With vintage tech, the assumption is that as the years pass by, functionality is impacted by the fact that the parts inside are running way beyond their intended lifespan.
However, it seems that the SNES is an exception to this rule, as it has been discovered that Nintendo's 16-bit system is actually getting faster as it grows older—at least when it comes to audio.
"The main 21 MHz CPU clock uses a quartz crystal, it is fine," says TASbot on Blue Sky. "The 24.576 MHz APU [Audio Processing Unit] clock uses a ceramic resonator. It is not. It seems to run faster years later. It also seems to speed up when warm."
One of the consequences of the APU running faster is musical notes and sounds being slightly higher in pitch, but what the community really wants to know is whether or not this would impact speedrunning on original hardware.
A form was published to collect a broader range of results, with users being asked to download and run lidnariq's smpspeed.sfc test ROM via a flash cart. Some users reported very interesting results:
"The results we have show it is real," adds TASbot. "Consoles we measured are faster than the original specification. It will take research to determine why."
"Based on 143 responses, the SNES DSP rate averages 32,076 Hz, rising 8 Hz from cold to warm. Warm DSP rates go from 31,965 to 32,182 Hz, a 217 Hz range. Therefore, temperature is less significant. Why? How does it affect games? We do not know. Yet."
Have you run the test on your SNES? Let us know with a comment.