Security consultant and TASBot (Tool-Assisted Speedrun robot) administrator Alan Cecil discovered that Super Nintendo consoles have grown slightly faster because of one of their chips. According to a 404 Media report, the classic gaming console uses a Sony SPC700 APU (audio processing unit) with a digital signal processing (DSP) rate of 32,000 Hz. However, SNES emulator programmers noticed in 2007 that the chips ran marginally faster at 32,040 Hz, so they had to use that value instead to prevent some games from breaking.
The SPC700 coprocessor uses a ceramic resonator running at 24,576 Hz to set its frequency. However, this component is a sensitive piece of electronics, and heat and other environmental factors could affect its behavior. I
In late February, Cecil posted on Bluesky, using the TASBot account his theory and asked for data from SNES users. Preliminary results from the data show a clear trend that as SNES consoles grow older, the SPC700 chip seemingly runs faster. At the moment, the highest frequency submitted is 32,182 Hz. This increase is less than 1% of the original value of 32,000 Hz but could still affect in-game audio and break a few titles.
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Increased Frequency On The SPC700 May Be A Problem For Speedrunners
Since the SPC700 only processes audio data for the SNES, it will theoretically not affect how you play the game, especially if you put it on mute. But if you’re a speed runner or building a bot that relies on exact timing, the faster loading time brought about by the higher frequency on the SPC700 would have an effect. That’s because, as the screen blacks out after you finish a stage, the console loads all the required data for the next level — including audio. If the APU could deliver that data to the CPU slightly faster than expected, the loading time would decrease accordingly.
This might be good news for the average gamer, but it could wreak havoc on speed-running records and speed-running bots. Fortunately, the slight performance increase brought about by the SPC700 does not affect human speed runners.
“We don’t yet know how much of an impact it will have on a long speedrun,” says Cecil. “We only know it has at least some impact on how quickly data can be transferred between the CPU and the APU.”
On the other hand, TASBot’s playthroughs might be affected, especially as its actions must be accurate down to the millisecond. Still, Cecil is gathering more data to see how time affects the console. As the components in these devices (and in millions of others) grow older, learning how to deal with their changes would help us emulate them in the future and preserve the classic games that built our childhoods.
