.--------. | Index | `--------´ Just search for one of these in order to jump to the desired section - PRAISES AND RANTS - CONTACT INFO - STATS - THE RANK FORMULA - MEMORY ADDRESSES - GAME CODE - THANKS .--------------------. | PRAISES AND RANTS | `--------------------´ Hello there. If you, like me, have been a fan of Mario Kart ever since it first appeared on SNES you probably appreciate how good the GBA entry of the series is. It is like the developers of Mario Kart Super Circuit have taken everything that was good about the original (including its great tracks) and removed (almost) everything that was bad, making it not only of (if not THE) best games of the series, but also one of the best racing games ever. Could you imagine how awesome it would be if the technology back in the Game Boy Advance days allowed us to race against 7 people from around the world? That would be great, but it is something for us t want and Nintendo to decide. You are reading this guide for another reason, so let's carry on. Have you ever wondered why sometimes you thought you performed very bad and still got the 3 star rank, and sometimes you thought you made the best races of your life and ended up with 2 stars, or even worse? You are not alone. If there is one thing I have learned ever since I started seeking information about this matter is that there are lots of people out there searching for the same thing. One thing that really bothers me is that there are some web sites out there holding information that is completely wrong about how the rank is calculated. We all knew that your race time and coins seemed to have some influence on the ranks, but some bright fella decided to take the matter on his on hands and started pulling values from his a... who knows where and said things like: "in order to get the *** rank you need to get at least 150 coins and beat all the default time trial times for the races of that cup" The funny thing is that this type of person also goes on and claim that he has thoroughly tested it and it is perfectly accurate. Why, I ask, why post something like that? Obviously it was not because of money, because the information was posted on a public server. Perhaps it is some sort of disturb where the guy needs the satisfaction of helping people, even if that means providing them with the wrong information. Let's just hope this guy is not a teacher and really, really hope he is not the one walking on the side walk when you pull over to ask for directions... Fortunately there are people out there with a different attitude. People who will say "you know what? I do not know. But let's try to find out!". During my searches I have found a couple of communities with this type of people. And among those communities I saw the mariokart64.com forum. For those who do not know MarioKart64.com is a site where the best Mario Kart players of the world get together and compete among themselves. Do not let the web site name fool you though, it is not only about Mario Kart64, it is about all Mario Kart games out there. There is a section for each Mario Kart ever released. And a forum too. And it was on that forum that I have found the biggest attempt people had ever did at solving this rank calculation riddle. So, I decided to join them. The original version of this FAQ was created in 2013. It was almost complete. There was only one criterion the game used to calculate the player final rank that I was not able to figure out. This missing criterion was also the most valuable one but no matter what I did, I was never able to figure out what the player was supposed to do in order to get it. But now, 4 years later, the truth has been uncovered. All thanks to a guy named Airship804. First of all I would like to say sorry to Airship804. It has been almost 8 months since he gave us the required information. At first I thought he had just recently posted it at the forums, but I was wrong. The forum showed the post date as "02/11/17" and thanks to that crazy date format Americans love use where they put the months before the days, what I thought was November the 2nd was, in fact, February 11. The United States may be a great place and Americans have certainly done a lot of things right, but the choice of a sane date format was not one of them. And let's not even start about their refusal to switch to the metric system... Granted, I am writing this on 2017-10-15 (October 15, 2017) which kind of make it impossible for Airship804 post to exist had the date be what I had originally interpreted, which is very stupid on my part. And stupid people should not be criticizing date format choices of others. But I digress... Anyway, Airship804 posted on the Super Circuit Forums that according to a guide released in 2001 in Japan, your number of skill points will increase if you get hit by the lightning bolt item. That is, getting hit by lightning bolts is a good thing. It is not something that happens very often, but when it does, it should be a good thing, at least according to the guide. So Airship804 suggested it might be the missing piece of our puzzle. And it made a lot of sense! You see, my test methodoly usually consisted of parking my kart near an item block, bump my head against walls, drive outside the track, dive into the water, throw myself into holes and things like that. As one can imagine, doing stuff like that meant that I was usually in the last place, being constantly lapped by the AI players. The methodoly worked fine and helped me to discover most of the used values, but nothing I ever did changed one specific "unknown value". If getting hit by lightning was the key to affect that value, the flaw was in the methodology itself. Of all items the AI use, lightning bolts must be one of the rarest ones. The AI barely uses lightning bolts when you are in first place so one can only imagine how rare, if not downright impossible, it is to get hit by it when you are last and have been lapped a few times. But now, thanks to Airship804, I knew what I was after. I had 3 choices: 1. debug the code and discover what happens when you get struck by lightning. 2. debug the code in order to figure out how to force the AI to use lightning. 3. play the game normally and wait until someone uses the lightning bolt. Options 1 and 2 were kind of out of the question because it would take too much time to debug the game code (in ARM assembly!!!). So I went for #3 and... Remember when I told you that getting hit by lightning was rare? The truth is that it is way rarer than that! It took so long for the AI to use lightning against me that I was almost giving the idea up. Several times I wondered if things would not have been faster had I went for the other options. Anyway, after some hours playing around, it finally happened. I got hit by lightning and, yes! It does affect your skill points. Thank you very much Airship804! And special thanks to Etch, for being the first to test Airship804 hypotesis on real hardware and confirm it did affect your skill points. And also for using the information we uncovered to perform all kinds of crazy stuff. I truly recommend you guys to visit the forums and see what he (she? it???) has done. It is really impressive! .--------------. | CONTACT INFO | `--------------´ The address of the Mario Kart Super Circuit forum I just mentioned is http://www.mariokart64.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?board=MKSC And the address of the topic where the biggest study mankind has ever conducted about how the heck does this game calculate you final rank is http://www.mariokart64.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1053815139/0 If you have any questions, discovered something new or even if you want me to write something using different words because it is wrong, confusing or both, just drop by that topic I just mentioned and post something there. That is way better than trying to reach me by e-mail because I seldom check my web mail, but I do drop on that topic from time to time. .-------. | STATS | `-------´ Your final rank for a cup, as you might have guessed by now, is calculated according to your performance during the races. The game measures your performance by looking at some stats it records during each race. I will show some of those stats. There might be more, but only these ones are used for calculating your final rank. Coins: number of coins you got during the race. LightningHits number of times you were hit by the lighning bolt item. This value has eluded me for some years and it was only with the help of the user Airship804 on the Mario Kart Super Circuit forumns at MarioKart64.com that I was able to figure it out. Thank you Airship804, and thanks Etch for testing it. LapTime1 first lap time. The time is encoded like this: cents + seconds * 100. So let's suppose your lap was 0'12"34. The value stored here would then be 1234 ((12 seconds * 100) + 34 cents). LapTime2 second lap time. See LapTime1 for more info. LapTime3 third lap time. See LapTime1 for more info. LapTime4 fourth lap time. 0 if the race had only 3 laps. See LapTime1 for more info. LapTime5 fifth lap time. 0 if the race had only 3 laps. See LapTime1 for more info. FramesNotHittingGas how many animation frames you spent not hitting the gas. Remember that this game runs at 60 frames per second! FramesHittingBrakes how many animation frames you spent hitting the brakes. Remember that this game runs at 60 frames per second! Item3RedSheelsUseCount how many times you used the 3 red shells item. Does not increment if you got the item but have not used it. ItemStarUseCount how many times you used the star item. Does not increment if you got the item but have not used it. ItemLightningUseCount how many times you used the lightning item. Does not increment if you got the item but have not used it. LakituRescueCount number of times Lakitu placed you back on the track. EntityHitCount increments every time you hit another driver or one of those creatures wandering on the track, like crabs, rats etc. WallHitCount increments every time you bump into a wall. GotHitAndSpunCount increments any time you hit something that makes you spin and lose coins. Might be an enemy shell or even a wandering crab. Does not increment if you managed to avoid spinning, like braking a little when you hit a banana or creature. Getting "hit" by ghosts does not increment this value. RemainingLifes never retried? So this has the value 3. Retried once? 2, and so on. StartMiniturboCount mini turbos at the start of the race or when dropped by Lakitu. DriftMiniturboCount mini turbos activated by drifting ItemBoxWhileFullHitCount increments each time you have an item on the item slot and touch another item box. You must have an item on the slot! Holding a banana or having 3 shells circling you does not count as having an item on the slot, although there is no problem at all in doing so if you do manage to get another item on the slot. FramesOutsideTrack how many animation frames you spent outside the track. Remember that the game runs at 60 frames per second! This one needs a couple of important remarks and, as you will see, is probably the reason why getting the 3 star rank on Extra Lightning is so hard: 1. If the track does not have an "outside", like the Bowser Castle levels, this value increments each time you hit a wall. 2. Some tracks, specially the SNES' ones, are glitched when the game calculates this value. I will write a few of them that were of interest for me while researching for this FAQ, but there might be more. Feel free to test: - RMC2: you can spend as much time as you want outside the track because the game will not count it. Beware of hitting the walls though, since the game behaves as if this was a Bowser Castle track, and will count twice, once as a wall bump and once as if you have spent 1 frame outside the track - RKB1: touched the water? Then you are totally outside of the track. It does not matter if the puddle is right in the middle of the track. Hopping over it also does not help. At all! Although not really a glitch here, since this seems to be applied for all beach tracks. - RCI2: same rules applied on RMC2 are also applied here, but with a VERY IMPORTANT twist - the big mud pool in the middle of the track is counted as if you were out of the track! PositionPoints you receive a different value according to position you end a race and your difference in cup points from the second top computer controlled opponent. Here is a little table showing what you can get 1st, 2nd etc: the position you finish the race Difference: difference in cup points from the best placed CPU opponent ------------------------------------------------- |PositionPoints | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | |-------------------------|-----|-----|-----|-----| |Difference <= 2 | 20 | 10 | 0 | 0 | |-------------------------|-----|-----|-----|-----| |Difference >= 3 and <= 8 | 40 | 20 | 10 | 0 | |-------------------------|-----|-----|-----|-----| |Difference > 8 | 60 | 30 | 20 | 10 | ------------------------------------------------- ccWeight each cc has a different value. Higher the cc, smaller the value 150cc = 143 100cc = 157 50cc = 167 TrackValue fixed values according to the track (at 150cc, I do not know if they change at any other cc). I did not waste my time getting the values for all tracks I only got the ones from the two cups I used as test bed. It is pretty easy to get those values though. I will teach how to retrieve them (and any other value presented here, of course) later, for anyone who is interested. Just take a peek at the GAME CODE section of this FAQ - Mushroom track 1: 47 track 2: 53 track 3: 65 track 4: 50 - Extra Lightning track 1: 52 track 2: 40 track 3: 26 track 4: 27 CharacterEndRaceValue each driver receives a different, but constant value at the end of the race. It seems to be connected to how hard it is to race using him/her. The harder the driver is to master, the greater the reward is. If this whole "the X guy is harder to master than the Y guy" somehow offends you, think of this values as a grip indicator. The higher the value, less grip the driver has. I have not compared the exact grip capacity of each driver, but in my experience, this listing seems to be accurate, having the ones with less grip being the ones who receive more points. These are the points each driver receives Mario = 30 Luigi = 30 Bowser = 45 Peach = 10 DK = 40 Wario = 40 Toad = 10 Yoshi = 0 .------------------. | THE RANK FORMULA | `------------------´ NOTICE: I will be using a C language notation for the SkillPoint calculation formulas below. Math people usually cringe when they see it, because stuff like x = x + 1 is not only valid, but it is very, very common. Anyway, it is very simple to understand: what is on the left side of the = sign receives the result of the operation on the right side. That is it. Simple as that. So x = 1 + 2 means that the value of x is now 3, because the result of the operation on the right side, 1 + 2, is 3. Also x = x + 1 means that the value of x is now whatever value x had plus 1. This kind of operation is used a lot. In fact, it is used so much that the C language guys created a little "shortcut" for it, which consists in placing the operator just before the = sign, like this x += 2 which means that x now have whatever value it had, plus 2, and is the same as x = x + 2 If we change the operator, the operation changes (obviously), so x -= 2 means that x now have whatever value it had, minus 2. All the conventional math rules apply so x += -3 is the same as x = x + (-3) which is the same as x = x - 3 And just to avoid any confusion, let me give you a little more complicated example. When you see things like x += y * 3 it means that we will increment x with the result of the right hand side operation. So x will be incremented by the result of (y * 3). YOU DO NOT increment x by y and then multiply the result by 3. ALWAYS REMEMBER: the right hand side operation must be dealt with first. Below you will also see that I usually place a ; at the end of each statement, like this x = 4 + 56; Do not worry about it. Ignore the ; char. It has no meaning. It is a C thingy that tells the compiler where the end of the statement is. Line breaks have no meaning for a C compiler on many cases, so that char has to be used. But really, just ignore it. I am only mentioning it because I have just seen that I have used it below and I am too lazy to fix it. Sorry about that, it is just that I work with the C language all the time and it was kind of an automatic thing by now. And last, but not least, two slashes denotes a comment. Everything written from there until the end of the line is a comment. Comments have absolutely no influence in the code, but programmers usually place them near a certain lines in order to explain what exactly that code is doing. For instance // here I will increment x by 4 x += 4; Well, that is it for your quick C language tutorial. I believe it is pretty easy to understand, and that is why it is the notation I will be using below. But have no fear of raising your hand and asking me a question, if you have not understood it yet. I will try to explain it again as best as I can. Beware though, if there is one thing I have learned, one thing that life has taught me, is that I am one lousy teacher. But I promise I will try my best. OK? Great! SkillPoints The stats mentioned above are tracked during a race and then, right when you cross the finish line, the game calculates what I am going to call SkillPoints. The higher your SkillPoints the better. Some stats increment those points, and some decrement them. I think it is pretty clear which is which, but what is not clear is by how much they increase or decrease those points. I mean, what WAS not clear, because here we go. // the skill points for the track always start at zero. SkillPoints = 0; // add the position points SkillPoints += PositionPoints; // yes coins ARE important :) // This operation means "multiply the number of coins you finished the race by // 4 and then increment SkillPoints with the result of that multiplication" SkillPoints += Coins * 4; // the number of times you got struck by the lightning item. It seems to be the // most valuable positive stat of all, but the AI seldom uses it. Which is kind // of a good thing. It would be very annoying if the AI used it all the time. // And now that we know all the other criteria for acquiring skill points, this // one should not matter much. Anyway, the great thing about this discovery is // that it will totally change the way players look at being hit by lightning. // The ignorant masses will curse saying stuff like // "great... that was just what I needed..." // // while the few and proud enlightened ones will yell // "Great! That was just what I needed!" SkillPoints += LightningHits * 40; // here the game used the ccWeight and the TrackValue to create some sort of a // PAR time for the track. If you beat this time you win some skill points. // Unfortunately many times this PAR value is insanely low. Lower than some // records, so do not feel bad for not beating it. Here, in order to get your // total race time the game will sum all your lap times. If that sum is greater // than 59999 (9 minutes, 59 seconds and 99 cents), it is set to 59999. Also, // if the result of the whole calculation below is less than 0 it is set to 0. // That means that while your lap times MIGHT increase your skill points, they // WILL NEVER decrease them. If it was not for that, getting the 3 star rank on // Extra Lightning would be even harder RaceTime = LapTime1 + LapTime2 + LapTime3 + LapTime4 + LapTime5; SkillPoints += ((ccWeight * TrackValue) - RaceTime) / 8; // you picked Bowser? Good for you! SkillPoints += CharacterEndRaceValue; // if you need to stop hitting the gas, be quick about it SkillPoints -= FramesNotHittngGas / 4; // unless you hit a banana, do not touch the brake pedal. It will hurt your hard // earned skill points bad. I am one of the worst MKSC players out there and // even I have no need for brakes SkillPoints -= FramesHittingBrake * 2; // fortunately you will only get these items when you are not in 1st. Well... // at least in most cases. SkillPoints -= Item3RedSheelsUseCount * 5; SkillPoints -= ItemStarUseCount * 30 SkillPoints -= ItemLightningUseCount * 5; // Lakitu is NOT your friend SkillPoints -= LakituRescueCount * 30; // thou shalt hit no one! Nor anything! SkillPoints -= EntityHitCount * 15; // Bowser Castle levels can be harmful SkillPoints -= WallHitCount * 20; // So KartSeven, what did you say? That princess hitting me with 3 dozen red // shells per lap would not take my 3 star rank away? Was that it? hehe SillPoints -= GotHitAndSpunCount * 15; // retrying does not automatically take away your 3 star rank. Well... in // theory. In practice it hurts. Bad! (3 - RemainingLifes) is how the game // calculates your retry count. If you never retried, it will be 0 (you start // with 3 lives, remember?) SkillPoints -= (3 - RemainingLifes) * 120; // thou shalt master the start mini turbo. When Lakitu rescues you, doing a // mini turbo when he puts you back on the track ALMOST takes away the // SkillPoints you just lost SkillPoints += StartMiniturboCount * 25; // no surprise here SkilPoints += DriftMiniturboCount * 15; // well well well... Look at what we got here! I my opinion, this was one of the // biggest surprises when I debugged the game code. What we usually thought // before checking the game code was that if using items was bad thing, it was // because it would take points from you (which is pretty much what happens // when you use any of those items I mentioned above), but I doubt that anyone // ever thought that you would be gaining skill points for passing on a ? block // while already having an item on the item slot. And if you had ever thought // about that, then... KUDOS! You were right! SkillPoints += ItemBoxHitCountWhileFull * 15; // I just wish the game would differentiate between being outside the track and // being on water spots in the middle of the track on the beach races. SkillPoints -= FramesOutsideTrack / 4; // that is it. This is how the game calculates your skill points. It does it // once for each race of a cup and store the value. Then, at the end of the 4th // race, the game reads the SkillPoints that were calculated for each of track // and then take the arithmetic mean of them SkillLevel = (SkillPoints1 + SkillPoints2 + SkillPoints3 + SkillPoints4) / 4; // and now it compares the result to a couple of fixed values. If you made // enough points to stay above a certain fixed value, then that is your rank. // There is one last thing though. You can only get the 3 star rank if you got // first place on all 4 tracks. // if you got the first place on all 4 tracks... if SkillLevel > 329 then Rank = *** if SkillLevel > 199 then Rank = ** if SkillLevel > 99 then Rank = * if SkillLevel > 29 then Rank = A ... // if you did not get 1st place on all races, then the game checks if you made // at least 27 points if SkillLevel > 329 then Rank = ** if SkillLevel > 199 then Rank = * if SkillLevel > 99 then Rank = A ... // not even 27? Please tell me you made at least 21... if SkillLevel > 329 then Rank = * ... .------------------. | MEMORY ADDRESSES | `------------------´ It is obviously hard, if not practically impossible, to keep track of all those statistics by yourself. So here are the memory positions where the game stores them. These memory positions are in hexadecimal (base 16). I use the C language notation to represent them. In C, when you want to say that a certain value is in base 16 all you have to do is t place an 0x in front of the value. The easiest way to check these memory positions is by using an emulator. You will need one that allows you to see the game memory and one of the best for that task is the Visual Boy Advance. I used it to check these addresses and it handled the task perfectly. Currently the VBA emulator development is stopped, but truth be told, I am yet to find something I needed to do that it was not able to perform. Some guys seem to have taken the project in their own hands, creating the VBA-M branch. I have never tried it. I only used the original VBA. So, if you have chosen to use VBA to see these values, all you have to do is to load the game ROM, click on the "Tools" menu and then choose "Memory viewer..." You will probably want to click on the "Automatic update" check box, otherwise the values will not get updated as you play the game. Having the memory viewer up, all you need to do now is to type one of the addresses below on the text box near the "Go" button and then hit the Enter key or press the "Go" button in order to go to that memory address. On VBA you do not need to type the 0x of the memory address. It already knows you are inputting a base 16 value. I will use the term BYTE for values that are stored using 8 bits and WORD for values stored using 16 bits. For those of you who have no idea of what I am talking about, when you open the memory viewer of the emulator you will see that the values are stored in little pairs. Each pair is a BYTE and two pairs make a WORD. Another little thing: when the value is stored in a WORD, the least significant BYTE will appear first, so you will have to invert the pairs in order to see the correct value. I mean, the value 0xABCD will appear on the emulator memory viewer as: CD AB This happens because of something called endianness. Google it for more info. In the end, just remember to always invert the pairs and you are good to go. - Race #1 total time Address: 0x02033100 Size: WORD Comments: See the comments for 1st lap time (0x03003C74) for details on the time encoding - Race #1 position Address: 0x02033102 Size: BYTE Comments: The position you ended the race at. This value is zero based. - Race #1 coins Address: 0x02033103 Size: BYTE Comments: The number of coins you've finished the race with. - Race #2 total time Address: 0x02033104 Size: WORD Comments: See the comments for 1st lap time (0x03003C74) for details on the time encoding - Race #2 position Address: 0x02033106 Comments: The position you ended the race at. This value is zero based. - Race #2 coins Address: 0x02033107 Comments: The number of coins you've finished the race with. - Race #3 total time Address: 0x02033108 Size: WORD Comments: See the comments for 1st lap time (0x03003C74) for details on the time encoding - Race #3 position Address: 0x0203310A Size: BYTE Comments: The position you ended the race at. This value is zero based. - Race #3 coins Address: 0x0203310B Size: BYTE Comments: The number of coins you've finished the race with. - Race #4 total time Address: 0x0203310C Size: WORD Comments: See the comments for 1st lap time (0x03003C74) for details on the time encoding - Race #4 position Address: 0x0203310E Size: BYTE Comments: The position you ended the race at. This value is zero based. - Race #4 coins Address: 0x0203310F Size: BYTE Comments: The number of coins you've finished the race with. - Global Track Index Address: 0x03000008 Size: BYTE Comments: Mushroom cup first track is 0, second 1, third 2 and fourth 3. Then, Flower cup starts from there. The count is reset for the extra cups, so both Mushroom and Extra Mushroom starts at 0, both Flowers start at 4 and so on. Summing up: Mushroom: 0, 1, 2, 3 Flower: 4, 5, 6, 7 Lightning: 8, 9, 10, 11 Star: 12, 13, 14, 15 Special: 16, 17, 18, 19 - Lives Remaining Address: 0x0300000C Size: BYTE Comments: Number of lives (retries) you still have - Race position Address: 0x030023B4 Size BYTE Comments: Your position on the current race. This is a zero based index (0 means you are the first). This is not the only address your position is stored and do not bother changing it since the game will change it back to the correct value - cc ID Address: 0x03003620 Size: BYTE Comments: 50cc: 0x00 100cc: 0x01 150cc: 0x02 - Race ID ???? Address: 0x03003621 Size: BYTE Comments: It got the value 0x4 when I went to 150cc Mushroom. Changed to 0x5 when I went to the second race, 0x9 when I went to the third and 0x7 on the fourth race and to 0x1C on the podium screen. All races finished on 1st place. Flower 0x0C // track 1 0x11 // track 2 0x12 // track 3 0x0B // track 4 0x1C // podium - Skill Points for track 1 Address: 0x03003AD0 Size: WORD (signed) Comments: How well you have performed on the first track of a certain cup. This value is calculated and stored here right after you cross the finish line. The greater this value, the better your performance was. - Skill Points for track 2 Address: 0x03003AD2 Size: WORD (signed) Comments: How well you have performed on the second track of a certain cup. This value is calculated and stored here right after you cross the finish line. The greater this value, the better your performance was. - Skill Points for track 3 Address: 0x03003AD4 Size: WORD (signed) Comments: How well you have performed on the third track of a certain cup. This value is calculated and stored here right after you cross the finish line. The greater this value, the better your performance was. - Skill Points for track 4 Address: 0x03003AD6 Size: WORD (signed) Comments: How well you have performed on the third track of a certain cup. This value is calculated and stored here right after you cross the finish line. The greater this value, the better your performance was. - Skill Points Average Address: 0x03003AD8 Size: WORD (signed) Comments: How well you have performed on the the whole cup. This value is calculated and stored here right after you cross the finish line of the fourth (last) race of the cup. It is simply the arithmetic mean of your skill points for each track, i.e., (SkillPoints1 + SkillPoints2 + SkillPoints3 + SkillPoints4) / 4 The greater this value, the better your performance was. And if it is greater than 0x13F and you got first place on all four races, you will receive the 3 star rank. Notice that the calculation happens right when you cross the finish line, so if you want to cheat, you must edit this (or any other of the SkillPoints) before crossing it. - Frames not hitting the gas Address: 0x3003ADC Size: WORD Comments: Number of frames you spent without hitting the accelerator! If you overflow this WORD, the game sets this value to 0 and the BYTE at position 0x3003ADE to 1 - Too many frames not hitting the gas Address: 0x3003ADE Size: BYTE Comments: When the variable at 0x3003ADC overflows (you did not hit the gas stopped for more than 65535 frames), this byte is flagged. - Brake usage Address: 0x03003AE0 Size: WORD Comments: Number of frames you spent hitting the brakes - Too much brake use Address: 0x03003AE2 Size: BYTE Comments: When I tried to overflow the variable holding the brake usage (0x03003AE0), it got zeroed and this byte was set to 1. - Number of times you used the 3 red shells item Address: 0x03003AE4 Size: Byte Comments: Increment each time you used the 3 red shells item - Number of times you used a star item Address: 0x03003AE5 Size: Byte Comments: Increment whenever you use the star item - Number of times you used the lightning item Address: 0x03003AE6 Size: Byte Comments: Incremented when I used the lightning - Number of times rescued by Lakitu Address: 0x03003AE7 Size: BYTE Comments: Starts counting from zero after overflowing. - Number of times you hit a driver or creature Address: 0x3003AE8 Size: BYTE Comments: Number of times you hit someone or something besides a wall, like other drives or one of those creatures walking on the track - Wall bump count Address: 0x03003AE9 Size: BYTE Comments: This is just incremented when you hit a wall. It does not change when you hit another player neither a tree nor a stomp. The "good" thing is that it is not protected against overflow, i.e. hit your head for the 256th time and you're as good as new :) - GotHitAndSpun Address: 0x03003AEA Size: BYTE Comments: Increment every you get hit by something that makes you spin and lose coins, like an enemy shell or even a creature on the track. If you brake so you do not spin, it does not count - Start Mini Turbo Count Address: 0x03003AEB Size: BYTE Comments: Increment every time you execute a mini turbo start. It can be either the one at the start of the race or the ones you do after Lakitu rescues you. Zeroed when overflowed. - Drift Mini Turbo count Address: 0x03003AEC Size: BYTE Comments: Increment every time you execute a mini turbo while drifting. Zeroed when overflows. - Frames outside the track Address: 0x03003AF0 Size: WORD Comments: Frames spent outside the track, like on the grass. Falling on the water, lava or in a bottomless haunted pit does not seem to affect this. Neither does the frames Lakitu spend rescuing you. See the comments on the Stats session for more details about this value, since it is kind of glitched. - Too many frames outside the track Address: 0x3003AF2 Size: BYTE Comments: When I tried to overflow the above address (Frames spent outside the track, it "zeroed", set this byte to 1 and did not increment any longer. So, basically if you spent more than 0xFFFF frames outside the track, this byte probably tells the game that the current player sucks too much and it should not waste its time counting the frames he spent outside the track - Item Box Hit Count While Full Address: 0x03003AF4 Size: BYTE Comments: Increments every time you hit an item box while you are already with an item on the slot. Hitting it while having a "triggered item" (banana or shell being held behind your kart) does not count SkillPoints+ PositionPoints Address: 0x3003AF6 + 0x20 * (cupTrackIndex - 1) Size: Byte Comments: Fixed value according to the position you end the race. The ( + 0x20 * (cupTrackIndex - 1)) part in the address field means that you must offset that address by 0x20 in order to get the values for the second track, then by more 0x20 for the third and 0x20 again for the fourth. So: Track 1: 0x3003AF6 + 0x20 * 0 == 0x3003AF6 Track 2: 0x3003AF6 + 0x20 * 1 == 0x3003B16 Track 3: 0x3003AF6 + 0x20 * 2 == 0x3003B36 Track 4: 0x3003AF6 + 0x20 * 3 == 0x3003B56 SkillPoints+ Coins * 4 Address: 0x03003AF8 + 0x20 * (cupTrackIndex - 1) Size: WORD Comments: The number of coins you got during the race, times 4 SkillPoints+ LightningHits * 40 Address: 0x03003AFA + 0x20 * (cupTrackIndex - 1) Size: WORD Comments: Number of times hit by the lightning item. It is the most valuable positive statistic. The game grabs it from 0x03003ADA, multiplies it by 40 and add it to your SkillPoints. Because the AI seldom uses lightning bolts, this value that was multiplied by 40 remained unknown for quite a few years. In fact, if it wasn't for Airship804 of the Mario Kart Super Circuit forum (at MarioKart64.com), I would never have figured this out. Airship804 mentioned that according to a guide released in 2001 in Japan, your skill points are increased if you get hit by lightning. Thank you very much Airship804! 4 years after the initial release of this FAQ we have finally uncovered all the criteria the game uses to judge your performance. SkillPoints+ Good Race Time Address: 0x03003AFC + 0x20 * (cupTrackIndex - 1) Size: WORD Comments: the games does the following calculation TotalRaceTime = LapTime1 + LapTime2 + LapTime3 + LapTime4 + LapTime5; x = ((ccWeight * TrackValue) - TotalRaceTime) / 8; The x value is then added to your skill points. It x less than 0, it is set to 0 SkillPoints+ Character End Race Value Address: 0x03003AFE + 0x20 * (cupTrackIndex - 1) Size: BYTE Comments: constant value you receive at the end of each race for using a certain driver. Bowser is the one who gives you the most (0x2D), Yoshi the least (0) SkillPoints- FramesNotHittingGas / 4 Address: 0x03003B00 + 0x20 * (cupTrackIndex - 1) Size: WORD Comments: the number of frames you did not hold the accelerator button, divided by 4 SkillPoints- FramesHittingBrakes * 2 Address: 0x03003B02 + 0x20 * (cupTrackIndex - 1) Size: WORD Comments: number of frames you were holding the brake button, times 2 SkillPoints- Bad item usage Address: 0x03003B04 + 0x20 * (cupTrackIndex - 1) Size: WORD Comments: Item3RedSheelsUseCount * 5 + ItemStarUseCount * 15 + ItemLightningUseCount * 5 SkillPoints- Bad driving Address: 0x03003B06 + 0x20 * (cupTrackIndex - 1) Size: WORD Comments: LakituRescueCount * 30 + EntityHitCount * 15 + WallHitCount * 20 + GotHitAndSpunCount * 15 SkillPoints- RetryCount * 120 Address: 0x03003B08 + 0x20 * (cupTrackIndex - 1) Size: WORD Comments: (3 - LifesRemaining) * 120 SkillPoints+ Good Driving Address: 0x03003B0A + 0x20 * (cupTrackIndex - 1) Size: WORD Comments: StartMiniturboCount * 25 + DriftMiniturboCount * 15 + ItemBoxHitCountWhileFull * 15 SkillPoints- FramesOutsideTrack / 4 Address: 0x03003B0C + 0x20 * (cupTrackIndex - 1) Size: WORD Comments: Number of frames outside the track (or on certain areas, due to what I think to be glitches - see the comments for the FramesOutsideTrack value on the stats section) divided by 4 SkillPoints For The Track Address: 0x03003B0E + 0x20 * (cupTrackIndex - 1) Size: WORD Comments: Your resulting skill points for the track. - Character ID Address: 0x3003BE4 Size: Byte Comments: 0x0 == Mario 0x1 == Luigi 0x2 == Bowser 0x3 == Peach 0x4 == DK 0x5 == Wario 0x6 == Toad 0x7 == Yoshi - Points Address: 0x03003C5C Size: BYTE Comments: Your total number of points. Jump 0x1A0 for the other racers' - 1st lap time Address: 0x03003C74 Size: WORD Comments: Current race's 1st lap time. The time is coded like this: cents + seconds * 100. So if you lap was 0'12"34, the value on this address will be 1234 (34 cents + (12 seconds * 100)), which will be this hexadecimal WORD 0x04D2 (0xD2 - 0x04 on default endianness) - 2nd lap time Address: 0x03003C76 Size: WORD Comments: See the comments for 1st lap time (0x03003C74) for details on the time encoding - 3rd lap time: Address: 0x03003C78 Size: WORD Comments: See the comments for 1st lap time (0x03003C74) for details on the time encoding - Current race coin count Address: 0x03003D10 Size: BYTE Comments: The number of coins you have on the current race - Current item Address: 0x03003D12 Size: BYTE Comments: the byte at 0x03003D13 must be set to 0x10 otherwise changing these values will not give you the desired item. Also, if changed during a race, you will get the item, but the item box at the top of the screen will be empty. Here are the values you can use in order to get all known items: 0x01: randomizing. The game sets the value to this when you touch an item box and it will remain 0x01 until the actual item is chosen 0x02: 1 red shell 0x03: 3 red shells 0x04: blue shell 0x05: banana 0x06: ? 0x07: mushroom 0x08: 3 mushrooms. Value changes to 0x0F when you use the first, and then to 0x07 when you use the second. 0x09: golden mushroom. Value changes to 0x0E while active. Lasts 10 seconds 0x0A: star 0x0B: ghost 0x0C: lightning bolt - You have an item on the item slot Address: 03003D13 Comments: BYTE Comments: it seems to be 0 when you got no item and 0x10 when you got one - Remaining "shots" Address: 03003D14 Size: BYTE Comments: Number of remaining shots you have for the selected item. I.e., it will be 3 if you got 3 shells surrounding you, 2 if you got 2 shells and so on .-----------. | GAME CODE | `-----------´ Here you will see how I knew how your SkillPoints were calculated. This is pretty low level stuff and basically it was a pre-translation of the game code from ARM assembly to a C like language so I could understand it better. THERE IS NO GAME CODE HERE (I think that would be illegal), but I have written the exact positions where the game code that handles your rank calculation is. So if you have a debugger, all you have to do is to set a code break point at the instruction at 0x0804314C and follow from there. I do not know if this pseudo code will be of help for anyone out there, but it did help me to understand some stuff so I decided to leave it here. It is also great you want to verify my SkillPoints calculation algorithm, since I have written the addresses of important code areas. These code addresses are the first value you will see above the comments on each section below. One cool thing I show here is that the game not only calculates your skill points, but it also stores the results of some preliminary calculations it has done. So even if you have no access to a debugger, you can still load an emulator like VBA and check a couple of interesting memory areas in order to see if I got everything right. For instance: - one of the first things the game will use during the skill points calculation is the PositionPoints. This value is added to the skill points and stored at 0x3003AF6, so if you go to that memory address you will see the value the game has used - the second thing added to your skill points is the number of coins you got during the race time 4. At 0x03003AF8 the game stores that value (coins * 4) - 0x3003AFC is where the game will store the result of that whole calculation it does with your race time So as you will see, each "section" I present below holds a little part of the skill points calculation. All of them ends with R6 being updated and then with some value being stored at the memory position pointed by R7. R6 is the guy storing your skill points and R7 is pointing to those cool memory positions I told you above where the game stores the results of the calculations done with your stats before updating your skill points with them. // I will mention this below. Nothing special here though that I have not // pointed out in the memory areas section struct RaceTimes 0x03003C74 { Word RaceLap1; // 0x03003C74 == [mem] Word RaceLap2; // 0x03003C76 == [mem + 0x2] Word RaceLap3; // 0x03003C78 == [mem + 0x4] Word RaceLap4; // 0x03003C7A == [mem + 0x6] Word RaceLap5; // 0x03003C7C == [mem + 0x8] Byte Unknown[2]; // 0x03003C7E -> 0x03003C7F Word RaceTime; // 0x03003C80 == [mem + 0xC] }; // 0x0804314C // where the game gets the PositionPoints (see constants above). Here R0 will // get the track index (zero based) and R1 holds the race ending position // (zero based). This is called right after you cross the finish line. // The PositionPoints value is stored at R2 and then we jump to 08043176 // 0x08043176 // r5 = 0x03003AD0 all races // r7 = 0x03003AF6, 0x03003B16, 0x03003B36, 0x03003B56 (that is right, the // position is offset by 0x20 per track) // r6 = accumulator for your skill points. Good things are added, bad are // removed r2 = PositionPoints; r6 += r2; // r6 is 0 before this. So r6 == PositionPoints r7 = 0x03003AF6; // 0x03003AF6 for track1, 0x03003B16 for track2, // 0x03003B36 for track3 and 0x03003B56 for track4 [r7] = r2 // 0x03003AF6 = PositionPoints r0 = Coins; // [0x03003D10] r2 = r0 << 2; // r0 * 4 r6 += r2; [r7 + 2] = r2; // [0x03003AF8] = (Word)(coins * 4) r1 = [0x03003ADA]; // number of times you were hit by the lightning item r0 = r1 << 2; // r0 = r1 * 4 r0 += r1; // r0 += r1 r2 = r0 << 3; // r2 = r0 * 8; r6 += r2; [r7 + 0x4] = r2; // 0x03003AFA = ((LightningHits << 2) + LightningHits) << 3 // At 0x8043196 a BL made us jump to 0x0803DAC4 // 0x0803DAC4: AddAllLapTimes() // r0 exits here with the sum of all 5 laps (the last two are 0 if the race had // only 3 laps). Only the lower 16bits are taken, anything above is discarded // (i.e., a cast to Word) r3 = 0; r2 = 4; r1 = struct RaceTimes // [0x03003C74] int i = 0; do { r0 = RaceTimes.Lap[i] // [0x03003C74 + 2 * i] (WORD) r3 += r0; ++i; r2 -= 1; }while(r2 >= 0) r0 = 0xEA5F; // if the sum of all laps is greater than 59999 if(r3 > r0) // set the sum to r3 = r0; // 59999 r0 = r3 << 16 // move the value to the upper 16 bits r0 = r0 >> 16 // move it back (Probably just a cast to smaller data type) goto 0x0804319B // BX r14 (0x0804319A) // 0x0804319A r0 = r8; // r0 = 0x03003B98 call 0x0803DAC4; // BL 0x0803DAC4 // 0x0803DAC4 AddAllLapTimes() // as seen above, AddAllLapTimes() to R0. Again? Probably just a // harmless mistake by the programmers r0 = AddAllLapTimes() goto 0x080431A0 // 0x080431A0 r2 = (Word)r0; // r2 == sum of all lap times (cast to Word) r1 = 0x080ECD30; r0 = ccID; // [0x03003620] the current cc. Can be 0, 1 or 2 (50, 100, 150) r0 = r0 << 2; // r0 *= 4; r0 += r1; ro = [r0]; // [080ECD38] == 0x8F for 150cc, 0x9D for 100cc and 0xA7 for // 50cc r1 = r10; // TrackValue (see more info on the "stats" section) r1 = r1 * r0; r0 = r1 r0 -= r2 // r2 had the sum of all lap times if(r0 < 0) r0 += 0x7 // cmp r0,0x0; bge 0x80431C0; add r0,0x7; instruction 0x80431C0 r2 = r0 >> 3; // r2 = r0 / 8 (arithmetic shift) if(r2 < 0) r2 = 0; r6 += r2; [r7 + 0x6] = r2; // [0x03003AF6 + 0x6] = r2 -> [0x03003AFC] = r2 r2 = 0x080ECD3C; r1 = CharacterID; // [0x03003B98 + 0x4C] == [0x03003BE4] == Character ID r0 = 0x7; r0 &= r1; // clearing any garbage from the character ID value? // It is never greater than 7, so this is simply r0 = r1 // Well... how knows... r0 <<= 0x2 // r0 = r0 * 4 r0 += r2; // r0 = 0x080ECD3C + CharacterID * 4 == CharacterEndRaceValue r2 = [r0]; // r2 = CharacterEndRaceValue (0x2D for bowser) r6 += r2; [r7 + 0x8] = (Word)r2; // [0x03003AF6 + 0x8] = (Word)CharacterEndRaceValue // [0x03003AFE] = CharacterEndRaceValue r0 = [r5 + 0xC]; // r0 = [0x3003AD0 + 0xC] // r0 = [0x3003ADC] == FramesNotHittingGas r2 = FramesNotHittingGas >> 0x2; // r2 = FramesNotHittingGas / 4; r6 -= r2; [r7 + 0xA] = (Word store)r2; // [0x03003AF6 + 0xA] = r2; // [0x03003B00] = FramesNotHittingGas / 4 r0 = FramesHittingBrake; // [0x03003AD0 + 0x10] // [0x03003AE0] == FramesHittngBrake r2 = r0 << 0x1; // r2 = FramesHittingBrake * 2 r6 -= r2; [r7 + 0xC] = (Word store)r2; // [0x03003AF6 + 0xC] = FramesHittingBrake * 2 // [0x03003B02] = FramesHittingBrake * 2; r1 = UseCountItem3RedShells; // [0x03003AD0 + 0x14] == [0x03003AE4] r0 = r1 << 0x2; r2 = r0 + r1 // r2 = (UseCountItem3RedShells * 5 r1 = UseCountItemStar; // [0x03003AD0 + 0x15] == [0x03003AE5] r0 = r1 << 0x4; // r0 = UseCountItemStar * 16 r0 -= UseCountItemStar // r0 = r0 - UseCountItemStar; r0 = r0 << 0x1 // r0 = r0 * 2 // so, r0 = UseCountItemStar * 30 r2 += r0; // r2 = CalcWith_UseCountItem3RedShells + // CalcWith_UseCountItemStar r1 = UseCountItemLightning; // [0x03003AD0 + 0x16] == [0x03003AE6] r0 = r1 << 0x2; // r0 = UseCountItemLightning * 4 r0 += r1; // r0 = r0 + UseCountItemLightning; // so, r0 = UseCountItemLightning * 5 r2 += r0; // r2 = CalcWith_UseCountItem3RedShells + // CalcWith_UseCountItemStar + // CalcWith_UseCountItemLightning r6 -= r2; [r7 + 0xE] = (Word store)r2; // [0x03003AF6 + 0xE] = r2; // [0x03003B04] = (Word store)r2; r1 = LakituRescueCount; // [0x03003AD0 + 0x17] == [0x03003AE7] r0 = r1 << 0x4 r0 -= LakituRescueCount; r2 = r0 << 0x1; // r2 = LakituRescueCount * 30 r1 = EntityHitCount; // [0x03003AD0 + 0x18] == [0x03003AE8] r0 = r1 << 0x4; r0 -= EntityHitCount; // r0 = EntityHitCount * 15 r2 += r0 // r2 = CalcWith_LakituRescueCount + // CalcWith_EntityHitCount r1 = WallHitCount; // [0x03003AD0 + 0x19] == [0x03003AE9] r0 = r1 << 0x2; r0 += WallHitCount; r0 = r0 << 0x2; // r0 = WallHitCount * 20 r2 += r0; // r2 = CalcWith_LakituRescueCount + // CalcWith_EntityHitCount + // alcWith_WallHitCount r1 = GotHitAndSpunCount; // [0x03003AD0 + 0x1A] == [0x03003AEA] r0 = r1 << 0x4; r0 -= GotHitAndSpunCount; // r0 = GotHitAndSpunCount * 15 r2 += r0; // r2 = CalcWith_LakituRescueCount + // CalcWith_EntityHitCount + // CalcWith_WallHitCount + // CalcWith_GotHitAndSpunCount r6 -= r2; [r7 + 0x10] = (Word store)r2; // [0x03003AF6 + 0x10] = r2 // [0x03003B06] = (Word store)r2 goto 0x08002C3C; // 0x08043234: bl 0x8002C3C // 0x08002C3C r0 = LifesRemaining; // [0x0300000C] bx r14 // 0x08043238 r1 = 0x3; r2 = r1 - r0; // r2 = 0x3 - LifesRemaining, so r2 == RetryCount if(r2 > 0) { // 0x08043240 // in case you retried on the race r0 = r2 << 0x4; // r0 = RetryCount * 16 r0 -= r2; // r0 = (RetryCount * 16) - RetryCount r0 = r0 << 0x3; // r0 = ((RetryCount * 16) - RetryCount) * 8; } else { // 0x08043254 r0 = 0; } // 0x08043256 r2 = r0; // r2 = CalcWith_Retry r6 -= r2; [r7 + 12] = r2; // [0x03003AF6 + 0x12] = r2; -> [0x03003B08] = r2; r1 = StartMiniturboCount; // [0x03003AD0 + 0x1B] == [0x03003AEB] r0 = r1 << 0x1; r0 += StartMiniturboCount; r0 = r0 << 0x3; r2 = r0 + r1; // r2 = StartMiniturboCount * 25; r1 = DriftMiniturboCount; // [0x03003AD0 + 0x1C] == [0x03003AEC] r0 = r1 << 0x4; r0 -= r1; // r0 = DriftMiniturboCount * 15 r2 += r0; // r2 = CalcWith_StartMiniturboCount + // CalcWith_DriftMiniturboCount r1 = ItemBoxHitCountWhileFull; // [0x03003AD0 + 0x24] == [0x03003AF4] r0 = r1 << 0x4; r0 -= r1; // r0 = ItemBoxHitCountWhileFull * 15 r2 += r0; // r2 = CalcWith_StartMiniturboCount + // CalcWith_DriftMiniturboCount + // CalcWith_ItemBoxHitCountWhileFull; r6 += r2; [r7 + 0x14] = r2; // [0x03003AF6 + 0x14] = r2; // [0x03003B0A] = r2; r0 = c; // [0x03003AD0 + 0x20] == [0x03003AF0] == FramesOutsideTrack r2 = r0 >> 0x2; // r2 = FramesOutsideTrack / 4 r6 -= r2; [r7 + 0x16] = r2; // [0x03003AF6 + 0x16] = r2; -> [0x03003B0C] = r2 CALL 0x08002C24 // 08043286: bl 0x8002C24 // 0x08002C24 r0 = GlobalTrackIndex; // [0x03000008] see the constant GlobaTrackIndex above END CALL // go back to 0x0804328A // 0x0804328A r4 = 0x3; r0 &= r4; r0 = r0 << 0x1; // r0 = r0 * 2; r0 = r5 + r0; // [0x3003AD0 + r0] [r0] = r6; // r6 seems to be your skill points for this race [r7 + 0x18] = (Word store)r6; // [0x03003AF6 + 0x18] = r6 // [0x03003B0E] = (Word store)r6 CALL 0x08002C24; // 0x08043296: bl 0x08002C24 // 0x08002C24 r0 = GlobalTrackIndex; // [0x03000008] see the constant GlobaTrackIndex above END CALL // go back to 0x0804329A // 0x0804329A r0 &= r4; // r0 = GlobalTrackIndex & 0x3 if(r0 != 0x3) goto 0x080432C6; // so it seems that 0x080432A0 is the code path // taken at the end of the cup // 0x080432A0 // path take when finishing the last track of a cup r2 = 0; r0 = (signed word)SkillTrack1; // [0x03003AD0 + r2] == [0x03003AD0] r3 = 0x2; r1 = (signed word)SkillTrack2; // [0x03003AD0 + r3] == [0x03003AD2] r0 += r1; // r0 = SkillTrack1 + SkillTrack2; r2 = 0x4; r1 = (signed word)SkillTrack3; // [0x03003AD0 + r2] == [0x03003AD4] r0 += r1; // r0 = SkillTrack1 + SkillTrack2 + SkillTrack3; r3 = 0x6; r1 = (signed word)SkillTrack4; // [0x03003AD0 + r3] == [0x03003AD6] r0 += r1; // r0 = SkillAllTracks if(r0 < 0) r0 += 0x3; r2 = r0 >> 0x2; // r2 = SkillAllTracks / 4 [r5+0x8] = (word store)r2; // [0x03003AD8] = (SkillAllTracks / 4); r0 = r5; r0 += 0xBE; [r0] = (word store)r2; // [0x03003B8E] = (SkillAllTracks / 4); // 0x0804355C // 1. get your total number of points and see if it is greater than 35 // 2. compare your skill points (SkillAllTracks/ 4) with if total > 0x13F then *** if total > 0xC7 then ** if total > 0x63 then * if total > 0x1D then A // 1. if you made less than 36, check if you made more than 27 // 2. compare your skill points (SkillAllTracks/ 4) with if total > 0x13F then ** if total > 0xC7 then * if total > 0x63 then A ... // 1. if you made less than 36, check if you made more than 21 // 2. compare your skill points (SkillAllTracks/ 4) with if total > 0x13F then * if total > 0xC7 then A ... .---------. | THANKS | `---------´ None of this would be possible without the help of - Forgotten and the VBA Team. Thank you guys so much for the Visual Boy Advance - NOCASH for the NO$GBA emulator/debugger - The Mario Kart elite at MarioKart64.com - Airship804 for the hint about the infamous "unknown value" - Etch for testing everything on real hardware and doing the craziest things