Introduction

This movie builds on top of the recently published [5127] NES Superfast Mario Bros. "warps" by Denial140, negative_seven & chatterbox in 01:09.07. I (eien86) didn't quite pay attention to it while it was being processed because I was working on the Prince of Persia TAS. Once I noticed this romhack, I couldn't help but give it a go. What a piece of fun it was.
Thanks to Denial140 for finding 11 more frames, mainly with the wrong warp in 8-4c. Also to negative seven and chatterbox for their work in the previous movie.

Software + Hardware

Rom Information

Base Rom: Super Mario Bros. (JU) (PRG0) [!]
  • SHA1:FACEE9C577A5262DBE33AC4930BB0B58C8C037F7
  • MD5:8E3630186E35D477231BF8FD50E54CDD
Hack: Superfast Mario Bros.

Emulator

  • EmuHawk 2.8.0 (Core: NesHawk)

Routing Bot

  • Bot: JaffarPlus
  • Routing Core: QuickNES
  • Platform: 'The Jaffanator' - AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X (64 cores, 128 threads) + 256Gb RAM (Average Exploration Performance: 1.2M States/s)

Comparison Movie


Timing Table

                       Old              New              Diff       
    World       Stage    Initial   Total     Initial     Total    Stage   Total
     Boot         0        62         0        61         -1       -1   
      1           1        62       307        61        307        0     -1
  Transition              369        65       368         65        0     -1
      1           2       434       414       433        413       -1     -2
  Transition              848        27       846         27        0     -2
      4           1       875       470       873        470        0     -2
  Transition             1345        65      1343         65        0     -2
      4           2      1410       168      1408        160       -8     -10
  Transition             1578        36      1568         36        0     -10
      8           1      1614       134      1604        134        0     -10
  Transition             1748        24      1738         24        0     -10
      8           2      1772       776      1762        762      -14     -24
  Transition             2548        27      2524         27        0     -24
      8           3      2575       459      2551        437      -22     -46
  Transition             3034        24      2988         24        0     -46
      8           4a     3058       453      3012        442      -11     -57
  Transition             3511        24      3454         24        0     -57
      8           4b     3535       165      3478        164       -1     -58
  Transition             3700        26      3642         26        0     -58
      8           4c     3726        78      3668         78        0     -58
  Transition             3804        26      3746         26        0     -58
      8           4d     3830        70      3772         59      -11     -69
  Transition             3900        26      3831         26        0     -69
      8           4e     3926       138      3857        138        0     -69
  Transition             4064        23      3995         22       -1     -70
      8           4f     4087        63      4017         65        2     -68
  Movie End              4150                4082                         -68
A +- 2 frames are lost/won on emulator differences. We argue that any obsoleting submissions need to be done with Bizhawk to avoid bad CPU/PPU timing and lag detection emulation to distort the movie length.

New Tricks

Fake Vine

For some reason, it is possible to fool the game into believing there's a vine in the middle of the level by pressing L+R at a precise moment, with the effect of having Mario shoot up to the right, saving a bunch of frames.

New Wrong Warp

In 8-4d it is faster to take the wrong warp (exactly as the in the original SMB any%)

General Optimizations

Better execution all over the place, especially 1-2
GOTTA GO FAST


ThunderAxe31: Claiming for judging.
ThunderAxe31: Accepting as improvement of the current publication.
fsvgm777: Processing. CloakTheLurker is handling the encodes for this one.


TASVideoAgent
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LoganTheTASer
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fantastic improvement. definite yes vote.
YouTube: @LoganL2008 Discord: sneakers_o_toole Watch my TASes here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmcAd4CTuEymf4qWKIE0Pv_NlA031cYR1&si=m1hP9qz9c8Ip35Ur
Post subject: "Gotta go fast" is an overly used phrase spanning 31 years
Asumeh
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Player (243)
Joined: 7/18/2018
Posts: 78
Pretty unexpected improvement, yes vote! Some information on the spawned vine tiles would be nice, though; I noticed that you were able to catch a couple of those and warp to the right side (on World 8-1 and World 8-2). Knowing the first Superfast Mario Bros. as being the most unstable of the series, it seems fascinating now to find this glitch exists. Also, something minor: traditionally, SMB1 TASes end when Mario touches the last axe. Any reason why this TAS doesn't? Not necessarily against it or anything.
I'm Asumeh, semi-expert SMB1 TASer. :) Check out some of the TASes I don't submit/upload to TASVideos on my YouTube channel, if you'd like. In progress: - Extra Mario Bros. (redo) (with HappyLee and w7n) - I'm currently assisting with finding improvements before the boss. On hold; we're currently struggling to confirm that we have the fastest route. Some debugging may also help with finding glitch exits, but neither of us are experts in that field. - Record my older TASes (excluding any obsolete TASes) and upload to YouTube.
Patashu
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Lmao, the game is only barely keeping itself together.
My Chiptune music, made in Famitracker: http://soundcloud.com/patashu My twitch. I stream mostly shmups & rhythm games http://twitch.tv/patashu My youtube, again shmups and rhythm games and misc stuff: http://youtube.com/user/patashu
Editor, Publisher, Player (47)
Joined: 10/15/2021
Posts: 376
Αsumeh wrote:
Also, something minor: traditionally, SMB1 TASes end when Mario touches the last axe. Any reason why this TAS doesn't? Not necessarily against it or anything.
TASes end when input ends, For this romhack, you don't have to hold right or A for very long for Mario to touch the final axe, so input can end earlier than Mario touching the axe.
Player (203)
Joined: 8/18/2013
Posts: 146
Location: location, location!
Here is an 11f improvement. I saved 2 frames in 4-2, but these gave different rng in 8-2. It was very painful to find an 8-2 that lost at most 2 frames to the submission's because the game seemed to decide that this rng is laggy, even when killing some of the enemies. I saved a lag frame in 8-3 and a few minor improvements in 8-4, plus fixing what was a somewhat embarrassing omission from my first version. If I recall correctly, we *did* try this wrong warp back in 2014, but either we couldn't didn't make it work or we ended up running into a firebar in the water room after it. Anyway, it's fixed now.
Current TAS: [SNES] Jelly Boy [NES] Street Fighter 2010
eien86
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Joined: 3/21/2021
Posts: 257
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Αsumeh wrote:
Some information on the spawned vine tiles would be nice
Thanks! I'll see to add some decent sub notes. It was getting late last night and just wanted to get this sub in.
Denial140 wrote:
Here is an 11f improvement.
That's amazing! I thought there was nothing left to squeeze. May I add you as co-author and request a judge to replace the movie file? If so, I'll create a comparison video using your movie, instead of mine.
Player (203)
Joined: 8/18/2013
Posts: 146
Location: location, location!
eien86 wrote:
May I add you as co-author and request a judge to replace the movie file?
Yes, that's fine! I'm wondering whether it may be worth doing a deeper search on (say) 8-2 and 8-3 with the different rng seeds, if that would make sense to do with how your run was created - of course, I am not familiar with the specifics :)
Current TAS: [SNES] Jelly Boy [NES] Street Fighter 2010
Post subject: yeah, added proper sub notes now
eien86
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Ok, finally caved in and added proper sub notes. Also @Judge: please replace the movie file with this -13f movie [https://tasvideos.org/UserFiles/Info/638138976965862752]
BigBoct
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Is there a reason the encode in the submission ends by pausing as Bowser comes on screen?
Previous Name: boct1584
eien86
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@BigBoct
despoa wrote:
Αsumeh wrote:
Also, something minor: traditionally, SMB1 TASes end when Mario touches the last axe. Any reason why this TAS doesn't? Not necessarily against it or anything.
TASes end when input ends, For this romhack, you don't have to hold right or A for very long for Mario to touch the final axe, so input can end earlier than Mario touching the axe.
The final encode (if the movie gets published) will contain the full ending sequence. For the temp encode I wanted to reflect how early inputs end.
Editor, Expert player (2071)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3282
eien86 has conquered many epic games with the Jaffar bot. Prince of Persia, Ninja Gaiden, Castlevania. And now: Superfast Mario Bros. Are we really sure this isn't an April Fools joke? BTW, here is an encode of the latest TAS, with the ending included. Also in 1080p: Link to video
Experienced player (529)
Joined: 6/7/2017
Posts: 35
FractalFusion wrote:
eien86 has conquered many epic games with the Jaffar bot. Prince of Persia, Ninja Gaiden, Castlevania. And now: Superfast Mario Bros.
Nicely done! And I strongly agree with this quote :)
Challenger
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chatterbox wrote:
FractalFusion wrote:
eien86 has conquered many epic games with the Jaffar bot. Prince of Persia, Ninja Gaiden, Castlevania. And now: Superfast Mario Bros.
Nicely done! And I strongly agree with this quote :)
Seconded! And great work as always, eien86.
My homepage --Currently not much motived for TASing as before...-- But I'm still working.
Player (203)
Joined: 8/18/2013
Posts: 146
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eien86 wrote:
this -13f movie
This new wrong warp is very nice! I tried jumping from the pipe itself but there are a couple of clever ideas I didn't have to make it faster than what I found previously. Excellent work! Out of interest, did you rerun the bot on 8-2/8-3 with the new RNG values from the improved 4-2? Is this something that would potentially be worth doing if not? I don't really know how the bot works in practice but I wanted to point it out in case.
Current TAS: [SNES] Jelly Boy [NES] Street Fighter 2010
eien86
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Denial140 wrote:
Out of interest, did you rerun the bot on 8-2/8-3 with the new RNG values from the improved 4-2? Is this something that would potentially be worth doing if not? I don't really know how the bot works in practice but I wanted to point it out in case.
I did re-run the bot on the 8 stage all over again but no gains. Unfortunately, there's practically nothing that can be done regarding lag as it has to do with where and how the enemies behave and that's determined exclusively by the frame at which you arrive, as far as I know. Nevertheless, I don't discount ever finding more frames :)
Editor, Player (79)
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I claim this run for encoding. Edit: encode on MEGA (YT preview)
Editor, Publisher, Player (47)
Joined: 10/15/2021
Posts: 376
The subtitles are covering some of the action. My suggestion here is to delay the the second section of subtitles until the next level.
Editor, Player (79)
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Posts: 65
Location: Canada
I redid the encodes, links are in my first post.
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
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This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [5195] NES Superfast Mario Bros. "warps" by eien86 & Denial140 in 01:07.94