags about a half a frame. Overall the difference between real hardware and Retro Arch on a Windows machine is only felt when comparing the two, but nobody would be able to tell otherwise when not having a direct comparison. Then in the middle of making the video, Dwedit in the Libretro forums found a way to exploit the output lag that exists on real hardware by removing those frames in Retro Arch which effectively makes Retro Arch just as fast as real hardware on Windows systems and even FASTER than real hardware on Linux systems! So I also had to show that. The mention of the Super NT is not intended persuade those who have purchased one to get rid of it in favor of Retro Arch. It is mentioned to let those who don't have one know that Retro Arch can be a much better and cheaper option to buying a 200 dollar machine that can only play Super Nintendo games and still isn't perfect. If that makes you angry, you'll just have to deal. Software emulation is constantly improving and is the future. Software emulators were made by hobbiests with the aim of preserving history where as clone consoles and flash carts were made for profit. I respect anyone who can write an emulator and do so on their own time and their own time just to simply share it with the world.