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Super Mario Bros. 3 in 3 Minutes – World Record Speedrun Explained [video]

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Re: Super Mario Bros. 3 in 3 Minutes – World Record Speedrun Explained [video]

#81

Post by kibwen »

lillesvin wrote: post #71
kibwen wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about the run shown in the OP, but there are a fair number of memory-manipulation/ACE speedruns that are feasible in RTA ("real-time attack", a.k.a. something a human could pull off, as distinct from TAS). Off the top of my head I can think of such routes for Pokemon Red/Blue, Ocarina of Time, and Super Mario World. To answer your question of "how likely is one to pull this off" for those three, the Poke…

One of the Castlevania games (maybe Symphony of Darkness?) achieves ACE by inventory manipulation. Mega Man 1 has an ACE category as well which is really interesting. I think Nudua explained it somewhere. (On my phone, but a quick googling should help you.)

Right, the Castlevania: Symphony of the Night one is also excellent, and I know for sure it has a GDQ demonstration.

Re: Super Mario Bros. 3 in 3 Minutes – World Record Speedrun Explained [video]

#82

Post by jsjohnst »

xg15 wrote: post #75
kibwen wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about the run shown in the OP, but there are a fair number of memory-manipulation/ACE speedruns that are feasible in RTA ("real-time attack", a.k.a. something a human could pull off, as distinct from TAS). Off the top of my head I can think of such routes for Pokemon Red/Blue, Ocarina of Time, and Super Mario World. To answer your question of "how likely is one to pull this off" for those three, the Poke…

Even then, some of the timing accuracy required still mystifies me. E.g., if I got it right then, for the RNG manipulation to work, you have to press "A" on the menu screen in one particular frame , counted from when the console was switched on. At the standard PAL framerate of 50 FPS, this gives you 1/50th of a second to react, with no visual indicator that the frame you're looking for is about to come up. I have no…

> At the standard PAL framerate of 50 FPS, this gives you 1/50th of a second to react

PAL is 25FPS, no?

Re: Super Mario Bros. 3 in 3 Minutes – World Record Speedrun Explained [video]

#83

Post by nkrisc »

fortyseven wrote: post #63

UPDATE: They do! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Super_Mario_speedrunni... (see also, replies) ---- I'm not saying this kind of thing isn't impressive -- because, duh, it's amazing! I just don't think it should count as a record. Or at least it should have it's own category. For me it just crosses a line between exploiting a side effect or minor bug, and... well, this. If I could somehow glitch physics at the q…

It's not really any different to how we have different categories for racing. We have categories for people in cars, and categories for people running under their own power, etc.

Does the fastest lap record for some track take away from any sprinting record?

Even if there was a running race and car race on the same track I don't think anyone would have any issue differentiating between the various records that would exist.

Re: Super Mario Bros. 3 in 3 Minutes – World Record Speedrun Explained [video]

#84

Post by bob33212 »

booleanbetrayal wrote: post #10

This is the most fascinating technical post I've seen in HN in quite some time. I'm in awe of how people can optimize around particular goals when given enough time.

I have seen similar achievements with some really shitty enterprise software. Where I would normally pull data out of the system and use modern tools to perform analytics, other people who have used the software for years will write 500 line long SQL statements to get the same answer

Re: Super Mario Bros. 3 in 3 Minutes – World Record Speedrun Explained [video]

#85

Post by ddingus »

jsjohnst wrote: post #82
xg15 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even then, some of the timing accuracy required still mystifies me. E.g., if I got it right then, for the RNG manipulation to work, you have to press "A" on the menu screen in one particular frame , counted from when the console was switched on. At the standard PAL framerate of 50 FPS, this gives you 1/50th of a second to react, with no visual indicator that the frame you're looking for is about to come up. I have no…

> At the standard PAL framerate of 50 FPS, this gives you 1/50th of a second to react PAL is 25FPS, no?

For broadcast programs, yes.

The NES, and many other early computer/game systems, don't bother sending an interlaced display. Basically, they omit the half scan line at the end of one frame that positions the next frame lines in between the prior frame.

That's what 288p is.

And the result is half the vertical resolution but at full frame rate. 50fps

Pal, intended for viewing movies, television broadcast does output that half scan line for the full vertical resolution, and the result is a full frame is seen every other frame.

That's what 576i is.

Twice the vertical resolution, half the frame rate or 25fps.

Re: Super Mario Bros. 3 in 3 Minutes – World Record Speedrun Explained [video]

#86

Post by mumblemumble »

madeofpalk wrote: post #74
tetrisgm wrote: post #19

Excellent video. I'm impressed the author went to recreate the run frame by frame, and then used those findings to analyze what was happening. Never expected this video to turn into a full on reverse engineering explanation. As a side note, this kind of speed run has become more popular in the recent years for a combination of reasons: - First, it's difficult to improve on the regular world records since they're so o…

> So it's creating a whole new genre of runs that simply isn't about execution anymore. Did we watch the same video? It was completely about execution. You still need to be exceptionally good at the game to get those frame-perfect setups.

Perhaps they meant, "isn't simply about execution," rather than, "simply isn't about execution?"

Re: Super Mario Bros. 3 in 3 Minutes – World Record Speedrun Explained [video]

#88

Post by chrismorgan »

ducktective wrote: post #72

ahhmm clears throat This wouldn't have happened if they used Rust ;)

The reason you get these sorts of bugs is not because of the languages used, but because of the tight constraints, most notably the limited amounts of ROM and RAM available. You simply couldn’t code such a thing in safe Rust. If you wanted to make cartridges like this with Rust, there would be a lot of unsafe code, and you’d get just the same bugs.

Put another way: if you said, “you wouldn’t get this if you wrote it in Java”—well, sure, but that’s because you wouldn’t get anything, because the JVM wouldn’t fit and couldn’t run on the target platform.

Re: Super Mario Bros. 3 in 3 Minutes – World Record Speedrun Explained [video]

#89

Post by [deleted] »

ddingus wrote: post #85
jsjohnst wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At the standard PAL framerate of 50 FPS, this gives you 1/50th of a second to react PAL is 25FPS, no?

For broadcast programs, yes. The NES, and many other early computer/game systems, don't bother sending an interlaced display. Basically, they omit the half scan line at the end of one frame that positions the next frame lines in between the prior frame. That's what 288p is. And the result is half the vertical resolution but at full frame rate. 50fps Pal, intended for viewing movies, television broadcast does output t…

[deleted]

Re: Super Mario Bros. 3 in 3 Minutes – World Record Speedrun Explained [video]

#90

Post by wiz21c »

xmprt wrote: post #5
zamadatix wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 0 exit speedrun for Super Mario World uses pretty much the exact same method (koopas and all) as well https://www.speedrun.com/smw/run/y65xp50z SMB3 also has an interesting tool assisted speedrun (non-human doing the inputs) where fast inputs on the second controller cause an overflow on the input buffer allowing for the game to be beaten basically instantly from the start screen. If you like this because of the…

I'm really glad that video became a meme (probably because of the completely unnecessary argument about what a half-A press is) because it got me interested in how a lot of these old games work. The engineering that went into optimizing them is incredible and it's a shame that newer games typically don't bother as much.

For optimizations, the compilers do much work for you now. So it's not like it's not done anymore, it's done in another way. I myself stopped handcrafting assembler when I noticed that GCC beaten me 9 times out of 10 :-)
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