The title is a little bit misleading. Yes, it's faster than the original rating, but it's by such a small bit that it's not really going to affect anyone except people who are extremely particular...
The title is a little bit misleading. Yes, it's faster than the original rating, but it's by such a small bit that it's not really going to affect anyone except people who are extremely particular about TAS runs - perhaps only to the few people like Cecil who are making tooling for them. The example given with the APU has a drift of roughly 0.3% more than spec.
It's still fairly surprising to hear about hardware getting faster as it ages. I only hear about stuff getting slower, I never thought that speeding up was a possibility.
It's still fairly surprising to hear about hardware getting faster as it ages. I only hear about stuff getting slower, I never thought that speeding up was a possibility.
Ceramic resonators are less stable than crystal oscillators and have a much higher frequency tolerance from the get-go. It's what makes them the cheaper choice for circuit clocks. But generally,...
Ceramic resonators are less stable than crystal oscillators and have a much higher frequency tolerance from the get-go. It's what makes them the cheaper choice for circuit clocks. But generally, over time the distance between the input and output slightly relaxes which causes the frequency to go up. This is most often due to mechanical fatigue but manufacturing quality and general environmental exposure can be a factor too. It's an issue that affects some retro-computers as well.
Technically, the entire SNES isn't running faster, just one part of the audio chip is, which may skew how long or short the CPU has to wait for certain information as things potentially go out of sync. But in this case, as @Akir pointed out, the skew is likely not high enough to affect anything human detectable.
Something very strange is happening inside Super Nintendo (SNES) consoles as they age: a component you’ve probably never heard of is running ever so slightly faster as we get further and further away from the time the consoles first hit the market in the early ‘90s.
The title is a little bit misleading. Yes, it's faster than the original rating, but it's by such a small bit that it's not really going to affect anyone except people who are extremely particular about TAS runs - perhaps only to the few people like Cecil who are making tooling for them. The example given with the APU has a drift of roughly 0.3% more than spec.
It's still fairly surprising to hear about hardware getting faster as it ages. I only hear about stuff getting slower, I never thought that speeding up was a possibility.
Ceramic resonators are less stable than crystal oscillators and have a much higher frequency tolerance from the get-go. It's what makes them the cheaper choice for circuit clocks. But generally, over time the distance between the input and output slightly relaxes which causes the frequency to go up. This is most often due to mechanical fatigue but manufacturing quality and general environmental exposure can be a factor too. It's an issue that affects some retro-computers as well.
Technically, the entire SNES isn't running faster, just one part of the audio chip is, which may skew how long or short the CPU has to wait for certain information as things potentially go out of sync. But in this case, as @Akir pointed out, the skew is likely not high enough to affect anything human detectable.