Super Mario Bros: The Human Limit

[00:24] going on a journey i'm not talking about the full game speedrun that's an incredible story of its own no i'm talking about speed runs of the individual levels

[00:37] finish as fast as possible have individually been optimized to near perfection

[00:49] but a few years ago that wasn't the case players have had to figure out seemingly impossible tricks and break the game in ways previously the game in ways previously unimaginable this is super mario bros

[01:02] unimaginable this is super mario bros the human limit the human limit [Music]

[01:30] first a few basics to beat super mario bros as fast as humanly possible you start in 1-1 play through 1-2 then warp to 4-1 play 4-2 warp to 8-1 then play 8-2 8-3

[01:47] and finally 8-4 to finish the game that's two levels in world one two levels in world four and four levels in world eight for a total of eight levels normally for an any percent speed run

[02:01] you have to play through all eight of these levels consecutively beating the entire game but here's the thing since super mario so broken down and optimized over the years we actually know fairly

[02:14] definitively what the fastest possible time is it what the fastest possible time is it comes out to 454.26 this was pulled off in a tool assisted speed run or attacks

[02:26] where the player uses save states slow down and frame by frame to create a emulator by a tasser named maru there is a slightly faster version of the task at 454.03 by happy li

[02:41] left and right on the controller to accelerate faster controller so 454.26 is our perfect time

[02:54] unless something new is discovered it's physically impossible to beat super mario bros faster than 454.26 bros speedrunning you probably know about the game's frame

[03:08] rule system essentially super mario bros only checks to see if you've beaten a level every 21 frames or every 0.35 seconds so in every stage you can only gain time in increments of 21 frames

[03:25] there's an analogy for this created by former world record holder darbian imagine that this little castle that mario walks into is not a castle but a bus stop and imagine that in the mushroom kingdom

[03:39] schedule such that every 0.35 seconds a bus departs a and takes its passengers to the following level so no matter how quickly you play a level you have to wait for the next bus

[03:54] and what this means is that when you speed during the game you don't have to play each level perfectly to avoid losing time enough to get on the same bus as somebody who did play perfectly so

[04:09] the goal is to catch the same bus as a perfect run this frame roll system applies in every stage except 8-4 touching the axe and so getting the fastest possible

[04:24] frame rolls plus a frame perfect 8-4 puts the run at 454.26 now let's go back to 2016. this sum of perfection at that point was

[04:36] but for simplicity's sake we're just going to keep it at 454.26 that was the perfect time the sum of best best that humans had pulled off was 457.01

[04:51] that humans had pulled off was 457.01 2.75 seconds behind perfection that time difference came from the fact that on each of the seven levels before 8-4 the best humans had done was one frame

[05:03] rule behind perfect no more no less humans were off by one frame rule in each stage the fastest ways humans could beat stages usually involved just running to the end as fast as possible

[05:17] there were some tough tricks yes but the task frame rules each involved doing something extra clipping into blocks doing frame perfect maneuvers all tricks that humans didn't know how to do one of these tricks in particular

[05:32] appeared over and over again in the run this is the flagpole glitch this is the flagpole glitch [Music]

[05:45] you can make the level end without having the flag slide to the bottom you can see here how mario reaches the castle faster without having to wait for in some cases this is enough to save a frame rule

[05:59] frame rule in 1 1 4 1 and 8 3 just that in those three stages the flagpole glitch was the difference between humans and the tas but for years

[06:14] nobody knew how to do it in real time to clip into the block not only does the jump have to be perfectly timed but mario's subpixel positioning also needs to be correct that's his position within a pixel

[06:29] by a lot so getting the correct ones couldn't be done reliably that combined with needing the perfect jump to get in position and needing to do the proper inputs once

[06:42] in the block to touch the flagpole put this trick out of reach at least until late 2015 when players started to look into it a bit more that december a runner named door tk

[06:56] made a save state from a jump on the staircase and brute forced the inputs of pole it was the first time a human had done the end inputs for a flagpole glitch a few months later runner mav6771

[07:11] replicated it and then went a step further using a save state from the pipe instead of during the jump this was the first ever full flagpole in real time [Music]

[07:28] it was starting to come together but for this to be official it had to be pulled off in a full level and there was a lot needed for that to you needed to be fast enough in the underground to save the frame rule

[07:41] then jump from the perfect pixel off the staircase from a mid-air hesitation and finally do the perfect inputs at the block to clip in just the luck from the sub-pixels

[07:55] dozen but even for the best players in the all of that together would be in the magnitude of 1 in several hundred the community needed the best of the best for a chance to

[08:09] pull this off the player who was most likely to hit multiple frame perfect tricks in a row who would it be well how about the world record holder derbien for 0.35 seconds

[08:39] on august 19 2016 darby and successfully hit the flagpole glitch in 1-1 for the first time ever the perfect frame roll had been achieved in a level of super mario bros

[08:53] it was impossible to save even another frame now there were two more levels the flagpole glitch could be used on mind with the sub pixels and frame perfect

[09:06] in several hundred chances but luckily a month later the community would get some help sock folder is a speed running wizard best known for discovering the

[09:21] cannonless setup in super mario 64 and various tricks in zelda ocarina of time by september 2016 he was looking into consistent more specifically finding a way to

[09:35] control mario's subpixel value to make the trick possible every time he had a bot that ran thousands of input combinations at the before finding a setup that involved landing on this step without holding b

[09:50] then holding right and b for two frames before doing a full jump if done properly this gives mario the subpixel values he needs so he can always clip into the block this setup meant that the 1 1 and 4 1

[10:05] flagpole glitches could be performed much more consistently and it was just a matter of time before darbian was able to match the perfect frame rule in 4-1

[10:18] [Music] the second stage to hit perfection eight three required a slightly different setup to manipulate subpixels 30th mav was able to pull it off that made it

[10:35] perfectly over the course of just two months the sum of best was taken down over a full second three levels down was done everything slowed down the problem was

[10:53] these final four stages required tricks much much more difficult than a flagpole glitch in fact they seemed impossible in fact they seemed impossible here's why

[11:09] called the pipe clip this standard method of completing the the pipe enter the warp zone and head into world four easy enough but to get the perfect frame

[11:23] you would have to do this clip into the pipe then scroll the screen far enough while preserving enough speed to turn around and make it in time enough the pipe clip method does save the frame

[11:37] rule the problem was the difficulty of stringing everything together you need to land right next to the pipe slow to walking speed press jump for just one frame so you

[11:50] don't go too high stop the clip at the right time then world 4 loads and turn around to go in the pipe it all had to be done fast enough to save the frame rule

[12:04] it in 4-2 you have to do a wrong work where mario forward on the screen leaving the warp zone loaded while you go down this and the game is fooled into sending you to the warp zone while skipping the vine

[12:19] animation this isn't hard to do in real time but is getting it all as fast as possible by a combination of an extremely fast impeccable movement into the pipe and a quick turnaround in the warp zone

[12:35] it was technically possible to make the fastest frame rule but people didn't even know where to begin to make that happen in real time nobody even tried to save it that's how out of reach it was

[12:49] eight one's frame rule involved doing a flagpole glitch at the end just like 1 1 4 1 and 8 3. however there was a catch since you spare you had to save a full 21 frames over

[13:05] frame roll a sock folder setup flagpole glitch only saves 15 frames that could increase to 19 if you performed it without slowing down however you'd have to find a way to

[13:19] manipulate your subpixels beforehand but you still needed to save two more which you could get via a fast acceleration at the start of the level mario accelerates slightly faster while facing opposite the direction he's

[13:34] so by doing a small backwards jump at the start it's possible to save exactly two frames but to do so you need to hold b and left for one frame then hold b alone for another frame then hold b

[13:49] right and a for a frame so mario jumps then hold b each of those moves had to be frame perfect and only last for one frame humans really struggled to do inputs that precise

[14:03] so combined with the incredibly hard flagpole glitch at the end 8-1 was out of the question and finally there was 8-2 this stage wasn't but it was believed that to save the perfect frame rule

[14:18] you had to play the whole stage flawlessly down to the frame and that involved a fast acceleration at the start of the level a maneuver over the piranha plant that lost zero frames

[14:30] and at the end a frame perfect bullet bill glitch this is a trick similar to the flagpole glitch where you bounce off the bullet but instead of just skipping the flag animation it also skips mario walking to

[14:44] this trick would also have to be performed on the first possible frame acceleration the multiple frame perfect input piranha plant jump and the frame perfect bullet bill glitch

[14:59] getting one of those three would be hard enough as far as everyone was concerned impossible so once again the 8-2 frame rule so once again the 8-2 frame rule was ruled out that's four stages

[15:14] each of them had one frame rule to be saved but none of them were even being attempted the only one that seemed remotely possible was the one two clip thanks to happy lee's setup

[15:26] proper subpixels world record contender cosmic did serious attempts at getting the 1-2 clip in october 2016 and was able to clip into the pipe but he was still several frames too slow

[15:39] to save the frame rule if one of the best players in the world wasn't able to get this it was beginning to seem hopeless these perfect frame rules were just too much to ask and months

[15:52] passed with nothing new then with nothing new then suddenly in april 2017 a mario runner posted some rapid progress in one two first clipping

[16:04] then doing the same from the start of the level but just missing the frame rule and then on april 16th he did it out of nowhere somebody had just saved the one-two frame rule

[16:20] who is the runner well you might have heard of him before [Music] on april 16th andrew g became the first player to save the frame rule

[16:35] player to save the frame rule in one two he mastered the one frame a the clip into the pipe and the movement in the warp zone he was also always able to get proper sub pixels for the clip by avoiding

[16:47] slowing down for even a single frame in the rest of the stage one two was now the fourth stage to reach perfection that made it just three stages where the perfect frame roll hadn't been matched

[17:01] three stages went way beyond the difficulty of the first four you had the task-like movement needed in the fast acceleration and flagpole glitch needed an 8-1

[17:15] innate too none of these stages were viable at least not without some help but in early 2018 that's exactly what the community would get a setup to make

[17:30] bit more reasonable and once again it came from a familiar face it's time to visit an old friend this it's time to visit an old friend this is 420 blaze it

[17:46] a 4-2 wall clip setup for any percent runs he's a tasser who's adept at coming up with human viable setups for hard tricks this time he was looking at 8-1 and in november 2017

[18:02] he posted a video of a possible way to save the 8-1 frame rule acceleration this was still incredibly hard for the flagpole glitch at the end however he jumped off of this step very briefly

[18:17] tapped left in the air and clipped into the block the left tap actually slowed down but significant enough that it changed his subpixel value to allow for the clip this was still super hard as it featured

[18:33] jump and an incredibly precise tap of the but at the very least it showed the trick was humanly possible perform it and in march 2018 stuck in a plate

[18:49] wanted to be the first plate is an incredibly talented and goblins top 10 in ninja gaiden and in march 2018 he was fourth place in super mario bros he had

[19:03] this off but first he wanted to find a way to make the sub-pixel manipulation a bit easier so he spent 12 hours straight working on it in the end he realized that the left

[19:17] the level and still work and a small jump off the block those two steps made the no slow down flagpole glitch easier so he started doing attempts to get the

[19:32] full level and about 20 minutes later he did this and about 20 minutes later he did this [Music]

[19:58] and a half the community had gone from this to this the flagpole glitch pipe clips and fast accelerations were each revolutionary in their own way two stages left so close to perfection

[20:14] the community was on a roll but suddenly that role stopped a year came and went without any new improvements 2019 came around with 4-2 and 8-2 still remaining unsolved remember these

[20:30] two stages were essentially believed to be impossible to get the perfect frame in 4-2 you'd have to figure out a faster way to get mario forward on the screen warp zone and in 8-2 you needed sheer perfection

[20:47] from start to finish perfection that would even be harder than 8-1 8-2 in particular was believed to be the hardest frame rule to save in the entire game and it makes sense why the frame rule

[21:01] had zero frames to spare and had several nearly impossible tricks throughout a certain other speedrunning youtuber people that the perfect 8-2 frame roll was

[21:13] it can be ruled out you had a fast acceleration a jump with multiple frame perfect inputs and a frame perfect bullet bill it was believed that getting all these tricks in a row

[21:26] to save the frame rule on the last possible frame was humanly impossible but it turns out this belief was sort of unfounded for the simple reason that nobody had really tried to do it before

[21:40] would all be too difficult for a human to chain together that perception made sense but by 2019 somebody decided they might as well try and who better to do that than 420 plays it in july 2019

[21:58] concept for eight two he used the save state before the fast acceleration a save state before the plant jump and a to try and see if he could save the frame rule

[22:11] and it took him a lot of attempts but with three save states to use he was actually able to get it there were a lot of frame perfect inputs but practice eventually led to him getting them all

[22:24] blazed mentioned that the plant jump in particular was incredibly hard but with enough tries he was even able to make it past that so once again blaze it had proven that a task frame role

[22:36] could be saved the misconception had been broken the only thing left was somebody pulling it off in real time back in 2016 when the flagpole glitch setups were first discovered

[22:49] the community looked toward the world record holder to pull them off first by 2019 the record holder had changed but the principle had stayed the same the 8-2 frame roll was the best player the game

[23:04] had the world record holder taven webb the world record holder taven webb [Music]

[23:33] we did it we got it we freaking did it already already and just like that another stage down community funnily enough players would later

[23:46] discover that taven actually didn't have to be frame perfect to save this frame with the perfect fast acceleration he actually had a frame of wiggle room efforts there was now just one more frame rule

[24:01] to be saved 4-2 4-2 [Music] before it as explained before to get the wrong

[24:15] you need to push mario forward on the screen at least 20 pixels with the warp zone still loaded since the screen is further back than mario is the key to doing this trick fast was

[24:30] figuring out how to get mario forward by 20 pixels as quickly as possible there were two main methods for humans one was a wall clip discovered by 420 blaze it where you tap left to clip into the wall

[24:45] and get pushed forward by 20 pixels the other was two backwards bumps discovered by andrew g each potentially pushing mario 10 pixels to make the wrong work possible the wall clip method from blaze it even

[24:59] if optimally performed was a few frames too slow to save the frame rule the two bump method on the other hand was slightly faster and in september 2018

[25:11] runner king of johnny boy proved that by doing everything perfectly down to the frame you could make the fastest frame roll with no time to spare however that entailed getting 10 pixels from each bump

[25:25] doing extremely difficult inputs and getting proper sub pixels and sub speed to stop on the pipe perfectly doing a double fast acceleration in the warp zone to save an additional frame and once again a combination of perfect

[25:38] inputs and sub pixels to turn around perfectly this combination was magnitudes of difficulties higher than any other stage than any other stage simply put it wasn't happening

[25:51] later on that month however happy leash showed an alternative method that was a it involved clipping into the top brick of the wall and jumping out of it to get back up to speed faster

[26:04] too as you had to slow down as you jumped to avoid hitting this block then speed back up by pressing right then finally tap left again to clip into the wall once in

[26:18] you had to do multiple frame perfect inputs to get out of it with maximum speed people try this trick but it too wasn't happening small improvements would be made to both

[26:30] top wall clip methods and players tried but had little success being fast enough to save the frame rule to save the frame rule 2019 came around and then 2020

[26:44] nothing this was the one level that couldn't be solved

[26:58] 2020 a third method for possibly saving the frame roll was found at first it was brushed off as just another hopeless possibility but as time went on runners realized

[27:11] that this method was something different it was really hard of course it was but it gave just enough wiggle room to make it doable and this is what it

[27:23] looked like [Music]

[27:35] the elevator it's normally next to impossible to get this but by manipulating both your subpixel and sub speed values with a precise input combination you could reliably get

[27:49] you could then get the remaining 9 pixels from doing a backwards wall jump the wall jump is a glitch where if you hit a specific pixel on a wall between two blocks the game thinks mario is standing for exactly one frame

[28:05] off of the wall without hitting the ground perfect jump into the wall and a frame perfect jump to execute the but if both of those were pulled off you could get the second backwards bump off

[28:20] of the pipe quickly entering the pipe also involves sub speed manipulation and more precision from your inputs of in the warp zone itself you'd have to do another fast acceleration

[28:32] and a quick turn around into the pipe but the method in the underground section was possible this strategy was once again discovered by king of johnny boy and it was a big one a few people tried

[28:45] to get this frame rule in late 2020 and early 2021 nifski the second place runner and former world record holder he had the strategy he just had to pull

[28:59] it off and the last frame rule would be saved it was time to make history [Music]

[29:42] rule for an 80 speed run of super mario bros after half community it was impossible to save another frame

[29:55] it was impossible to save another frame on any level absolute perfection we are tied with every frame rule all the way up until a4 well until 8 4 that is 8 four is the last level in super mario

[30:09] and it's unique because as mentioned before it doesn't operate on the frame rule system the timing ends on the exact frame when mario touches the axe at the end which isn't tied to a frame rule that

[30:23] means that to be perfect in 8-4 you have to actually play the stage perfectly down to the frame there's no being close enough it's the only level in super mario bros that works like that the stage itself is

[30:37] broken down into 5 rooms a starting room where you simply run to the end and go in the pipe the next room where you have to do a fast the turnaround room where you have to do

[30:49] load the next zone then turning around to go in a pipe quickly a water room where you have to swim to the end and finally the last room where you jump past bowser to touch the axe

[31:02] it quickly but all the way back in november 2013 cosmic submitted one of the earliest 8-4 records there were even people that thought it might be the closest 8-4 would ever be

[31:19] to perfect even cosmic himself thought that titling the video the closest 8-4 will ever be to perfect that was a bold move but this was a really good 8-4 he started off the

[31:33] first room with a fast acceleration then dashed into the pipe in the wall he did a frame perfect jump to avoid slowing down or hitting a pipe then did the frame perfect pixel perfect wall jump facing backwards to accelerate

[31:47] faster in the turn around room he only scrolled one pixel past where he had to to do the wrong warp in the water section he managed to navigate mario almost

[31:59] fire bars losing just one frame on the exit by touching the ground a frame too early and in the last room he ran under bowser to finish it off adding this 8-4 onto the perfect first 7

[32:13] later put the human sum of best at 454.71 remember the theoretical limit was 454.26

[32:25] a4 less than half a second from perfection but was cosmic right was this the best 8-4 possible 8-4 possible no no it was not

[32:43] record and lowered the time down to 454.56 the key was fast accelerations back in 2013 cosmic was under the impression that a fast acceleration could only

[32:56] save one frame but by 2016 the community had gained the knowledge that if performed optimally in the first room in turnaround room spot that's what cosmic did as well as adding

[33:10] one into the wall jump room to save up to another two frames this time would later be tied by stuck in a plate but a little over a year later cosmic lowered it even more 454.53

[33:24] creeping ever closer to perfection most future records from here on out information about your pace on the top of the screen however no gameplay was modified so it's legal once again

[33:38] the time save came from improving the fast accelerations it was really hard to save five frames with each but cosmic was able to get eddie cat gaming tied this time a few months later

[33:50] before gtas lowered it by one frame [Music] [Music] 454.51 just a quarter of a second away but at this point 84 was getting really optimized

[34:03] movement everything was either perfect or a frame away from perfect where did the rest of the difference come from well other than a frame here and there

[34:16] from tighter execution double fast accelerations were part of if performed in the turnaround room properly doing another fast acceleration immediately after the first would bring mario up to speed one frame faster

[34:30] switches from left to right on the d-pad you have to be holding right tap left in a for one frame then switch to right again

[34:42] it's much more difficult than a normal fast acceleration similar was the falling fast acceleration where you accelerate facing backwards off a ledge to save an additional frame

[34:55] four frames in total could be saved with these double fast accelerations once they were ruled out as being tas only but there was one other fast acceleration players could try

[35:08] since you have to quickly get back up to speed after turning around in the it was possible to do a fast acceleration there accelerations this trick required super quick and

[35:22] precise inputs but the main benefit of this trick was if performed optimally it could save up to 5 frames for years the world's best players tried saving time with it

[35:35] but weren't able to it was always slower than normal that is until taven webb tried it in 2019 taven decided to try messing around with the impossible double fast acceleration

[35:49] actually able to get it he found himself saving multiple frames and for a while he was the only one able to do so this opened the door to push the record much lower

[36:03] if tavin could get it in a good run a lot of time could come off lot of time could come off how far could he close the gap

[36:27] yes i tied it i tied the record [Music]

[36:58] [Music] yes oh my goodness

[37:19] [Music] that's it yeah oh my gosh the time was now 454.39 taven had lowered the gap to just eight that was the difference between humans and perfection in super mario bros

[37:34] he was more than a tenth of a second ahead of anybody else on the leaderboard pure domination the only time saved taven was going for that he didn't get was a single frame in the wall jump room he was perfect everywhere else and with

[37:50] being out of reach it's no surprise that this record stood for a long long time

[38:04] long time [Music]

[38:17] do it kriller was a super mario bros tasser and individual level specialist and he had had a plethora of runs make it deep into 8-4 that barely died but on may 7th he managed to tie taven

[38:31] to the frame and crazily enough even though it took 15 months for somebody to tie the record it would just take a few hours for the it would just take a few hours for the next person to tie it

[38:46] i got it oh my god i can't believe it this made it a three-way tie between taven kriller and nitsky and ultimately nifski would be the one to break it lowering the time to 454.38

[39:01] he got every frame he wanted to through the water section so he was able to emit the last fast acceleration gtace would later tie this time so the very next day

[39:13] nifski beat him by adding back in the fast acceleration in the final room 454.36 and when velcino tied this time a month later nifski responded by squeezing out one

[39:27] more frame from the turnaround room to take it to 454.34 to take it to 454.34 at 454.34 players were presented with a problem they were starting to run out of frames to save

[39:42] they were just five frames away from perfection the problem was where these frames were located one frame was from a falling fast acceleration in the first room

[39:54] in the wall jump room two were from a double fast acceleration room and one was from a falling fast acceleration in the final room five frames all of them were from doing

[40:10] task fast accelerations humans couldn't do those so the 8-4 record seemed to be at its limit

[40:25] was to try doing these fast accelerations nobody had ever been able to do one before so they appeared to be impossible but in the past five years players had done so much on other levels

[40:40] glitches doing fast accelerations at points in all of those tricks were thought to be impossible too after half a decade of this the super mario bros community had made one thing

[40:56] mario bros community had made one thing very clear nothing was impossible

[41:13] i got it i got it i got it with both fastic cells

[41:33] yes [Music]

[41:49] yes [Music] [Applause] [Music]

[42:09] oh my gosh [Music] yes let's go

[42:42] we are two frames away from completely running out of time to save in super mario bros a 30th of a second is what stands in the way between humans and perfection

[42:59] the turnaround room for manipulating sub speed and playing perfectly it's extremely difficult but there's no doubt this frame will be saved in a run one day lowering the sum of best to 454.2

[43:13] as for the last frame it's in the first room from performing a falling fast acceleration however there are serious doubts as to possible not because of its precision or

[43:26] difficulty but because we don't know if human fingers can actually move fast enough to do this you have to release right for only one frame then quickly repress it tap left for one

[43:38] frame and go back to holding right it's never been pulled off at full speed before but it's theorized that this trick would controller which would likely create a big

[43:50] controversy in the future but that's it outside of those two frames humans have solved super mario bros that's a rare accomplishment in speedrunning it might shortly be

[44:04] impossible to save any more time and the only thing that can stop that is a new time save a new frame roll over 10 years now which is pretty incredible

[44:18] but that doesn't mean there are for sure none left the secrets to saving time might still be out there we just have to find them find them and maybe just maybe a 453

[44:31] is in super mario bros future thanks for watching watching [Music]

[44:58] [Music] you