On April 7th, 2021, speedrunning history was
made. Super Mario Bros. was completed in 4 minutes
and 54.948 seconds by Niftski. In the past, when assessing the Super Mario
Bros. speedrun’s future, one could always dream that one day, the next second barrier
could be broken. Well, not this time. 4:54 is the perfect speedrun. At first glance, you may wonder if this speedrun
is legitimate, why is it impressive, and why 4:54 is the final second break ever for this
game. Let’s answer all of those questions and
more - this is the Super Mario Bros. World Record Speedrun Explained. First of all, let’s address the obvious:
Niftski is playing on an emulator with a keyboard. While this might not be the case for every
game, Super Mario Bros. emulation is accurate enough to be functionally indistinguishable
from the NES and the Famicom. So, while it is generally encouraged to play
on original hardware, and while historically, most top level runners have opted for the
NES or the Famicom, speedruns on emulators are fully legitimate and benefit from no advantage
whatsoever. In fact, this is not the first time the world
record was performed on an emulator. Also, the use of a keyboard is allowed, so
long as its configuration doesn’t provide any advantage over official controllers. Specifically, left and right cannot be pressed
at the same time on an original, unmodified controller, so this combination of keys is
disabled. Also, buttons are bound to keys bijectively,
which is to say each button is bound to a single key and vice versa. Finally, no unofficial feature like a turbo
button can be used. This speedrun follows all the guidelines set
by the Super Mario Bros. speedrunning community moderators, so it is officially recognized
as the world record. You may wonder why he waits on the title screen. This will make sense later. This is the first major trick of the run:
the flagpole glitch. Normally, the flag has to go down before Mario
jumps off, but this trick skips that animation. The flag comes down until it reaches this
point, but an alternate condition was also programmed, although never used in normal
play. If Mario reaches this height, the flag also
stops moving down and Mario jumps off the pole. The flagpole base prevents that one from happening,
so no matter where you grab the pole from, the flag will go all the way down. However, by clipping inside of it, it’s
possible to touch the flagpole and meet the alternate condition to stop the flag from
going down at the same time, which typically saves about 20 frames. Since the game runs at just about 60 frames
per second, this is a time save of one third of a second. But how can Mario clip inside of the flagpole
base? This happens because of the way the game handles
wall collisions. Let’s run through it step by step, which
starts all the way back here. For the flagpole glitch to work, Mario’s
position needs to be within a very precise range that’s about a quarter of a pixel
wide. Coming in from the pipe at full speed does
not yield the correct position, so this precise setup is used: land on the first pixel of
the step with B released, press B when landing, and jump exactly two frames later. When Mario runs into a wall, for one frame,
he will actually run into the wall. Then, his speed is set to 0, and he is pushed
back outside of the wall. Mario’s top speed is exactly 2.5 pixels
per frame, which means he moves by 2 pixels on one frame, and 3 pixels on the next. Because his position was carefully set up,
he enters the flagpole base by 3 pixels. When that happens, the game has a harder time
figuring out which direction is out of the wall. To solve this problem, it simply takes Mario’s
speed, and pushes him the other way. But here, Niftski taps left. So, Mario enters the wall by 3 pixels, then
his speed is set to 0. On the next frame, Mario first accelerates,
which gives him a very small amount of speed to the left, but not enough to move by a pixel,
so he is still 3 pixels in. Then, because the game isn’t sure which
direction is out of the wall, it looks at Mario speed and sees that he’s moving left. So, it assumes that he ran into the wall from
the right, and pushes him to the right, pulling him further inside of the wall. The push is much larger than his speed to
the left, so the result is a net movement to the right. In total, because he has to slow down on the
stairs to set up his position, flagpole glitch saves 15 frames over jumping directly to the
top of the flagpole. But, by doing this trick, Niftski actually
puts himself 21 frames ahead of an otherwise perfect 1-1. Where does the extra time come from? You guessed it, it’s time to talk about
framerules. The game uses many different timers to regulate
all sorts of systems. There are short timers for animations, the
in-game timer, or even air bubbles when underwater. And there are long timers, like for the lifespan
of a multi-coin block, the time remaining on a star, the invincibility period after
taking damage, or the length of the black screen between levels. While short timers tick down on every frame,
long timers are all regulated through a global 21-frame cycle. Therefore, long timers are always variable:
their length depends on the state of the global cycle when they were set. Enemies also make use of long timers, like
the delay for a koopa to wake up, the time between Podoboo jumps, or the time until a
hammer bro starts charging at Mario. One of these enemies is the star flag, which
sets the long timer at 6 when it’s done coming out of the castle. So, the game will wait however many frames
are left in the global cycle, then 5 more complete cycles, before going to the next
level. As a result, no matter when exactly Mario
finishes a stage, the game will always trigger a level transition on a multiple of 21 frames. This is known as the 21-frame rule, or simply
the framerule. Also, one framerule is used as a shorthand
for a multiple of 21 frames, or 0.35 seconds. Framerules have deep ramifications in how
Super Mario Bros. is speedrun at the top level; they make the difference between the strategies
that save time and the ones that don’t. They allow some leniency in execution in some
parts, and brutally require absolute perfection in others. It all depends on how many frames of leeway
Mario has to make the fastest possible cycle. In 1-1, the magic number is 3 frames, which
leaves a little bit of wiggle room for the underground section to be almost perfect,
but not exactly perfect. How did Mario not die when he touched the
piranha plant? The reason is quite simple. Most enemies in Super Mario Bros. have rather
small hitboxes, but Piranha plants have some of the smallest. It could be a mistake, but it is possibly
an intentional feature made specifically to be more lenient towards the player. Here, even though the sprites visually overlap,
the hitboxes actually don’t. This trick is called the pipe clip. In a way, it works similarly to the wall clip
for flagpole glitch. There are two key differences though. First, Mario needs to jump lower than two
blocks high, which can only be done at walking speed and by tapping A for one single frame. But since he’s at walking speed, he can’t
get far enough into the wall in a single frame to be pulled in. Thankfully, there’s one minute detail that
allows it to be possible anyway. When Mario jumps up to a platform, as long
as he’s moving upwards, the corner won’t stop his momentum. This is specifically to let him keep his speed
even if he barely nicks the corner of a platform he jumps to. In this case though, because Mario jumps so
low, he doesn’t make it up onto the pipe. As soon as he no longer has upwards momentum,
the wall starts pushing him again, at which point Niftski presses left to be pulled in. This jump is a frame perfect 1 frame A tap,
and Mario needs to be pulled in completely by the time he touches the ground. When Mario is inside of a wall and standing
on a block, the game will push him out unless he’s fully inside. In the case of flagpole glitch, this is dealt
with by jumping immediately as Mario touches the ground, but in this case, jumping is not
an option. The extra air time given by the jump arc lets
him have enough time to be pulled in completely with perfect positioning. Once Mario is fully inside the wall, he can
actually run to the right normally. Walls are made up of individual blocks that
Mario can stand on. When he comes out though, he can’t immediately
go in the first pipe because the warpzone has not loaded yet. You can pause right now for a complete explanation
for what happens if he does and why. The warpzone is loaded if the screen scrolls
far enough to the right, which is why he has to take this detour. To make it back onto the pipe as fast as possible,
Mario hits this pipe to stop his momentum, then accelerates backwards to the left. In this game, Mario accelerates twice as fast
in the direction opposite of which he’s facing, so by facing right and moving left,
he can save a significant amount of time. Niftski also wants to jump exactly on the
same frame that he lands so Mario doesn’t have time to turn around. But, if you look closely, he jumps on the
second frame, yet Mario doesn’t turn around. This is because Niftski presses both left
and down. This gives him a very specific advantage:
while Mario is airborne, the down press will do nothing, so he will accelerate to the left. But when he lands on the ground, the down
press is prioritized over the left input, and so the left press will do nothing. So, pressing down and left is a safety net
that trades a little bit of speed for better acceleration. Jumping late still wastes a couple of frames,
but because there are about 5 frames of leeway to make the fastest possible framerule, it
doesn’t end up costing any time. Because of the extra detour to load the warpzone,
this extremely difficult trick ends up saving only one single framerule over the very easy
alternative of going up and above. This flagpole glitch works exactly the same
as the one in 1-1, even down to the position setup. This level has a lot to unpack. First, the wrong warp. This pipe should normally take Mario to this
coin cache, but instead takes him to the warpzone, which the vine is supposed to do. This is because when multiple subworlds exist
in a stage, the game tracks which one to send Mario to based on the screen’s position. The point where the destination changes from
the warpzone to the coin cache is here. By moving Mario further to the right on the
screen than normal, it’s possible to enter the pipe while the screen is still behind
this point, which in turn skips the animation of the vine coming out on the other side and
saves a few seconds. Moving Mario to the right is done with this
wall clip. When the game pulls Mario to the right due
to the wall collision, it does so without moving the screen. You can make Mario go all the way to the right
edge of the screen this way, but since this is slower than running, Niftski wants to move
the smallest possible amount that’s still enough to make the wrong warp work. Finally, this part has more to it than meets
the eye. Hitting the vine block is crucial because
it prevents the plant in this pipe from spawning. Super Mario Bros. can load up to 6 objects
at once. By the time the plant is to be loaded, the
vine has not been unloaded yet, and there are 6 loaded objects. So, the plant is not loaded and the pipe is
free for Mario to go in. But entering the pipe is no easy task either. The screen scrolls following Mario’s movement,
and when he goes down a pipe, the screen carries its momentum, which causes the wrong warp
to fail. To avoid that, Mario needs to come to a complete
stop first. Because he’s already just barely far enough
to the right to allow for the wrong warp to work, this leaves a tiny slice only a few
pixels wide to come to a dead stop on. Once in the warpzone, the rest is fairly smooth
cruising. Hitting the back wall seems slow, but it’s
actually just about the same speed as turning around as soon as possible, and much easier. Right at the start of the level is a fast
acceleration. Because Mario accelerates faster backwards,
when done perfectly, it can be up to two frames faster to turn around and jump backwards. However, it’s much easier said than done. On the first frame of gaining control, you
need to tap left for a single frame, then press nothing for one frame, and then press
right and tap A for one single frame. You can’t jump any longer than that because
Mario can only go from walking speed to running speed if he’s on the ground and B is held. Jumping longer than a frame would cause Mario
to be stuck at walking speed before landing, which goes against the purpose of accelerating
faster. To set up for this flagpole glitch, Niftski
had to tweak his position yet again. But coincidentally, the 8-1 framerule happens
to line up in such a way that the fastest way to beat the level has zero frames to spare. The adjustment has to be so small that it
doesn’t move Mario enough to lose a single frame over going full speed throughout the
level. How small does it actually have to be, though? Well, Mario’s position and speed are calculated
down to a precision of one sixteenth of a pixel, a unit commonly called a subpixel. When displaying Mario, subpixels are rounded
down, but they are always kept track of behind the scenes. In this case, Niftski needs to adjust his
subpixel position by two subpixels, or one eighth of a pixel. He does this by holding down and right when
landing and then walking off from this pipe. So, for the very short time that Mario is
walking on the pipe, the right input is overridden by the down input, making him slow down ever
so slightly. However, because he jumped one frame later
than he wanted to, he also landed one frame late on the pipe, so he slowed down by only
one subpixel instead of two. This was a problem. He recognized what happened and fixed it with
the same method on this pillar, which got him his second subpixel of adjustment. At the end, Niftski needed to make a frame
perfect, two-frame jump to land exactly in the right spot to perform flagpole glitch. Usually, it’s possible to jump one frame
late into the flagpole and still get flagpole glitch to work, but in this case, doing so
would cause him to lose the framerule, so this jump has to be frame perfect as well. There is no understating just how difficult
this framerule is to save. The sheer precision and complete lack of a
margin for error makes this level absolutely brutal to complete as fast as he did. This is called the bullet bill glitch and
here’s how it works. The level ending sequence has three parts. First, the flag goes down until one of the
two conditions are met. Then, Mario jumps off the flagpole and walks
until he hits a solid block, usually this one. When he does, he’s flipped to the background
layer, which makes him disappear behind the castle, and the remaining time starts ticking
down for points. Finally, the star flag comes out and counts
6 framerules before transitioning to the next level. With the bullet bill glitch, Mario ends up
inside the flagpole base because he’s moving upwards, thanks to the same corner mechanic
as before. He is high enough to touch the flagpole and
start the ending sequence, but not enough to snap up onto the block. Once he no longer has upwards momentum, he
hits the block and gets ejected to the left. But also, because he hit a solid block, this
immediately triggers the third phase of the ending sequence, skipping not only the flag
going down, but also the walk to the castle, and saving 2 and a half seconds. A regular jump is way too high for this, so
that’s why it has to be done by bouncing off an enemy instead. The wait for the bullet to reach the flagpole
cuts into the time save, so the actual gain is 3 framerules, or 1.05 seconds, over finishing
the level normally. Now, those of you familiar with these speedruns
know all about this glitch already. But this time, it’s actually different. This version of the bullet bill glitch is
one framerule faster than what has been done for 7 years, and here’s how it’s done. The bullet launcher fires at random intervals. But, as it turns out, these intervals aren’t
truly random. In short, the game runs a recursive random
number generation function on every frame that always starts with the same input from
power on. This in turn makes it go through the same
sequence of numbers in the same order every time. So, if an event calls for a random number
to decide its outcome, it can be controlled by manipulating which frame the event happens
on. In this case, though, that’s not enough. The cannon fires based on a timer that calls
the random number for each open slot in the first three enemy slots. There are ways to change which ones of these
slots are open without slowing down. So, by loading the bullet bill launcher on
a specific frame, and by manipulating the enemy slots, it’s possible to get the launcher
to fire a bullet to the right as early as possible. Remember when Niftski waited for an extra
second on the title screen? This is why. In Super Mario Bros. speedruns, timing officially
starts on the frame where the time appears at the start of 1-1. Starting the run exactly 4.32 seconds after
the game was powered on sets up the random number generation perfectly. But now that he gets to the bullet bill launcher
on a specific frame, he also needs to set up the enemy slots correctly. This is done by doing a high jump on this
step to prevent Lakitu from throwing a spiny. The following koopa will load in its place. Then, stomping this koopa makes it turn around
and start moving to the right, which makes it unload later than it would have otherwise. After that, Niftski avoids every other enemy
in the stage. This manipulation sets up the random number
and the enemy slots perfectly so that the cannon fires exactly when it needs to. Another element that makes this extra framerule
possible is this pipe jump. Mario lands on the first pixel of the block,
and two frame perfect jumps make it possible to get past the pipe with almost no slowdown
at all. But all of this still isn’t enough. The final detail that makes all of this work
is the way he bounces on the bullet bill. Older methods used to bounce on the middle
of the bullet, but here, that would end up being too slow to get the fastest framerule. Instead, Niftski has to touch the bullet on
the very front, as early as possible. Here, you can see that Mario goes through
the bullet before stomping on it. This is because the game only handles collisions
with objects every other frame. On this frame, the collision is not being
checked. On the next frame, Mario stomps on the bullet
bill. For bullet bill glitch to work, Mario needs
to stomp on the bullet on the second frame, so to not grab the flagpole. This frame parity issue, called the coin toss,
used to cause half of bullet bill glitch attempts to fail, but it’s actually no longer a problem
here. This entire level has zero frames to spare,
so if the collision was handled on this frame instead, that means it was already too slow
to begin with. On the other hand, this is why the setup had
to be changed from a full jump from the middle of the stairs to a 3-frame jump from the top. While both allow Mario to stomp the bullet
at the correct height, they do so on opposite frames. On any frame where the full jump succeeds,
the 3-frame jump fails, and vice versa. This simply happens to be one where it’s
the 3-frame jump that works. As a final note, Niftski also needed to adjust
his subpixel position by two subpixels, which he did with two 1-frame left taps while waiting
for the bullet. This level has a flagpole glitch that looks
the same as 1-1 and 4-1, but it’s actually a bit different because of two problems: subpixels
and fireworks. An amount of fireworks equal to the last digit
of the remaining time will go off after beating a stage at four different values: 1, 3, 6,
and of course, 0. 8-3 is the only level in the run where going
full speed throughout lines up with a 3 or a 6 and their time-wasting fireworks, so Niftski
has to slow down at some point. But, he also needs to slow down in such a
way that his subpixel position lines up correctly for flagpole glitch to work. This frame perfect jump is the key to both
problems. With a full jump exactly here, Mario lands
on the pipe at this spot. Then, all Niftski has to do is release B at
some point before landing, and press it again once he’s falling off. This will slow Mario down to a walking speed
until he lands on the ground, which slows him down the right amount to finish with a
242, and set up his subpixel position nicely for flagpole glitch. In 8-4, framerules no longer dictate the pace
of the run. Because time stops when Mario touches the
axe, every frame counts from now on. This plant mysteriously disappeared. What happened? Well, 8-4 is a maze level where you have to
enter the correct pipes to move on. Until you enter a pipe, each room loops infinitely
by resetting itself once the screen reaches a certain point. This unloads every enemy on screen, including
piranha plants. In the first room, the reset point happens
to be ahead of the pipe you need to take, so the plant is unloaded just before Mario
is about to get hit by it. This jump is frame perfect. Niftski can’t jump before leaving the pipe
because he needs to accelerate beyond the walking speed cap first, and he can’t jump
any later without bumping into the pipe. This is a wall jump. We’ve already seen how Mario can end up
inside of a wall and stand on a block. So, if he’s lined up correctly with the
top of a block and he gets far enough into the wall, Mario can stand for one single frame,
during which Niftski jumps. He also turns around to accelerate faster
after the wall jump. A certain other speedrunning YouTuber told
2 million people and counting that wall jumps are pixel perfect. (SummoningSalt: That meant it had to be
both a pixel perfect jump into the wall, ...) That’s just a bag of lies. As a way to be more forgiving towards the player,
if Mario is about to land on a block but is just barely too low, he will snap up
onto the block. The vertical range to land on a block is four pixels.
The horizontal range is one and a half pixels. The furthest out where Mario can stand on
a block is here. In the context of a wall, that’s two pixels
inside. But Mario moves by two and a half pixels per
frame, so he can be up to three pixels in. If that happens, the window to jump is two
frames instead of only one. Here, though, Niftski was only two pixels
in, so the jump was frame perfect. This fast acceleration works the same as in
8-1, but it has an added benefit. Normally, when coming out of the pipe, Mario
doesn’t have enough time to reach running speed before he has to jump off. So, he’s forced to keep walking speed until
he lands here. With a fast acceleration, he’s able to reach
running speed on the pipe instead, which saves up to five frames instead of only two. Then, he turns around and enters this pipe
instead of jumping across to the correct one. The way this works is the inverse of the 4-2
wrong warp, but it’s essentially the same. The room Mario will be sent to when entering
a pipe is updated when the screen reaches this point. It’s faster to scroll the screen this far,
then turn around and go back into this pipe than it is to keep going and enter the intended
pipe, so that’s what Niftski does. He actually makes the screen scroll one pixel
further than the absolute minimum required to go to the water section, which costs a
couple of frames. But, if he had been one pixel short instead,
the whole run would have been ruined, so while he tried to aim for the pixel perfect turnaround,
it’s better to err on the side of caution here. For this part, Niftski holds down right. While Mario is swimming, the right input is
prioritized, and when he touches the ground, it’s overridden by the down press. But why? The reason is quite simple: when Mario is
on the ground underwater, he slows down to walking speed when holding right, and he gradually
comes to a stop when holding nothing. Because he slows down instantly when holding
right, when touching the ground for short spans, it’s faster to hold down and right
than it is to simply hold right. He also has to land in front of the pipe,
otherwise he risks losing 6 frames or more. Despite what his manually activated timer
says, the final time of this run is 4:54.948. The final time is calculated without the shadow
of a doubt thanks to Bowser’s hammer patterns. Like every other random event in this game,
Bowser’s hammers are dictated by the random number generation function, which produces
predictable outcomes based on the current frame. The pattern can be further manipulated by
hitting the hammer bro early, late or not at all. Niftski knew what sort of patterns to expect,
so he purposely let the hammer bro live to get an easier Bowser pattern to deal with. A comprehensive list of Bowser patterns was
made for every possible frame for a range spanning over 5 minutes. This run’s hammer pattern correlates to
17986 total frames since power on, which, after accounting for the 260 frames before
the run starts, amounts to 4:54.948. To achieve this time, Niftski stood on the
shoulders of the giants that came before him. He set a time that only two years ago, was
considered nearly impossible. But there is one question left to answer. Why is this speedrun perfect? The answer is very simple: it’s not perfect. Nonetheless, it can still be said with near-100%
confidence that 4:54 is the final destination of Super Mario Bros. speedruns. 4:53 is almost undoubtedly impossible to achieve
without somehow making a major discovery in a game that’s been turned inside out for
decades. We know this because of tool-assisted speedruns. If you don’t know what a TAS is, please
give this video a watch. Tool-assisted speedruns are often mislabeled
as “the perfect speedrun”, when they most often are not. In the case of Super Mario Bros. though, the
TAS very well might be the fastest playthrough of the game that is physically possible. It clocks in at 4:54.265. Now, let’s see what little time is left
to be saved between the pinnacle of human achievement, and absolute perfection. How much can each level be improved? 1-1? It can’t. 1-2? No. 4-1? Uh-huh. 8-1? Nope. 8-2? No. 8-3? Perfect as well. This leaves two levels: 4-2 and 8-4. In 4-2, the TAS is one framerule faster than
Niftski’s run. It does so thanks to the age old bump strategy. When Mario bumps into a block, the screen
stops scrolling for longer than Mario stops moving. This allows Mario to offset his position to
the right by about 7 to 10 pixels on each bump. For the wrong warp to work, Mario needs to
be off by a minimum of 20 pixels from his regular screen position, which leaves a single
pixel to stop on the pipe and go to the warpzone. The TAS gets two 10-pixel bumps and manages
to reach the world 8 pipe with 5 frames to spare. But there are multiple issues that prevent
this from being achievable by humans. First, the TAS does fast accelerations everywhere. Once at the start, once after each bump, two
in a row in the warpzone, and one more on the pipes. Also, the walking speed trick is used in two
places. When Mario lands from a jump and B is not
being held, he will slow down to walking speed instantly, instead of the gradual deceleration
from releasing right or holding left. This trick is already being used in the common
flagpole glitch setup, as well as the 8-3 slow down to avoid fireworks. It can also be used on this pipe: the fastest
way to stop or to change direction is to release B and land, then press left. The TAS combined this trick with subpixel
manipulation to enter the pipe with a speed of 13 subpixels per frame without scrolling
the screen, in order to minimize the time spent slowing down. Finally, with one more walking speed trick,
subpixel manipulation and fast acceleration, this turnaround alone is faster by 4 frames
over the conventional method. When combining everything, these minuscule
additional timesaves help shave off about 8 or 9 frames over what could realistically
be performed by a human. So, with this strategy, humans come up just
a little bit short. There is, however, one alternate strategy
that was recently developed. It requires a very rare 11-pixel bump off
the elevator platform. The exact amount of displacement that a bump
will give depends on many factors such as Mario’s position, subpixel position, and
speed, even down to the sixteenth of a subpixel per frame. The wall will push Mario a variable amount
based on his position, and he will be able to move to the right quicker if his subpixel
position and speed are as high as possible. If everything lines up perfectly, an 11-pixel
bump is possible. By combining this unicorn bump with a left-facing
walljump off the side of this pipe for another 9-pixel bump, a pixel perfect stop to enter
the warpzone, and a perfect fast acceleration in the warpzone, 4-2 can be completed on the
fastest possible framerule with a single frame to spare. This is all theoretical, though, because while
on paper, it could be humanly possible, it’s doubtful that anyone would be able to pull
it off. It’s impossible to understate just how incredibly
precise and difficult- As it turns out, Niftski has done it once
in practice after thousands of attempts over half a year. Don’t get me wrong, this is still orders
of magnitude harder than any other framerule in this game, but it is technically possible. The walking speed trick has also been used
with modest amounts of consistency as well. It could potentially hold the key to making
this framerule attainable in full-game runs. There are 20 frames left to match the TAS. They can be found in 8-4. Let’s do a room by room breakdown of those
frames. In the first room, a double fast acceleration
saves 6 frames over Niftski. The first one saves five, the second one saves
one. Over the years, many people have practiced
8-4 by itself, trying to squeeze out every frame of time save. More recently, this practice has been even
more refined, down to isolating each room. With this method of playing out a single room
over and over, various runners have combined to match the TAS in every single room except
for the first one, where five frames have been saved, but that sixth is still just out
of reach for now. It’s expected to be saved at some point
in the near future. When that happens, we will be able to say
that if we divide up the game to have 4-2 by itself, and 8-4 into each individual room,
humans will have combined to create the perfect speedrun over 8 different segments. For now, though, one frame is left to save
in this room. In the wall jump room, a fast acceleration
can save two frames. The walljump Niftski did was optimal, but,
in order to get this optimal walljump, he sacrificed one frame to set up his subpixels
correctly. A perfect walljump without this setup would
save an additional frame, for a total of three in this room. In the turnaround room, two frames could be
saved with a frame perfect fast acceleration. On top of that, six additional frames could
be saved with a perfect turnaround and fast acceleration to the left, which is possibly
the second hardest timesave in the run after 4-2. They combine for 8 frames in this room. The water room can be played frame perfectly
somewhat easily compared to the rest of the level. Niftski lost one frame to touching the ground
a little more than is minimally required. Finally, one more fast acceleration in the
last room brings the total to 20 frames, 19 of which have been saved in practice before. And that’s it. Beyond these 68 hundredths of a second, the
Super Mario Bros. speedrun can no longer be improved. As time goes on, this record will be broken. But as 8-4 gets squeezed until it’s bone
dry, each additional frame grows exponentially harder to save. The era of breaking barriers and setting milestones
has come to an end. Yet, somehow, the chase for perfection continues.
Bismuth's videos about the perfect speedrun guarantees that it is not going to be the perfect run
Imagine a bus...
I feel like there's always something new to learn about Super Mario Bros. regardless of how many of these videos I watch.
yooo that shot at Summoning Salt tho
Holy cow the editing is so much more interesting this time
This deserves to be way higher. The amount of work here is incredible. Bismuth and Summoning Salt are creating the best speedruning content.
It's a me, Mario!
Honestly, one of the best parts of your videos is the piano arrangements of the music.