SNES Consoles Seem to Speed Up With Age: APU Frequency Rises by Up to 182 Hz After 35 Years

Alan Cecil, a security consultant and the brains behind TASBot—the Tool-Assisted Speedrun robot—made an intriguing discovery about the Super Nintendo consoles. It turns out these classic machines have gotten just a tad quicker over time, thanks to one of their chips. According to a report from 404 Media, the beloved SNES uses a Sony SPC700 APU (audio processing unit) originally clocked at 32,000 Hz. But back in 2007, folks coding SNES emulators realized the chips were actually speeding along at 32,040 Hz. To keep the games from glitching, they had to adjust to this new frequency.

The SPC700 chip gets its ticking pace from a ceramic resonator bumping away at 24,576 Hz. But, like any sensitive bit of tech, it’s influenced by heat and other environmental pressures.

In February, Cecil took to Bluesky under the TASBot name, pitching his theory and calling on SNES users for some hands-on data. The early numbers back it up: as these consoles age, the SPC700 chip is ticking faster. The top frequency reported is now 32,182 Hz. While this tweak is less than a 1% increase over the original, it could mess with game soundtracks and potentially disrupt a few classic titles.

Now, while this might seem like a minor detail, it could be a real bump in the road for speedrunners. Since the SPC700 is all about crunching audio data on the SNES, it shouldn’t change how you actually play, especially with the sound off. But for speedrunners and precision bots that bank on meticulous timing, a chip running a bit faster means quicker load times. After you clear a level, for instance, the console needs to pull together all the data—and yes, that includes audio—for the next stage. If the APU’s feeding this info to the CPU quicker, then boom, you’ve got shorter loading times.

For most gamers, that’s probably great news. But if you’re in the speed-running community, it can really shake things up. Thankfully, the pacing change from the SPC700 isn’t impacting human players directly.

Cecil weighs in, saying, “We don’t yet know how much of an impact it will have on a long speedrun. We only know it has at least some impact on how quickly data can be transferred between the CPU and the APU.”

When it comes to TASBot’s meticulously timed runs, though, this change could be more disruptive. Its actions need to be spot-on, down to the millisecond. Cecil continues to gather data to understand how time is affecting these consoles. Recognizing and adapting to how these components age will be key in emulating and preserving the nostalgic classics that so many of us grew up with.

For lovers of retro gaming, figuring this out could mean keeping those treasured memories alive for years to come.