The final minute barrier ever - Super Mario Bros. Warpless World Record Explained

on August 14 2019 the final minute barrier left in Super Mario Brothers was broken did I do it with the bonk cosmic broke the 19 minute mark with a new world record of 18 minutes and fifty nine point eight five six seconds in the warpless category when watching the speedrun you may wonder how Mario can go through platforms walls enemies and fire bars let's go through the run and answer all of these questions this is the Super Mario Brothers warpless world record explained first of all many of you may be familiar with two videos that I made last year about the 80% run this video will not assume prior knowledge so no need to sit through 57 minutes of Super Mario Brothers videos to understand this one for returning viewers I hope this acts as a refresher before the run starts I need to clear up the information on the screen this is a recording of cosmics livestream on his layout he uses the obvious things like the game played the webcam in a timer but also less obvious stuff an input display which shows which buttons are being pressed a heart rate monitor which shows cosmics heart rate in real time it sounds weird for a video game stream but it's actually a great tool to show cosmic stress level as he progresses through the run split times of his personal best coming into this run that he compares against at the end of each of the 32 levels finally some information over at the top is any percent personal best his current twit subscriber account and how long he had been streaming for on that day during this video three different captures will be used cosmics livestream cosmics directly and capture and demonstrations that I made on emulator so now let's go on with the run cosmic waits on the title screen to manipulate randomness this will come up again in later levels [Music] they lived in you can DM me about stuff if you want like questions here cosmic performs a trick called a flagpole glitch here's what happens step by step first Mario's position is carefully set with a series of frame perfect inputs on the stairs the game runs at 60 frames per second so frame perfect inputs have a 16 millisecond window Mario's position for this trick needs to be precise down to about one quarter of a pixel then as mario reaches the base of the flagpole he's right next to the block on one frame and inside of it on the next at this point the game tries to push Mario out of the block when Mario is partially inside of a block the game does this by taking Mario's direction and pushing him the other way however because Mario hit the wall his speed was set to zero if left is pressed on the d-pad Mario will then have a very small amount of speed to the left so the game sees that Mario is moving to the left and pushes him to the right further inside of the wall the push from the wall is much bigger than the speed to the left so the result is a net movement to the right when Mario touches a flagpole this sequence happens mario goes down until he hits this point and then he stops moving the flag goes down until it reaches this point once the flag reaches this point Mario jumps off the flagpole and heads to the castle however something else makes Mario jump off the flagpole if Mario reaches this point the game ignores the flags position and makes Mario jump off instantly it's unclear why this condition was added since the only way for Mario to reach that point is to clip inside of the flagpole base but it is there nonetheless this trick ends up saving time because the flag never has to come down but to find out how much time flagpole glitch saves there's one more thing to talk about frame rules the game is always making a check to see if Mario just beat the level so it can send him to the next one doing that check on every single frame would be a little bit excessive and could potentially slow the game down so to be more efficient the check is only made once every 21 frames this means that levels can only be completed in multiples of 21 frames as you can see with this comparison the term frame rule is used to describe the phenomenon but also as a unit of time one frame rule is one multiple of 21 frames or 0.35 seconds flagpole it saves fifteen frames but if the rest of the level is played fast enough it saves enough time to complete the level 1 frame rule earlier than without the trick of 3 frames to spare cosmic did have to play the underground section nearly perfectly to save the frame 1 Frame rules are a very important element in Super Mario Brothers even more so in the warpless run at the world record level the whole run is planned in advance cosmic knows exactly where he's going to save time and where he can afford to play sub-optimally without losing time we're gonna talk about frame rules more throughout the run [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] here Cosme grabs a mushroom from inside the block getting the mushroom is actually faster but we'll see why in the next level for now let's look at how he grabs the mushroom when Mario jumps under a block but is more than half way outside of it he will simply jump past a block and be pushed out instead so for a moment Mario is inside of the block which allows him to grab the mushroom instantly instead of having to wait for him to come out of the block here Mario stomps a Koopa from below this is because in Super Mario Brothers Mario will stomp on enemies when they collide if Mario is high enough above them or if he's moving downwards so if he's moving downwards Mario's position doesn't matter and he will always stomp on the enemy no matter what this works for any stompa belén imme in the game [Music] please go backwards [Music] dear cosmic kills Bowser with fireballs before hitting the axe this is the reason why he grabbed a mushroom in a fire flower in the first place killing Bowser with fireballs is faster than simply bypassing him and grabbing the axe because touching the axe while Bowser is still alive will make the bridge collapse and make Bowser fall to his death before Mario can move on if Bowser is already dead this sequence is skipped which saves a hundred and thirty-two frames or 2.2 seconds this ends up saving either six or seven frame rules depending on how the frame rules line up over the entire run getting each power up loses four frame rules initially with killing Bowser's saves about six frame rules each time on average most of the time killing Bowser with fireballs requires you to slow down a bit which means to full six or seven frame rules aren't always saved the first seven Bowser's are killed so it ends up saving about 30 to 35 frame rules overall or about ten to twelve seconds there's a faster way to beat this level than using the spring to get up but doing that would get a time of 346 at the end of the stage ending a level with a time that ends in one three or six will cause the same number of fireworks to appear while getting one firework doesn't waste any time getting three loses two or three frame rules and getting six fireworks loses seven or eight frame rules this strategy is perfect to finish the level at the fastest frame rule that's still enough to avoid getting 346 and waste time [Music] well frame what frame rules are you saving to get 1858 well six three but also four three and seven one as you can see cosmic seems to have lost 0.1 seconds this is actually not true cosmic controls this timer with a foot pedal so it is subject to human error as a result it can fluctuate by a small amount but cosmic will still know when he gains or loses one frame rule and it doesn't affect his final time the official time the run is calculated down to the frame using a combination of video analysis and emulator simulations so the timer is only used as a tool to see what frame rule is on [Music] [Music] [Music] here Mario looks like he's sliding this is an animation glitch that happens when you jump in through a fireball on the very first frame of a level this can easily be done by simply holding both a and B at the start of a level as fire Mario cosmic jumps because it made Bowser go backwards at the end of the stage but why is that true the game controls the spawning position and the behavior of enemies like hammer brothers cheep cheeps fire bars po taboos and Bowser using the number of frames since it was powered on because the game runs at 60 frames per second this effectively randomizes the result for a casual player but as long as cosmic reaches appointing the game on a specific frame he can know in advance where enemies will be and what they will do so how can he know exactly which frame he'll be on at any given time first because of frame rules because levels can only be completed in multiples of 21 frames they are far fewer possible times to enter each level than it seems if a level is straightforward enough to make it possible to hold right throughout this also makes every single random element within the level predictable because for any given frame rule everything will be loaded on the same frames every time as long as Mario never slows down second because of planning the entire speedrun is carefully planned from the very beginning this includes going for flagpole glitch and 1 - 1 and playing every level at exactly the right speed there are some levels that could be completed faster but it would be harder instead cosmic willingly fergal is the time saves in these levels so he can play the game at a consistent pace that will give him patterns he can predict third by waiting on the title screen while most levels can be cleared without slowing down no matter what the random pattern is some levels like 5 - 4 & 6 - 4 often have fire bars that force you to slow down so it's crucial that cosmic reaches those levels on a specific frame rule that's favorable he achieves this by waiting on the title screen for 4 seconds before starting the game by pressing start in this 21 frame window and by playing the game at the exact pace he planned he ensures that he'll reach all of the crucial points have a good time for some patterns that aren't good like buzzer in - - for cosmic intentionally slows down to get another pattern jumping at the beginning of the level loses 3 frames and can be simply by holding a so it is easy to do and works every time it also happens to have this funny side effect thanks to frame rules cost me can afford to lose three frames in this level without losing time overall but there are many other levels were losing only one or two frames ends up costing 21 frames instead [Music] [Music] yeah that's it that Hezbollah bell glitch and 5:1 like you said then that is the current test it says 1836 because the best timing is different they start from power ohm same with any percent test you'll see it says it's for fifty seven point three when it's for fifty four point zero it's impossible like literally impossible by RTA rules all [Music] tests barely gets the frame rail in here Mario goes three through the platform this is possible because the platform is thin enough because mario has to line up just right for it to be possible it only works some of the time of moving platforms and it doesn't work with regular blocks because of their bigger size this spot works consistently so cosmic makes use of it at an intermediate one save two of those but the four most recent [Music] frame rural improvements I did it again the spiny kill sandwich [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] I think the only levels where five Povich doesn't save time in our ta are well never mind this level has more than meets the eye the frame rule threshold happens to be so tight that even if you play through the level perfectly you can sometimes lose one frame rule over the optimal time to save this frame rule you need to reach the flagpole at a very specific height when mario goes down in the flat ball he stops when he can't go any further down or if he started high enough when the flag hits a certain point here mario can't be that high without having to raise the platform so he's forced to go all the way to the bottom but even then he doesn't always stop at the same place because Mario moves down by exactly two pixels every frame there is this much of a window for him to end up on where he can't move down any further so just before he jumps off the flagpole Mario can't be square on the block or one pixel above it this one pixel makes it so Mario spends one more frame in the air before he starts to walk on the block but why does it matter well it matters because of a crucial detail in Super Mario Brothers mechanics Mario accelerates the fastest in the direction opposite of which he's facing so if he's moving to the right but facing to the left he will accelerate faster than when facing to the right as he jumps off the flagpole my who spends 4 frames facing left on the lower pixel and 5 frames on the higher pixel the extra frame of fast acceleration ends up giving him enough extra speed to reach the castle two frames earlier and in 4-3 this is enough to save another frame rule so it makes a difference of 0.35 seconds therefore cosmic needs to jump at exactly this point so that Mario ends up at exactly this height so that the extra 1 pixel makes him accelerate faster for exactly one frame saving exactly two frames walking to the castle which happens to include the last frame of the faster frame rule like I said this level has more than meets the eye [Music] [Music] here Mario goes through the wall completely how is that possible this time it's a little different than the flagpole glitch Mario hits the wall precisely here on the top pixel of this block like we've seen before when Mario hits a wall he ends up inside of the wall for one frame before the game pushes him out at this point Mario is not only inside of the wall but also on top of this block so he can stand on it as he on crouches his head is now fully inside of a wall when Mario is fully inside of a wall the game always tries to push in to the right until he's out of the wall so he's moved to the right through the wall and ends up on the other side here Mario goes through the fire bar this is simply because fire bar collisions are inaccurate the fire bar calculates Mario's distance to its middle to decide if he's getting hit or not but the critical distance is shorter than the visual fire so when he's crouching Mario can usually go through the tip of the fire bar without getting hurt [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] rainbow you can see cosmic slowing down a lot more in this level than usual this is in part to avoid finishing with a 256 and losing time to fireworks since getting a 257 is impossible he could have done it one frame roll faster but doing that requires manipulating the in-game timer to take down to 255 early enough and hitting the flagpole on the first couple of frame that takes down I won't go into detail about this for now Kosmic decided not to go for this faster frame rule since it wasn't required to get 1859 [Music] [Music] if you paid close attention you might have noticed a funny looking frames while cosmic was killing Bowser frames like these are lag frames they happen because the console doesn't have time to process everything to advance Maya frame during the 16 millisecond window so it doesn't complete the frame and it finishes it on the next this effectively pauses the game for one frame including frame rules so cosmic wants to reduce the lag to a minimum in this level he gets to lag frames which is actually very good considering how laggy this Bowser fight to be [Music] [Music] I almost jump to it too early because I wanted to be hailey sure and then fireball that one [Music] [Music] [Music] here Kosmic gets one lag frame which brings his total for the run to three so he lost 0.05 seconds to lag in this run it looks like he should have taken damage on the plant he didn't because the plants hitbox is wildly different from the sprite no one knows why the hitbox is so small but it is possible that it was done intentionally specifically to allow Mario to jump over tall pipes you may be familiar with this level from the anypercent run this levels frame rule is extremely tight to finish it fast enough you need to do it without slowing down once but even that's not enough the flag normally takes 62 frames to go down but the flags vertical position has two components a regular position in the subpixel position the subpixel position is an internal variable that keeps track of a position within a single pixel the flag shares some of its variables with items such as mushrooms or stars when the star is loaded its position in sub pixel position are loaded in the game's memory as it goes off screen these positions stop updating when the flag is loaded it sets the new value for its position and overrides whatever was left in this stars position but it doesn't update the sub pixel position so it remains that the value this star had as its last sub pixel position if that's a pixel position is 61 or higher it will move the flag down by a fraction of a pixel just big enough for it to only take 61 frames to go down instead of 62 that one frame is sufficient to save the frame rule in the one quick note in any percent it's also important to hit the first pixel of the star block if you enter the pipe in 4-2 in a bad frame this doesn't apply in warpless so cosmic could hit the block anywhere as long as the star came out [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] in a task for frame rules don't matter because timing stops when cosmic touches the axe at the end for the same reason he doesn't need to kill Bowser because the bridge collapse in cutscene happens after timing stops so every frame counts in this level the plant disappeared right before cosmic was about to get hit by it how did that happen 4 - 4 7 - 4 + 8 - 4 our maze levels to reach Bowser you need to take the correct path through each of the levels if you go the wrong way the section you were on loops and you have to try again in 4 - 4 + 7 - 4 there are triggers that need to be hint at the correct height which is why cosmic took the path he did in those stages in 8 - 4 he has to enter the correct pipes to move on however in the first room the correct pipe is at the end right before it loops in fact the pipe is located after the trigger that resets the room and makes it loop as a room is reset every enemy currently on screen suddenly disappears so because the screen reaches the trigger to reset the room here the plant goes away before it gets a chance to eat [Music] Kosmic unfortunately touched this side of this pipe in lost time when coming in from this pipe at full running speed there's a frame perfect window to jump without hitting this pipe but cosmic jumped on the second frame and hit it which cost him about a quarter of a second with that time loss he knew he had to play the rest of the stage almost perfectly in order to still be fast enough for 18:59 to be possible here he jumped up from the side of the pipe similarly to the 4-4 wall clip this is because he touched the pipe exactly on the top pixel of this block so for one frame the game treated Mario as standing on that block by jumping on that frame he was able to jump from the wall this trick is pixel and frame perfect considering how late in the run this jump is it's a very tense moment as you can see by his heart rate to compensate for the time loss in the previous room cost Pig did a fast acceleration in this one to do that you have to be holding B and press left on the first possible frame to turn Mario around then release it on the next frame so that he stops moving press right and a on the next frame so he jumps and start moving to the right and then release a as fast as possible Mario then accelerates to the right while facing to the left which is faster than if he had been facing to the right there's one more detail I haven't talked about Mario has to speed gaps a walking speed and a running speed he can only accelerate past the walking speed cap if he's on the ground and B is being held this means that if Mario jumps while still under the walking speed cap even though B is held he will be stuck at the walking speed until he lands from his jump with fast acceleration he gets past a walking speed gap while he's still in the pipe which means he gets to accelerate to running speed immediately instead of having to jump off at walking speed and wait until this point to accelerate to running speed for this reason this fast acceleration can save up to 5 frames if done perfectly why did cosmic overshoot the pipe and then turn around to enter it well it turns out this isn't even the correct pipe to go to the weather section the correct pipe is actually this one cosmic performed a trick called wrong warping and here's how it works most Super Mario Brothers levels have 5 survives that lead to bonus rooms and sub areas many of them have more within a single stage when mario goes down a pipe or up a vine into a sub area the game needs to know which one to send him to it does that by keeping track of how far into the level mario was when he took the pipe or vine and placing accordingly however the game doesn't use Mario's position but the screens position instead so has the screen Scrolls past this point the game updates the room were pipes and Mario from this one to the water room as you can see at this point this pipe is much closer than the intended pipe so it is faster to simply scroll the screen far enough then turn around and enter this pipe than it is to go all the way to the intended one maybe [Music] in this room Mario really looks like he's going through fire bars and even the ceiling this is because cosmic was holding down to crouch here if Mario is crouching and then starts swimming his hitbox remains as if he was crouching which is the same size as small Mario as a result he looks like he's this size but his hitbox is actually only the bottom out as you can see the actual hitbox gets faster fire bars just fine considering the tip usually doesn't hurt Mario maybe if he let us past we might get it did I do it because Bowser's pattern is controlled by what free me was loaded on and because I fast for is a long level with many tricks cosmic can't control what Bowser is going to do and he has to hope that he can get pass in without slowing down and without getting hit by hammers he had been very unlucky in previous attempts using three runs to the hammers two of which were on the same frame on top of that if we look at the patterns on later frames we can see that if cosmic was three frames slower he would have had this impossible pattern dude are you kidding me if he had been any slower than that this photo would have been too low to avoid without having to wait for it therefore the fast acceleration that saved him about four frames saved the run in extremis finally the timer says 1850 9.19 because he stopped it manually but the official time of the run is 18 minutes and fifty nine point eight five six seconds it was calculated by Counting the video frames of the recording and converting the 59.94 frames per second video into the nes s frame rate of slightly over sixty and verified an emulator by replicating a warpless run in looking at bowser spatter on that frame cosmic has been trying to improve this run further he put together a speedrun in 1854 by splicing together levels while going for humanly possible but inconsistent strategies and by always using the best patterns even if it wouldn't actually have the real run there is also a tool-assisted speedrun by happy Lee and Mar 608 in 18 minutes and thirty three point five seconds although most of the tricks used in that run are a bit too difficult to perform in real time to put it light as of right now Kosmic has been actively trying to get in 1858 you can see how he plans to achieve this in a video linked in the end screen meanwhile 2nd place runner GTA's has been attempting to get 1859 and beat the world record the 19 minute barrier was broken but the chase for perfection continues [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Bismuth

Views: 713,500

Rating: 4.9303069 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: HUj_fPFpgvs

Length: 35min 31sec (2131 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 27 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Mayrink]

I think this was the first video of yours that people were calling for it before it was made. I saw quite a handful of "now all we need is the Bismuth explained video" comments in Kosmic's WR. Congrats on being ingrained into the community, my friend. Love your stuff. Hope this one gets hella views aswell.

[u/jfb1337]

Did this guy just explain frame rules without mentioning busses??

[u/SarcasticOptimist]

Quick question: on 28:07 8-3 it seems like he pushes up against a block which slows him down. Is it because the 21 frame rule doesn't matter whether he immediately gets to the top of the block and jumps it?

Thank you for this video, it makes a lot of sense seeing the tricks then getting an explanation.

[u/llloksd]

Has a lot happened since Summoning Salts video?

[u/RetardedMasterChief]

I have watched so many videos explaining this game, yet have never once actually completed it. I hate how fascinating this is.

[u/1337toni1337]

well done dude

[u/compactruns]

I like that you mentioned the lag frames. A lot of runners forget that with differing lag frames, you can arrive at a level at the same framerule, but at a different number of total frames (and hence different RNG/enemy patterns).

[u/stoigeboiii]

I have one question ( I love your video, it got me into speedrunning). For the sub pixel on the flag why don't you need to hit the first pixel in warpless but you do in any%? I've been wondering a lot.