Better without slowdown

[SPM]

I've recently discovered that overclocking the CPU on MAME can reduce/get rid of slowdown without speeding up the game, and man I'm having a blast with games I didn't fully enjoy before because of it, like Gradius III. Previously I had to rely on ports that didn't have slowdown (either on purpose as an option or just poorly emulated) if I wanted to play that way.

So... what shmups do you consider better without slowdown? or alternatively, shmups you prefer with it (that are not CAVE)?

[PerishedFraud ឵឵]

Blazing Star

[SPM]

Yeah definitely Neo-Geo games! Last Resort for sure, and probably Pulstar as well.

Another one I much prefer without slowdown is Section Z (the CAS version doesn't have any, and neither does MAME now ^^)

[blazinglazers69]

Overclocking is such an amazing QoL feature and pretty much solidifies emulation as a stellar option for me.

GG Aleste 1-3 really shine with being freed of the limitations of the Game Gear hardware. I'm currently really enjoying the Turbografx-16 port of Gradius which I actually think has better graphics and audio than the original. With the slowdown removed, the only major thing that arcade version really has over it is some slight screen crunch.

I've heard people say the SNES R-Types benefit from it along with the Gradius III port. Both too hard for me. But I've heard lol.

Although to be honest I may have to turn the slowdown back on with Gradius since I am getting my ass handed to me by the Moai statues big time.

I avoided Gradius for awhile because of the whole memorizer/"Gradius Syndrome" thing, but I gotta say, seeing that a clear is only about 16-18 minutes depending on what version you play, that really changes the way I interact with the game. Also, I feel like the better I get at shmups the less it becomes a matter of "memorize every pixel where your ship should be at all times" and more a matter of generally having the proper load out, anticipation, and strategy instead of brute force repetition.

I'm consistently getting about 1/3rd through the game after playing it for one night. It feels like trying to get a good time on a run and getting a runner's high.

[OmegaFlareX]

There has been a lot of work in recent years from ROMhackers turbo-charging various Super Slowtendo games. The main tech is adding support for the SA-1 expansion chip, converting to FastROM, or both. I've also seen SuperFX games get slight upgrades by adding SFX² support. PM me if you want links to pre-patched versions.

Most of my experience playing Giga Wing was on the Dreamcast port, which has zero slowdown. GL on stage 5!

The 2016 Steam port of Deathsmiles has no slowdown at all in MBL 1.1 mode. For a game that's really designed around such a thing (as all CV1K games are), shit is wild. I also want to say that the footage I've seen of SDOJ Exa Label is much faster in Exa mode than arcade.

[Martinov]

In the Hunt for sure.

[Meriscan]

Final star force is the obvious one to me. Actually looks like a very fun game, but I tried it out in MAME several years ago only to be greeted with hilarious amounts of slowdown.

There's now a run on YT that overclocks the CPU to 400%, and it looks quite good like this.

[Despatche]

Games that "benefit" from slowdown (specifically not timeslow mechanics like Espgaluda) should be treated as contraband. Incredible amounts of effort should be spent to fix these games.