I would guess that the inconsistency on the same system is probably mostly due to human timing differences, e.g. some frame counter or other state in RAM that changes depending on when you actually press buttons and ends up taking part in the execution of the bug?koitsu wrote:The general theory about the behaviour differing in emulators and PowerPak is that whatever's triggering the problem may relate to RAM or ZP variables having different contents vs. an actual cart. This is par for the course/understandable, not too exciting.
The original claim was the following (and it's completely invalid -- there is no "sub-frame timing" or anything else we can't figure out going on):
[14:18] <Buddybenj> Well like I said this either relies on sub-fram timing or very low level hardware quirks, so it would be nice if someone could test on a real cartridge at least three times
On different systems (emulator / powerpak / cartridge / various NES machines) you have different RAM initialization (including the battery backed RAM), different open bus behaviours, etc. Even if we didn't have to deal with the first issue of it being inconsistent even on the same setup, any of these things could change the behaviour yet again.