SNES Speedrunners Puzzled by Discovery of Increased Speed with Age

The speedrunning community is buzzing over a strange phenomenon that appears to be causing the SNES to run games faster as it ages. In early February, Alan Cecil, a Bluesky user known as @tas.bot, alerted the gaming world to this peculiar trend. It suggests that the nearly 50 million SNES units sold could now be running games like Super Mario World, Super Metroid, and Star Fox more efficiently than when they rolled off the production lines in the 1990s.

The notion that a video game console could improve its performance over time may sound far-fetched, but Cecil's investigation points to a particular component as the culprit behind this unexpected enhancement.

The Fastest Thing Alive

In an interview with 404 Media, Cecil explained that the official Nintendo specs state the SNES’s audio processing unit (APU) SPC700 operates at a digital signal processing (DSP) rate of 32,000Hz, controlled by a ceramic resonator running at 24.576MHz. However, retro console enthusiasts have long noted discrepancies in these numbers, with recordings over the years showing varying DSP rates influenced by factors like temperature. These fluctuations affect how the console processes audio and sends it to the CPU, subtly altering game speed.

The SNES appears to be getting faster with age. Photo by Aldara Zarraoa / Getty Images. What makes this intriguing is the change in DSP rates over the last 34 years. After noticing unusually high DSP rates, Cecil asked SNES owners to record data from their units. The over 140 responses gathered show a clear trend of increased DSP rates in recent measurements. Previously, in 2007, the average DSP was recorded at 32,040Hz; Cecil's data now shows it at 32,076Hz. While temperature does affect these rates, it's not enough to account for the observed increase. It seems the SNES is processing audio faster as time progresses.

"Based on 143 responses, the SNES DSP rate averages 32,076Hz, rising 8Hz from cold to warm," Cecil noted in a follow-up Bluesky post accompanied by a layout of the data. "Warm DSP rates go from 31,965 to 32,182Hz, a 217Hz range. Therefore, temperature is less significant. Why? How does it affect games? We do not know. Yet."

Any%

While the findings are fascinating, Cecil acknowledges that more research is needed to understand how much faster the SNES is processing game audio and what's causing it. Historical data from the console's first decade is scarce, but for now, it seems Nintendo's second major home console is aging gracefully as it approaches its 35th birthday.

This phenomenon has stirred the speedrunning community, as an SPC700 processing audio faster could theoretically shorten load times in games. A speedrun from 2025 might be faster than one from 1990 due to this change, potentially affecting decades of leaderboard rankings. However, the impact on games like Super Mario World isn't straightforward.

It's important to note that APU speeds don't directly translate to visual game speed. Even under the most extreme conditions, these findings might only shave off less than a second from an average speedrun. The effect on different games and longer speedruns remains uncertain, and the speedrunning community's research is still in its early stages. For now, players have little to worry about.

As Cecil continues to explore what makes the SNES tick, the console is powering through its 30s with apparent vigor. For more on the SNES, check out the list of best-selling consoles of all time.