[HN Gopher] Super Mario Bros: The Human Limit
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Super Mario Bros: The Human Limit
Author : qxga
Score : 101 points
Date : 2021-06-02 19:28 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| xiphias2 wrote:
| I loved the story telling of the video. To tell the truth, the
| story telling was even better than most movies that I watch for
| entertainment.
| joshschreuder wrote:
| Highly recommend going through Summoning Salt's back catalogue
| as he is a great storyteller. He has a way of getting me
| interested even in games I've never played, like Ninja Gaiden
| [1].
|
| I think the epitome of this for me was his vid on Mario Kart 64
| and the A1A trying to stop a prolific speedrunner from claiming
| 32/32 simultaneous track records [2].
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/7u1tVD7UEqw
|
| [2] https://youtu.be/D6cpa-TvKn8
| thenoblesunfish wrote:
| It's probably way too late to change the rules now, but even
| though it's totally legal according to the rules on the
| leaderboards, using a keyboard seems like quite a difference from
| using a controller, and from the end of the video, sounds like it
| does make certain moves easier.
| elihu wrote:
| The video mentions that moves that can only be done by pressing
| right and left at the same time aren't allowed, as that can't
| be done on a controller. I wonder if keyboard input is
| tolerated but only if it blocks impossible combinations, or if
| it's just on the honor system not to do those moves?
| stormbrew wrote:
| It'd be impossible to do that on the honour system. It would
| take an absurd amount of coordination to avoid ever doing it
| in a game like SMB, and the effects would be pretty
| immediately obvious.
|
| If you're using an emulator, you have to enable allowing it.
| If you're using a hardware adapter you'd have to have your
| adapter blocking it.
| stormbrew wrote:
| It's complicated. Keyboards are almost certainly 'better' in
| the abstract if they're good enough (low activation threshold,
| not a lot of bus latency on whatever you're using to connect
| it, etc) because it's easier to press complex sequences of
| buttons when you're not holding the thing you're pressing them
| on ('fat thumb') or you can choose the layout of the relevant
| keys (vs. 'claw' or 'piano' gripping a controller).
|
| But there are advantages to controllers too -- it tends to be
| easier to press two buttons on the same frame for eg.
|
| And the thing is, it's not like there's only one controller you
| can perfectly standardize on. Even if you require only an
| 'original controller from the console manufacturer', well does
| that mean you have to be using the original rubber contact
| pads? Those are mostly all dead by now. Are all replacement
| rubbers equal? What about putting tape in the middle of the
| dpad to make diagonals more consistent?
|
| And then it's also an accessibility issue. A lot of people
| can't use the original controllers. A lot of people who are
| otherwise very good at video games. Many of them can't use them
| _because_ they played so many video games on them and they 've
| gotten RSIs.
|
| All that said there are usually limits. Almost no games allow
| macros (exception: Celeste allows a macro for a dash technique)
| or any other "press one button for multiple inputs" kinda
| stuff. Very few games allow turbo (exceptions: some RPGs do
| because mashing through cutscenes is very bad for your hands).
|
| A lot of games do require controllers that are at least no more
| _capable_ than one that came with the console though. But then
| there are things like one-handed controllers that are no more
| capable but could potentially change what 's easy/hard.
|
| So.. yeah it's complicated. It's just down to the game and its
| 'community' to decide what makes sense. That's largely how the
| whole speedrunning world works these days.
|
| But no it's not too late to change the rules. Speedrun
| leaderboard rules change all the time to accommodate new
| information, techniques, and glitches. If people who run SMB
| feel it's unfair, it might change.
| to11mtm wrote:
| >A lot of games do require controllers that are at least no
| more capable than one that came with the console though.
|
| An example of this would be if the original controller won't
| let you press both left and right at the same time, and being
| able to do so gives an unfair advantage due to the way the
| game was programmed (I think Castlevania SOTN is one of
| these.)
| joshschreuder wrote:
| As mentioned in this vid, there is also a TAS of SMB that
| uses left/right simultaneously to surpass the human limit
| sciolistse wrote:
| This is generally handled by an input cleaner, either in
| the controller itself if you hook it up to an original
| system, or via an emulator if you're using one. In the case
| of SMB1 L+R is disallowed (and it does give some in game
| time advantages) and all allowed emulators will give
| 'neutral' inputs if you press both L and R simultaneously
| so it will act as if you've pressed neither.
| ranie93 wrote:
| The video mentions this sentiment in passing:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rIJNT7dCmE&t=2624s
| detaro wrote:
| From what I've seen, speedrunning communities tend to be
| pragmatic about that: If something like this becomes a concern,
| the leaderboards are typically just split and a new category
| added. (Although I guess for a console game there is a
| fundamental question if keyboard is an extra category or gets
| allowed for the "main" one)
|
| For some games there are tons of categories for different
| variations or restrictions. (It can even happen that when a new
| fundamental glitch is found, a category "Game X without this
| one specific glitch" is added if people enjoy running the game
| without it anyways)
| disambiguation wrote:
| as someone with no prior opinion or interest in speed-running,
| this is a surprisingly good watch!
|
| some thoughts
|
| - given the timeline of progress, i guess we might see THE
| perfect run in the next 12 months or so
|
| - how did they figure out the theoretical best time in the first
| place?
|
| - is machine learning being applied to this problem yet? might be
| able to discover some more time saves
| readams wrote:
| They don't know the theoretical best time but they know what is
| possible using tool-assisted speedruns (TAS) using the current
| set of known tricks. So it's possible there are still tricks to
| discover that will improve the speed floor, but it's been a
| long time since anything new was found.
| tantalor wrote:
| > how did they figure out the theoretical best time in the
| first place
|
| _A rarely used tool is brute-force searching for ideal inputs
| by making a computer play the game, trying all possible inputs.
| In theory, this process could find the ideal set of inputs for
| any game, but since the space of all possible inputs grows
| exponentially with the length of the sequence, this is only
| viable for optimizing very small portions of the speed run.
| Instead, a heuristic algorithm can be used. Although such an
| approach does not guarantee a perfect solution, it can prove
| very effective for solving simple puzzle games._
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tool-assisted_speedrun#Method
| fuzzer37 wrote:
| > how did they figure out the theoretical best time in the
| first place?
|
| Generally by trial and error and with a TAS, which is a "Tool
| Assisted Speedrun". Some people determined what all of the most
| optimal segments were, then programmed a computer to push the
| buttons at exactly the right time (down to frame perfect). So
| theoretically the current best time could be a local maximum,
| but with how long the game has been out for that seems
| unlikely.
|
| This also led to a kind of funny thing where some runs were
| considered "TAS Only", only to be later achieved by a human in
| a real run.
| to11mtm wrote:
| I've been seeing this on some Castlevania SOTN tricks. I'm
| not sure whether this was done before or after TAS became in
| vogue, but while Some specific tricks are 'frame perfect', in
| that game you can use the map function to check your frame
| and slow it down. Yeah, it's still slower than a TAS, but if
| the time savings is substantial it's worth it.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Say Brothers! Say it!
| jordigh wrote:
| Imagine a bus that departs every 21 frames...
| css wrote:
| This is a great video, but it glosses over some of the technical
| aspects because it assumes the viewer already understands them.
| This video provides a basic gestalt of the tech used for these
| runs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FQJEzJ_cQw
| oceliker wrote:
| It wouldn't be a SMB speedrun video if it didn't have the bus
| analogy.
|
| Jokes aside, Summoning Salt is a great Youtube channel, and it
| makes me feel emotionally invested in speedruns of games I've
| never heard of before. Great storytelling. Not to mention that
| speedruns (and the glitches people find to get world record
| times) are pretty interesting from a computer science standpoint.
| bcrescimanno wrote:
| Came here to add comments about Summoning Salt as well. I don't
| follow speedruns at all; but, I really love his work and I
| absolutely echo the sentiment that he will get you emotionally
| invested in his content.
|
| As an interesting aside, not only does he make great
| documentary style videos about Speed running, he also happens
| to be the current (as of June 2021) world record holder for
| Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!
|
| https://www.speedrun.com/user/Summoningsalt
| Afforess wrote:
| Speedrunning is the only sport that I am excited about.
| gremloni wrote:
| Same here, except it was fleeting. Too repetitive for me.
| jordigh wrote:
| Speedrunning is software QA as a spectator sport. It's no
| wonder we like it. :)
| Pulcinella wrote:
| I do wonder if the "check for win condition after every X
| number of frames" is for performance reasons.
|
| Since I believe it's every 21 frames that means you could
| perform 20 other functions dispersed across the 20 other
| frames, but if the system doesn't need to do anything in that
| time then I don't know why you wouldn't just check every frame.
| tantalor wrote:
| Nobody knows.
|
| _There's no clear cut answer for this; some say it was
| intended to be every 20 frames, and there was an off-by-one
| error in implementation._
|
| https://ggn00b.com/for-noobs/frame-rule-mario-explained/
| amirmasoudabdol wrote:
| That's a surprising good video. Well done and thanks for making
| it!
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| is this from the pool? Because it was already submitted days ago
|
| The vid title or description could use a one liner about what
| it's actually about.
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(page generated 2021-06-02 23:01 UTC)