The Best Speedrun Timer – Which Timer to Use For Speedrunning?

I recall when I was getting ready for the very first speedrun I was super excited, but I quickly found myself not sure of which timer I should use for speedrunning. I found myself asking which timer is the absolute best for speedrunning? The simple answer is that there actually is an overall best speedrun timer.

The most common timer used for speedrunning is LiveSplit. LiveSplit is a user-friendly timer program that includes features such as time comparisons, automated split colors, and various theme options. The timer accurately displays data to the hundredth of a second and includes a speedrun leaderboard integration.

With that said, “best” is based on your situation and preferences. You will be best off with a timer unique to your setup and interests. In this article, we’ll cover several options for timing your speedruns, a quick note on how to get started with each, my personal preferences, and a couple of technical points to smooth out any road-bumps along the way!

And, of course, every timer mentioned in this article will be completely free to use!

TL;DR – Top 4 Best Speedrun Timers:

• LiveSplit: The most common and customizable timer, designed specifically for speedrunning.
• WSplit: A lightweight speedrun timer that may take up less CPU.
• Llanfair: The macOS or Unix solution for timing speedruns.
• LiveSplit One: This is a no-download timer that runs in the browser.

LiveSplit

It’s no wonder that LiveSplit is so common when it is such a great tool for Windows users, as you can very easily customize just about every aspect of the timer to make it fit your stream and match your style. This is our recommended timer.

To get started with LiveSplit, the first thing you’ll want to take care of is setting up your hotkeys. Hotkeys will be used to start your timer, split, stop, pause, and plenty more! These hotkeys can be used globally on your machine — meaning you can use the hotkeys even when you are clicked into another window — which is very useful if you are emulating or speedrunning PC games (preferably DOS games, because the world needs more DOS speedruns). To get to the settings for the hotkeys, right-click on the timer once you have it opened, and go to Settings.

Once you are in the settings you can simply just click on the hotkey you’d like to change, and then press the button you’d like to use for that action — easy!

*Note: Start, split, and stopping the timer at the end of the run will all be the SAME hotkey! There is no need to remember pressing different buttons throughout your run.

LiveSplit Setup

To set up your splits, right-click on the timer, and click “Edit Splits”.

Everything is optional, so if you aren’t interested in setting up anything, just ignore it! At the top, you’ll type in your game name and the category for the speedrun — for example “Any%”, “100%”, “Hard Mode”, or “Feeding Bacon to All Cats%”… whatever you’re into. No judgment passed.

The “Start Timer At” area is for games where the timer starts a set amount of time after your first input. For example, when speedrunning Contra for NES, the timing of the run doesn’t actually begin until you gain control of the character. For some people, it might prove easier to set the timer to a negative starting position equal to the amount of time between pressing start and gaining control of the character. This will make it so you can press Start on both your game and timer simultaneously. It’s more convenient and often results in higher accuracy with your initial timing of the run.

How to Set Up LiveSplit Timer Splits

You start off with 1 split, so you will start the timer, and when you “split” you will end the timer. To add more splits, click “Insert Below”. Once you have the number of splits you would like, you can start naming them. Just go into the “Segment Name” field for each split and type in a name that makes you happy. As an example, you could name the splits “Level 1”, “Level 2”, “Level 3″… but that’s just an example. We have faith that you can be a little more creative than that. That should be good enough for now! You can always come back and edit anything involving your splits later. Press ‘OK’, okay?

Once you finish your first run (and any run after), you will be asked if you want to save your splits. If you just got your first PB, then absolutely, save those splits!

Once you’re feeling a bit braver, right-click the timer and ‘Edit Layout’. There you will be able to make your timer truly yours. Unique to you and your stream, however, you’d like it displayed to the world. Just be sure to save your layout when you’re done!

The downside:

LiveSplit is absolutely our favorite timer, but everything has a downside. LiveSplit is so loaded with the customization and so good at accommodating the user that it unfortunately is a little bloated compared to other timers. On slower computers, it takes a few seconds to load up your splits. Personally, I believe the few seconds sacrificed are worth the wait, even on a very slow PC. It’s a great program, easy to use, and it looks sharp!

To download LiveSplit, just check out LiveSplit.org/downloads.

If you’re just getting started with speedrunning, I’d recommend you check out our article How to Start Speedrunning: A Beginner’s Guide.

WSplit

WSplit is another great timer that runs on Windows OS. Most people will say it’s not as pretty as LiveSplit, but what it lacks in design, it makes up for in usability. It’s lightweight, loads quickly, and gets the job done. Some people also do prefer the default look of this software compared to the default look of other timers.

If you plan to switch between games and categories often, or you close out of your timer more than a couple of times per speedrun session, or if you simply don’t like bulky software installed on your machine, this might be your better choice.

Ultimately, you can still customize this timer quite a bit, it just takes a little longer to get it looking as pretty as you and your stream deserve it to look — but, it does come down to personal preference!

To download WSplit, head to the github link here: github.com/Nitrofski/WSplit/releases

Llanfair

Not on a Windows operating system? Try out Llanfair for a Mac OS & Unix timer that is well received among the speedrunning community. This is a pretty nice piece of software. It has a clean user interface, and it’ll be a breeze to start it up and edit it to your preferences.

All you’ll have to do to get moving with this Llanfair is open it up, bring up the menu and select “New”.

Name your run. You can ignore the “Goal” section. Click on the big ol’ plus button to start adding splits, and with just one more click on the name will allow you to change the name of your individual splits.

In the settings, you’ll be able to change colors, fonts, components, language, and much more. The setup will be fairly straightforward. However, in order to run this program, you will need to have a minimum of Java 7 on your computer. You can find updates to your java here at their official page: The Most up-to-date version of Java here!

To download Llanfair, visit their github link here: github.com/gered/Llanfair

And lastly but not least.

Well, maybe least.

LiveSplit One

This is a bit of an off option. If you really don’t want to download anything, or otherwise are having issues with other timers (we know, technology can be incredibly finicky), you can open a timer right in your browser. LiveSplit One has pretty much all of the same functionality as the software for LiveSplit, though it doesn’t allow for a global hotkey option — which makes it a console-only timer.

Being that we’ve already given a bit of an idea of how to get started with LiveSplit, and this is essentially the same concept, we won’t go too in-depth. We just want to let you know the option is available!

To start editing this timer, give it a right-click and all the options will open in a side panel! To use LiveSplit One, check out one.LiveSplit.org (no downloads needed).

The Best Timer For Speedrunning

With that said, I hope this guide has been immensely useful in identifying the best speedrun timer for your needs! With LiveSplit being the most common choice for speedrunners, the speedrun timer you choose to make yours. It is up to you and comes down to personal preference as well as your gaming setup, but we hope we’ve guided you in the right direction!

Don’t get too hung up on the little details, ultimately it’s just a timer. These exist for their functionality, and they are all perfectly functional.

Catch you around!

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