Super Mario Kart for the SNES, completed in 150cc mode (all tracks) in 23 minutes and 10.89 seconds.

Emulator used

Snes9x 1.43-improvement9 with Record Resets (edit by adelikat: removed dead link to emulator. I'm not sure where we can find this version, but link the snes9x downloads because if it is found, it should be linked there

Sync Settings

  • WIP 1 Timing ON
  • Left+Right/Up+Down OFF
  • Volume Envelope Height Reading OFF
  • Fake Mute desync workaround ON
  • Sync samples with sound CPU ON

Run Attributes

  • Aims for fastest time
  • Manipulates Luck
  • Abuses programming errors
  • Starts from SRAM to enable hard mode (150cc)
  • Uses resets to save time
  • Rams walls to save time

About The Game

In 1992 Super Mario Kart defined the genre of "go-kart racing games" with ahead of its time graphics and gameplay that was kept almost unchanged in the numerous sequels it spawned. Its influence can be seen in console racing games as far apart as Wipeout and Crash Team Racing.

F.A.Q.

Why do you take the corners so wide?

To get the item I want from an item square I need to hit the square on exactly the right pair of frames. To delay hitting them without losing my speed I sometimes take corners wide.

Why do you bump into so many walls?

  • To delay hitting item squares
  • To make mushroom boosts last longer (long boosts)
  • Because I'm moving too fast to avoid them.

Why do you sometimes go over dirt and stuff without hopping?

I'm in a "mini-boost" and unaffected by dirt and stuff.

Why do you change characters after the Mushroom Cup?

I think Koopa is faster for the other cups.

Why do you pause the game occasionally in the Special Cup?

To manipulate luck. I only discovered this works when I was up to the special cup.
For more information on tricks used in this run, see the Super Mario Kart Physics page.

Track Times in Seconds

Mushroom Cup

  • Mario Circuit 1: 42.06
  • Donut Plains 1: 18.80
  • Ghost Valley 1: 37.68
  • Bowser Castle 1: 48.62
  • Mario Circuit 2: 40.40

Flower Cup

  • Choco Island 1: 28.28
  • Ghost Valley 2: 29.49
  • Donut Plains 2: 48.83
  • Bowser Castle 2: 46.57
  • Mario Circuit 3: 63.06

Star Cup

  • Koopa Beach 1: 34.31
  • Choco Island 2: 30.61
  • Vanilla Lake 1: 30.64
  • Bowser Castle 3: 44.96
  • Mario Circuit 4: 16.99

Special Cup

  • Donut Plains 3: 24.07
  • Koopa Beach 2: 16.64
  • Ghost Valley 3: 31.20
  • Vanilla Lake 2: 30.94
  • Rainbow Road: 31.80

Possible Improvements

  • Better routes are known for Koopa Beach 1 and Bowser Castle 1
  • Possible to make long boosts last longer by starting them at certain speeds
  • Better luck manipulation (using pause throughout)
  • Might be possible to skip laps in Choco Island 2 (and possibly other races) by landing inside walls
  • Better optimisation of corners
  • May be faster to use other drivers
  • May be faster to use Lakitu to skip 2 laps on Ghost Valley 3, rather than 1

Thanks To

Comicalflop (for getting me started on this),
A Runnelid, duffjr, Spider-Waffle, zoddtheimmortal, Saturn, Spekkio, SprintGod, Polo and ateam2 (routes, tricks and information),
JXQ (hex-editing),
DeHackEd and Nitsuja (technical help)
And everyone who watched the WIPs and gave me encouragement :)

DeHackEd: Yoink.... Oh, and what did I technically contribute? All I remember is some hex editting advice which I don't remember the outcome to.
Huffers: You helped me compile your version of snes9x for linux - which I eventually hacked into a luck manipulation bot, without which this run would have been impossible

TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 14891
Location: 127.0.0.1
This topic is for the purpose of discussing #1548: Huffers's SNES Super Mario Kart in 23:10.88
Joined: 5/2/2006
Posts: 1020
Location: Boulder, CO
Nice. Wish more of the races used the full track, but a great run none the less.
Has never colored a dinosaur.
Skilled player (1886)
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2160
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
This desyncs for me right after the mushroom cup... My ROM has the right checksum, and I have the correct sync settings. Does anyone else have this problem?
Editor, Experienced player (730)
Joined: 6/13/2006
Posts: 3300
Location: Massachussetts, USA
"you are now a super mario kart driver!" awesome. awesome awesome awesome. awesome. Where to begin? Thank goodness I helped get this project started, the results are spectacular. Zipping speeds, expert driving, lap skips, glitches, fast speeds, insane luck manipulation; what else is there to say? YES vote. A very worthy TAS of this game that's long overdue. Edit: It is probably my fault for many people reporting desynch problems. The record reset snes9x works fine, but I believe the settings that I chose for the .smv was a bad choice. I have 13 of the tracks already encoded in the SMK forum, and if people so desire I will get to work on encoding the final 7.
Homepage ☣ Retired
Joined: 10/24/2005
Posts: 1080
Location: San Jose
I've seen the wips, and that alone is enough to make me vote yes. Great job Huffers, it was a long road, but definitely worth it. :D
<agill> banana banana banana terracotta pie! <Shinryuu> ho-la terracotta barba-ra anal-o~
Former player
Joined: 3/23/2006
Posts: 211
Randil wrote:
This desyncs for me right after the mushroom cup... My ROM has the right checksum, and I have the correct sync settings. Does anyone else have this problem?
Use the "Record Resets" version of snes9x. http://filexoom.com/files/1094/record_reset_snes9x.zip
do not forget to *ENJOY THE SAUCE*
Skilled player (1402)
Joined: 5/31/2004
Posts: 1821
Ah, very nice :) Definately voting yes.
Former player
Joined: 7/4/2005
Posts: 714
Location: Albuqueruqe, New Mexico
Ive seen a lot of crazy things in my life......but that....was.........AWESOME.......
Change my sig. again, and I will murder your pet fish.
Player (215)
Joined: 2/12/2006
Posts: 373
Location: Oregon
Very yes! I have fond memories of this game, and I was amazed by, well, everything!
Tub
Joined: 6/25/2005
Posts: 1377
The first cup was sweet, that'd be a yes vote so far. Since I'm too lazy/paranoid to install the reset-version I didn't watch the rest of the run, so I'll refrain from voting. Looking forward to the published avi though.
m00
Skilled player (1670)
Joined: 6/11/2006
Posts: 818
Location: Arboga, Sweden
I really don't know what to think. While most of the stages where you actually drove were awesome, the circling ones were just... not at all entertaining. Bowser's Castle in the Flower Cup was probably among the more boring scenes I have seen in a long time. Well, overall, I suppose I will grant this with a rather weak yes.
Warp wrote:
omg lol this is so fake!!!1 the nes cant produce music like this!
Player (88)
Joined: 11/14/2005
Posts: 1057
Location: United States
Excellent run, very entertaining. Voting yes.
They're off to find the hero of the day...
Former player
Joined: 3/23/2006
Posts: 211
Cardboard wrote:
I really don't know what to think. While most of the stages where you actually drove were awesome, the circling ones were just... not at all entertaining. Bowser's Castle in the Flower Cup was probably among the more boring scenes I have seen in a long time. Well, overall, I suppose I will grant this with a rather weak yes.
Good points. Ideas on how to make those levels more entertaining are very welcome.
do not forget to *ENJOY THE SAUCE*
Former player
Joined: 10/1/2006
Posts: 1102
Location: boot_camp
Ha, the physics in this game are messed up. Voting yes.
Borg Collective wrote:
Negotiation is irrelevant. Self-determination is irrelevant. You will be assimilated.
Mitjitsu
He/Him
Banned User, Experienced player (532)
Joined: 4/24/2006
Posts: 2997
A yes vote from me, although after a while it did begin to get repetive in terms of strategies and I often got confused as to why certain choices were made. Can't wait for MK64 100%.
Joined: 12/27/2005
Posts: 45
Location: Beauce, Québec, Canada
YESSSSSSS
Sorry, my english is really bad...
Skilled player (1670)
Joined: 6/11/2006
Posts: 818
Location: Arboga, Sweden
Huffers wrote:
Cardboard wrote:
I really don't know what to think. While most of the stages where you actually drove were awesome, the circling ones were just... not at all entertaining. Bowser's Castle in the Flower Cup was probably among the more boring scenes I have seen in a long time. Well, overall, I suppose I will grant this with a rather weak yes.
Good points. Ideas on how to make those levels more entertaining are very welcome.
Personally, I'd like it better if at least ONE lap per track were "real" and actually completed the track, like the first lap of each race, and then circled around on the remanining 4 laps, but that is just me. It would, of course, make the run a few seconds slower per stage as well, but, in my opinion, more entertaining.
Warp wrote:
omg lol this is so fake!!!1 the nes cant produce music like this!
Experienced player (612)
Joined: 4/24/2005
Posts: 612
A nice display of what Mario Kart always had in store, I just never knew of any of it. I have to say, Koopa Troopa is one hell of a crappy driver when the AI takes over, bumping into everything, not knowing what happened or what to do, the crazy drunk. Some of those shorcuts were really something while others were a bit stalk which is expected because some levels weren't designed to rip apart with diversity. I really couldn't ask for more in a Mario Kart run (except maybe that 2 player run but that's a whole different story) because you've shown us speed and you've shown us shortcuts. Yes vote, great job Huffers.
Sir_VG
He/Him
Player (39)
Joined: 10/9/2004
Posts: 1911
Location: Floating Tower
I believe this moniker is true once again: "Never trust a turtle to run an honest race." If only the hare had listened, he wouldn't have lost. Excellent job. This run looks very well thought out, is fast, is entertaining, and makes you go OMFG! more than once. YES! vote.
Taking over the world, one game at a time. Currently TASing: Nothing
Twisted_Eye
He/Him
Active player (332)
Joined: 10/17/2005
Posts: 629
Location: Seattle, WA
I am absolutely in love with this run. My opinion on the spinning/jumping off course to cut ALL FIVE laps business is that it's exactly what this run needs; I come to this site to see glitchfests just as much as anything else. A non-glitch version of the run would be fine and entertaining if it's done right, but in a 100% glitch course run, heck, worse comes to worse, what's so bad about hitting fast forward for two seconds? I'd rather fast forward 15 seconds of spinning in circles than I would 60 seconds of spinning in longer circles. A ru Either way, the spinning/off-track business is only used for whole courses in maybe only a quarter of the run, thankfully. The rest is inarguably one of the most entertaining runs I've seen. The feather shortcuts in Rainbow Road, Bowser Castle 3, and Ghost Valley 3 in particular just blew my mind. Pressing start to manipulate the item boxes was a bit annoying--it interrupted the flow, but it only lasted what three or four frames each, so it was tolerable. But doing that for an entire run would severely damage the run's entertainment level just to save minute amounts of frames, in my opinion. --aahh, so the item you get is determined before the roulette, I see. Anyway yeah man major Yes here
Experienced player (601)
Joined: 10/23/2004
Posts: 706
Voted "Yes" There were some moments of brilliance in this but overall it felt like you didn't use the optimal strategies. I'm willing to admit that I don't fully understand the strategies you used but on several occasions it seemed like you could have used a lap skip type trick a few more times on the races that you couldn't just spin in circles on. By the way, I didn't really enjoy those levels where you can just spin around in constant concentric circles. This coming from someone who loves the short cuts that were considered repetitive in mk64 (of course, those short cuts had different strategies for each lap and, of course, mk64 only lasts for 3 laps). I am aware that you are starting a new run and will use the pause manipulation trick throughout, this will definitely clean the run up.
Current Project: - Mario Kart 64
Joined: 6/9/2004
Posts: 40
Location: Calgary
Giving it a Yes based on the WIP's. I do agree the laps done really fast are more entertaining than the glitched short laps, but the trade off isn't horrific, and there already are more improvements that the next brave soul can attempt, so they can decide.
jaysmad
Other
Experienced player (834)
Joined: 12/1/2006
Posts: 629
Location: Mom's
I was gonna ask why the pause but then i saw the answer in the submission text :P Very entertaining run. YES by all means. Nice work Huffer, now i guess its party time :D
Former player
Joined: 6/25/2006
Posts: 138
Location: Fort Collins, CO
Yes vote
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 4
Superb run. Definite yes vote.