Speedrunner crushes a recording of Super Mario Bros. computer-assisted by a single image

An assisted tool Super Mario Bros. The speedrun category, which has not seen any significant improvement in years, could have a second wind after a single-image enhancement submitted by runner Maru370.

Super Mario Bros. Speedrunning is a very popular activity and today, all significant improvements are summarized in milliseconds. The current record for an RTA speedrun, or "real-time attack" performed by a real human, is 4 minutes and 55 seconds. Runners in the first and second places are separated by only a few hundred milliseconds.

If you can only perform manipulations done by hand, you can see how a single image can make all the difference in a TAS, or tool assisted speedrun, in which a sequence of programmed inputs is used to get Extremely accurate results, thus allowing tips that could be too fast, accurate, or otherwise not worth the risk of failing for a human runner.

Maru370 has submitted a new record for "tool-assisted speedrun with real-time attack rules". This means that the speedrunner can not use anything in the race that a human would theoretically not be able to do on a NES controller. In the case of Super Mario Bros., the race can not use a turn in which the left and right inputs are pressed at the same time to increase Mario's movement speed. Since the race uses these rules, it could be considered that it is the best theoretical time for the regular RTA races, which means that the best potential time of the category has improved significantly. Of course, this does not increase the likelihood that a player will run the round well enough to reach that point.

It's a combination of years of optimization and the so-called "21-image rule" that keeps these cycles strictly programmed. There are essentially defined intervals that affect the loading time at the end of the level. As the TASVideos website explains, "Whenever the screen goes off (to enter a new level), the game is delayed for a variable length of time. The delay is actually calculated so that the current game progression is rounded to [the] next limit of 21 images. "

In other words, every time you finish a Super Mario Bros. level and go on to the next, there is some kind of timer counter that has to run the rest of the way before the next level starts. Therefore, it is not useful to delete one or two images on most levels, as these images will simply be added to the screen timeout before the next one begins. The only exception is the final level of the game, Bowser Castle, because the speedrun stopwatch stops just when Mario touches the ax at the end of the level.

It is therefore on this last level, World 8-4, that Maru concentrated. Specifically, he saw an improvement in what is known as the "turning room," a section of the level in which Mario has to retreat on his way down a pipe that he has already passed to continue. "The improvement comes from the 8-4 turnaround room and stops an image earlier while allowing the screen to scroll far enough for the wrong warp to work," explained Maru on the Speedrun forum. As a result, the best theoretical time possible for these analyzes has been improved by exactly one frame, or 20 milliseconds, according to the RTA synchronization. The previous record, held by rider HappyLee, had been in place for at least a few years.

According to Maru, there are also unoptimized frames in other levels, such as 1-2 and 4-2. These were left untouched in Maru's sleeve because they would not have affected the rules of the frame and thus would not have affected the overall timing of the round. It will be interesting to see if the new discovery enhances interest in the category, which is still attracting a lot of interest and receives a number of new submissions.