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Super Mario Bros: The Human Limit

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Re: Super Mario Bros: The Human Limit

#21

Post by joshschreuder »

to11mtm wrote: post #18
stormbrew wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's complicated. Keyboards are almost certainly 'better' in the abstract if they're good enough (low activation threshold, not a lot of bus latency on whatever you're using to connect it, etc) because it's easier to press complex sequences of buttons when you're not holding the thing you're pressing them on ('fat thumb') or you can choose the layout of the relevant keys (vs. 'claw' or 'piano' gripping a controller).…

>A lot of games do require controllers that are at least no more capable than one that came with the console though. An example of this would be if the original controller won't let you press both left and right at the same time, and being able to do so gives an unfair advantage due to the way the game was programmed (I think Castlevania SOTN is one of these.)

As mentioned in this vid, there is also a TAS of SMB that uses left/right simultaneously to surpass the human limit

Re: Super Mario Bros: The Human Limit

#22

Post by sciolistse »

to11mtm wrote: post #18
stormbrew wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's complicated. Keyboards are almost certainly 'better' in the abstract if they're good enough (low activation threshold, not a lot of bus latency on whatever you're using to connect it, etc) because it's easier to press complex sequences of buttons when you're not holding the thing you're pressing them on ('fat thumb') or you can choose the layout of the relevant keys (vs. 'claw' or 'piano' gripping a controller).…

>A lot of games do require controllers that are at least no more capable than one that came with the console though. An example of this would be if the original controller won't let you press both left and right at the same time, and being able to do so gives an unfair advantage due to the way the game was programmed (I think Castlevania SOTN is one of these.)

This is generally handled by an input cleaner, either in the controller itself if you hook it up to an original system, or via an emulator if you're using one. In the case of SMB1 L+R is disallowed (and it does give some in game time advantages) and all allowed emulators will give 'neutral' inputs if you press both L and R simultaneously so it will act as if you've pressed neither.

Re: Super Mario Bros: The Human Limit

#24

Post by joshschreuder »

xiphias2 wrote: post #6

I loved the story telling of the video. To tell the truth, the story telling was even better than most movies that I watch for entertainment.

Highly recommend going through Summoning Salt’s back catalogue as he is a great storyteller. He has a way of getting me interested even in games I’ve never played, like Ninja Gaiden [1].

I think the epitome of this for me was his vid on Mario Kart 64 and the A1A trying to stop a prolific speedrunner from claiming 32/32 simultaneous track records [2].

[1] https://youtu.be/7u1tVD7UEqw

[2] https://youtu.be/D6cpa-TvKn8

Re: Super Mario Bros: The Human Limit

#25

Post by bcrescimanno »

oceliker wrote: post #3

It wouldn't be a SMB speedrun video if it didn't have the bus analogy. Jokes aside, Summoning Salt is a great Youtube channel, and it makes me feel emotionally invested in speedruns of games I've never heard of before. Great storytelling. Not to mention that speedruns (and the glitches people find to get world record times) are pretty interesting from a computer science standpoint.

Came here to add comments about Summoning Salt as well. I don't follow speedruns at all; but, I really love his work and I absolutely echo the sentiment that he will get you emotionally invested in his content.

As an interesting aside, not only does he make great documentary style videos about Speed running, he also happens to be the current (as of June 2021) world record holder for Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!

https://www.speedrun.com/user/Summoningsalt

Re: Super Mario Bros: The Human Limit

#26

Post by Pulcinella »

oceliker wrote: post #3

It wouldn't be a SMB speedrun video if it didn't have the bus analogy. Jokes aside, Summoning Salt is a great Youtube channel, and it makes me feel emotionally invested in speedruns of games I've never heard of before. Great storytelling. Not to mention that speedruns (and the glitches people find to get world record times) are pretty interesting from a computer science standpoint.

I do wonder if the “check for win condition after every X number of frames” is for performance reasons.

Since I believe it’s every 21 frames that means you could perform 20 other functions dispersed across the 20 other frames, but if the system doesn’t need to do anything in that time then I don’t know why you wouldn’t just check every frame.

Re: Super Mario Bros: The Human Limit

#27

Post by stormbrew »

elihu wrote: post #19
thenoblesunfish wrote: post #7

It‘s probably way too late to change the rules now, but even though it‘s totally legal according to the rules on the leaderboards, using a keyboard seems like quite a difference from using a controller, and from the end of the video, sounds like it does make certain moves easier.

The video mentions that moves that can only be done by pressing right and left at the same time aren't allowed, as that can't be done on a controller. I wonder if keyboard input is tolerated but only if it blocks impossible combinations, or if it's just on the honor system not to do those moves?

It'd be impossible to do that on the honour system. It would take an absurd amount of coordination to avoid ever doing it in a game like SMB, and the effects would be pretty immediately obvious.

If you're using an emulator, you have to enable allowing it. If you're using a hardware adapter you'd have to have your adapter blocking it.

Re: Super Mario Bros: The Human Limit

#28

Post by tantalor »

Pulcinella wrote: post #26
oceliker wrote: post #3

It wouldn't be a SMB speedrun video if it didn't have the bus analogy. Jokes aside, Summoning Salt is a great Youtube channel, and it makes me feel emotionally invested in speedruns of games I've never heard of before. Great storytelling. Not to mention that speedruns (and the glitches people find to get world record times) are pretty interesting from a computer science standpoint.

I do wonder if the “check for win condition after every X number of frames” is for performance reasons. Since I believe it’s every 21 frames that means you could perform 20 other functions dispersed across the 20 other frames, but if the system doesn’t need to do anything in that time then I don’t know why you wouldn’t just check every frame.

Nobody knows.

There’s no clear cut answer for this; some say it was intended to be every 20 frames, and there was an off-by-one error in implementation.

https://ggn00b.com/for-noobs/frame-rule-mario-explained/

Re: Super Mario Bros: The Human Limit

#29

Post by jordigh »

Afforess wrote: post #4
oceliker wrote: post #3

It wouldn't be a SMB speedrun video if it didn't have the bus analogy. Jokes aside, Summoning Salt is a great Youtube channel, and it makes me feel emotionally invested in speedruns of games I've never heard of before. Great storytelling. Not to mention that speedruns (and the glitches people find to get world record times) are pretty interesting from a computer science standpoint.

Speedrunning is the only sport that I am excited about.

Speedrunning is software QA as a spectator sport. It's no wonder we like it. :)

Re: Super Mario Bros: The Human Limit

#30

Post by ajsnigrutin »

disambiguation wrote: post #8

as someone with no prior opinion or interest in speed-running, this is a surprisingly good watch! some thoughts - given the timeline of progress, i guess we might see THE perfect run in the next 12 months or so - how did they figure out the theoretical best time in the first place? - is machine learning being applied to this problem yet? might be able to discover some more time saves

> - how did they figure out the theoretical best time in the first place?

Depends on the game...

With mario, if you know the max acceleration and speed of mario, and the length of the level, you can calculate the theoretical minimum needed to come to the other end, especially if no glitches are allowed. If you have to backtrack a bit, you can calculate the optimal path to pass through. Glitches (eg. passing through walls) make this harder.

With games like Zelda, breath of the wild, it's pretty much impossible to calculate exactly, except for taking the current records, finding flaws, errors and/or adding new optimizations, and subtracting the "lost time" from the record.... until a new, better strategy comes out.

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