The Perfect Mario Kart Speedrun Explained

Patreon: / abyssoft
Sponsorships: [e-mail]
Business: [e-mail]
Become a member of the community!
Discord: / discord
Twitch: / abyssoft​
Twitter: / abyssoft​
Thumbnail by HotCyder
/ hotcyder
Music
Novadrome
officialnovadr...
/ realnovadrome​
/ @officialnovadrome
Vividity
/ @vividity
Footage
Abney
/ abney317
/ @abney317mk
Forest
/ kdfence
/ @forest6499
Weatherton
/ @weatherton
MK64MR
/ mk64mr
/ @mk64mr
Litronom
/ litronom
VAJ
/ @vajinthegame
Alec
/ @alechelms3841
SoftSyrup
/ softsyrup
Zoran
/ kizo741
Myles
/ @shadowofmyles

[@Abyssoft]

The best way to support the channel is by becoming a Patron! www.patreon.com/abyssoft

[@LavaCreeperPeople]

The Perfect Mario Kart Lap Explained

[@ThatOneSuperCircuitGuy]

The Perfect Reply Explained

[@DavidWonn]

My original intention was to reach the remote section of the track when finding the 9.3 second (and eventually 9.2x") lap version. Skipping a lap was a pleasant surprise, though not entirely unexpected, as the original Super Mario Kart already had known skips of a similar nature. There are indeed multiple other spots in the track which advance you forward in seemingly unexpected ways, even when you intend to play it non-shortcut on rather "standard" paths often played in Vs. / GP mode. Be on the lookout when you are shelled off the track or accidentally fall off while playing against others. The track is quite broken...

[@leftysheppey]

Yo, it's the man from the video

[@YetiOnAUnicycle]

Crazy

[@ManillaHeep]

Thank you for your dedication over all these years.

[@jukimv1986]

You are a star ⭐!

[@SonicisBlueberry]

I appreciate you lining up 9:08 in game with 9:08 on the video.

[@dinogt8477]

yes

[@alexbandli]

Just want to say I love your videos. Been a fan for a while now. The even BIGGER thing I want to say is how satisfied I am that this video is exactly 30 minutes long. The OCD itch is satiated.

[@becausesakamoto5938]

It took me 3.71 seconds to read this comment

[@iilwy]

The transition at 10:59 was a little jarring but it wasn't too bad

[@turbo8628]

Is this NTSC or PAL though?

[@AUTOCARR0T]

​@@becausesakamoto5938 How do you know? HUH? WANNA FIGHT OR SOMETHING?💔⛓️😞😭

[@VinsCool]

To think this whole thing could have been avoided from using double floats for all things related to time calculations, lol Simply amazing. Reminds me of Super Mario 64 converting floats to integers and vice versa for calculating Mario's coordinates on the map, the same sort of weird behaviour occurs over long distances and/or very small numbers rounded up or down.

[@alecrutz956]

to be fair, under normal circumstances you wouldn't run across the wacky long distance bugs in SM64

[@VinsCool]

@@alecrutz956 true to that, it takes a lot of work just to break Mario to this level of insanity haha!

[@psymar]

I suspect it also could have been avoided somewhat if the constant added each frame were single-precision, and I'm guessing it was *meant* to be. It was probably stored only in a #define macro in the original C, where the difference is simply that e.g 3.14 is by default double precision and to get single precision you need to put 3.14f -- and when adding two variables of mismatched types it automatically converts the smaller typed variable to the larger type. Of course, this will still generate a warning or even error on any decent compiler when this new double precision value is assigned to a single-precision variable, unless you explicitly convert it back to single precision first. Which someone probably did to shut the compiler up without thinking for one second about the fact that it shouldn't be necessary and this meant something was wrong.

[@thebeber2546]

I really liked the technical explanations, with the deeper dive the code and how it gets executed. Also it‘s insane, that a perfect lap is possible. If I were the kid described in the intro, I‘d assume literal wizardry.

[@Robeebert]

New ChallengE: You make a video about the #1 speedrun slot of any given game, but your video has to be as long as the speedrun or faster.

[@Robeebert]

@@Mathster321 New impossible challenge for you: don't be annoying

[@jkid1134]

Yeah you just pick a game that isn't shattered to the point of minutes and then make a normal video, or like worst case scenario you do a commentary over the footage

[@TornaitSuperBird]

This challenge, but make the video shorter than the speedrun. Now that's a true challenge.

[@deanchur]

@@TornaitSuperBird Well Clue's record is around half a second so if Abyssoft can get a whole video in 11 frames then he's either crazy or a genius

[@HcKingPin]

​@@Robeebertsomething achievable please

[@fayescarlet]

The world of Speedrunning is as fascinating as ever. I don't understand a single word of the technical explanations behind it all, but I still have mad respect for all the work and devotion that goes into all this. Thanks for the amazing video!

[@KM____________]

you actually explained the spheres moving resulting in a .01 time very very well. so well done there and cool vid

[@J3tAlone]

Wow man, been watching for a while and it's incredible how your content has evolved. Your MK stuff is great and this vid in particular is one of the most detailed yet well explained "old game buggy lmao" vids I've ever seen. Looking forward to the next one!

[@bob171]

I thought the joke was gonna be you beat the game as soon as you start it up, since pretty much everything is unlocked at the start

[@conween]

Their insane attention to detail of the game, how it works, and the application to cause glitches which slowly improves the overall comprehension of each map is amazing. Let alone your ability to understand, interpret, and to then explain the information with comprehensive visual animations and data is a great skill man, keep it up!

[@vueyang6309]

Y

[@SuspiciousLiquid]

Man I’m not a speed runner but you make it so interesting. I can’t stop watching

[@danieljimenez1989]

A correction regarding the versions. There were three regional versions, Japan, USA and Europe. NTSC was for both NA and Japan (also for most of south America), PAL was for Europe and Australia.

[@VinsCool]

I am pretty sure the version referred to in this case was specifically which ones were running at 60hz and 50hz, so in this case it is indeed technically 2 different timing to accommodate between regions, since both Japan and North American run on NTSC standard anyway.

[@noodlelynoodle.]

@@VinsCool it's still funny to me that half of Japan is 50 hz and half is 60 hz

[@BASEDSAKRI]

there's also a chinese version for the ique player.

[@cmyk8964]

@@BASEDSAKRI Yep, the footage shown on 0:16 is in Chinese

[@spencerruston406]

Its interesting how the goal is a perfect run, though we've almost never seen it for real with how far off it seems for 99% of games. Something we kind of put off as what happens when we get the perfect run? What happens when you finished a meal to the point the plate has not a crumb left? Both so utterly destroyed theres nothing left to do.

[@psymar]

Usually what happens I suspect is the runner who got it moves on to other categories and other people attempt to tie it. Of course sometimes you also have to do some detailed analysis to prove that it's perfect to disprove multiple claims of better times, as happened with Atari 2600 Drag Race. But yeah I expect if Niftske perfects Super Mario Bros 1, he'll either focus on warpless or try to optimize the PAL version which can theoretically be faster than a perfect NTSC run but is quite difficult to get even close (the current PAL WR is 5:05 though Niftske could probably break 5:00 pretty quick)

[@dey2x313]

Crazy how this originated from a guy who thought he could make a gap jump

[@SaltpeterTaffy]

This is Bismuth-grade content right here. All it's missing is Mario Kart 64 piano covers performed personally by you.

[@frosticle6409]

Summoning salt just made a video on this lol. The quest to beat Abney317

[@SaltpeterTaffy]

@@frosticle6409 That was about 100% skips. This is about Yoshi's Valley flap.

[@frosticle6409]

@@SaltpeterTaffy I admit, I commented a bit early on this video. I'm also casual when it comes to speedrunning. I apologize for my mistakes on the subject.

[@SaltpeterTaffy]

@@frosticle6409 Well, you watch at least two fine speedrun documentary channels, so you're less casual than most already. :D

[@frosticle6409]

@@SaltpeterTaffy lol. Bismuth, Abyssoft, Summoning Salt, Karl Jobst. They explain it in a way I understand. And they can just hook me in somehow with speedrunning. Going fast just awakens something in the old brain I guess lol.

[@4nevar]

You're like the second summoning salt, same style of editing, same calming voice, same amazing stories.

[@justlookaroundpeople]

Exceptional video! Very detailed I really enjoyed it :)

[@novelezra]

I remember I dated a girl who had Mario Kart Double Dash and her ex's time trial scores were on there, so I decided to beat them; because I'm a petty asshole.

[@OmarSaldana92]

I would've done the same my man😂😂

[@TetraGalaxyTelecast]

I always wondered about this scenario, and actually seeing it is really bittersweet. On the one hand, the record can never be improved again, the course in terms of speedrunning has nothing left to offer us, but on the other hand, it means we got to witness the entire history of the course before our very eyes (at least in this category) and we got to witness the perfect run.

[@logannorman7665]

Awesome video! I love learning about speedrun strats and you put it in a really clear way. First video of yours that ive seen and youve definently got my sub

[@xandeath75]

I got the funniest ad timing 7:05 "Penev revealed a strat that saved a second and a half" **ad** "Type one diabetes is a condition in which"

[@deleted-something]

I wonder if as humans we would become so consistent that only luck would stop us to reach anything

[@pierrotA]

Well... If you are only speaking about records in video-games, maybe. But our world is unfortunaly very screwed up. It's not our bad luck that destroy the climat, for exemple 😁

[@jolly1559]

i believe that this channel will one day be on par with karljobst

[@ManillaHeep]

Forest is the hero of this story. I'm really hoping for more of these perfect lap content videos in the future!

[@jewels3846]

Now i just have "Be kind, Rewind" stuck in my head 🤦‍♀️ Amazing video and great breakdown of how it all works! Im excited to see what comes next

[@EverythingElseWasTakenAlready]

What an awesome ride though speed run history.

[@joebeezy9471]

Best explanation I’ve seen so far!

[@JaretGrinds]

Love seeing an Abyssoft video in my feed

[@nngnnadas]

"And when Alexander saw the breath of his domain, he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer." Hans Gruber, 1988

[@ThunderKak]

You do a really good fucking job my friend. You've definitely done your research. I appreciate your content so very much.

[@LavaCreeperPeople]

The Perfect Mario Kart Lap Explained

[@ThatOneSuperCircuitGuy]

The Perfect Comment Explained

[@realDonaldMcElvy]

​@@ThatOneSuperCircuitGuyThe Perfect Reply Explained

[@catmacopter8545]

The Perfect Reply Chain Explained

[@ThatOneSuperCircuitGuy]

The Perfect Image Explained

[@AS34N]

Perfect display name explained.

[@mountainhorse9419]

Abyssoft does such a good job of making speed run milestones so inspiring.

[@jonbartosch1903]

The "Deep dive" joke on a channel with Abyss in the title wasn't lost on me. Nice one.

[@tarantinoish]

Yeah, I always thought it was funny N64 carts would have “Be Kind, Rewind” stickers on them. How am I supposed to rewind an N64 cart? Dang it, I’m gonna get fined.

[@benkrenek]

This was such a well made video. The graphics really made it easy to understand the crazier shit

[@BananaReidy]

Some people don't dream fence jumping sheep to sleep, they dream of go karts flying over fences to sleep.

[@On_Beat]

Probably the best thumbnail I've ever seen on a youtube video.

[@Vaiave]

I don't think I've ever seen an unintended shortcut be improved on in the 1990's!

[@DarkFrozenDepths]

All the more reason I love looking at speedrun stuff. The extent at which games are broken is absurd

[@Seattletyy93]

How is this channel under 100k subs? This is legit my favorite channel for speed run content. Keep up the awesome work @Abyssoft

[@Salgood01]

And then, sometime in 2023, Forest returned his copy of Mario Kart 64 to blockbuster after achieving the perfect lap.

[@sethlast9024]

The first youtube video to have the same progress bar time as the thumbnail time

[@Aeverey]

Dropping a comment to help the video. Great explanation as always!

[@Upgraydez]

I wonder how many ppl here understand "rewind ur VHS tapes"?

[@shibasurfing]

there are dozens of us! dozens i tell you…

[@andrewdinns1746]

everyone who played mk64 as a child... this game is too old for that comment.

[@404-GLITCH]

I do, despite not growing up with them

[@marcusmustard8285]

Great job with your content. Im glad im subscribed. Its fun to see some of the videos. Shout out to Brody and twitch for helping me find it.

[@Abyssoft]

Thanks, Brodys been a fan since day one pretty much, he's even helped with a couple videos

[@Crosier5961]

My brain hurted when he started going over the timer math

[@QenaitheCustodianGuard]

This is the most ridiculous but cool thing every, speedrunning is so deep it's unreal.

[@DeaDGoD_XIV]

4:08 I honestly miss the days of detailed text explaining glitches, tricks or even general strats. It's almost like a lost art these days.

[@omegahaxors9-11]

Fun 'fact' PAL stands for Programable Analog Logic; a chip which is common in Europe and rare in America. NTFC stands for NoT Findable Chip and likewise is common in America and rare in Europe.

[@veechimo]

why is it called Not Findable Chip? i tried looking it up on google, and its not findable

[@sparky1570784]

Perfect dark had some good speed running stories. Would love to see a video on it

[@konshance]

imma be real. landing in the valley and crossing finish line was like oh. neat exploiting a flag or something. but then you said it sits in this part of the memory and something about a bit blew my f'ing mind. like doing it is one thing but figuring out why like that is absurd.

[@BartEnder2006]

Great explaining! I love mario kart

[@christobin7295]

Great video 🔥

[@2000blackstang]

Oh man my cousins lived behind the rental place and every weekend we would ride our bikes up there and rent this! If it was there. And we rented all the Bevis and butthead episodes lol

[@purekaidell]

VHS tape rewound and video liked

[@wrexocane]

When cutting to a black screen after an important moment, I suggest to keep the music on for a bit longer with a longer dissolve. The 2 cuts like that in this video are a bit harsh Great video btw, this is just something super minor

[@Squirlness]

This dude is the Burger King Foot Lettuce of speedrunning.

[@nz7166]

such a great video!

[@aitortorralba2160]

They allow picture proof on ciberscore and videogamesrecords, so you don't need a video to upload your PBs on other websites beyond src

[@mageius]

I love how Forest was considered an unknown despite having skill in the game because they didn't want to accept the Wii virtual console. By accept I mean even as an alternative to the original version as a separate category.

[@chadwolf3840]

Great stuff!

[@JohnnyBfromOKC]

a "shroom induced Large Bounce" has a completely different meaning where i come from

[@SJrad]

Ngl i feel like the ntsc vs pal timer discrepancy could be avoided if real time was used instead of in game time.

[@Amelzo]

I feel like that wouldn’t work for this type of speed run especially because one would still be faster just because of the version

[@renakunisaki]

It could also be avoided if they'd programmed the timer properly in the first place.

[@PedroPlanas777]

mariokartology at its finest

[@ferociousfeind8538]

11:30 wtf, just store it as an int, of frames since start! then for display, convert to a double-precision float, multiply by the conversion factor (rather than adding the conversion factor every frame, we add 1), do the transformations to get it in minutes:seconds format, and put it on the screen! The converted number undoubtedly has some small amount of possible rounding error, which is why we discard it at the end of the frame, and why we hold onto the int instead since it has no imprecision

[@s4ad0wpi]

Man, if someone got the perfect lap when the RENTED the game? I'd ask them why they didn't just buy it!

[@XenoChron2]

6:30 Summonig Salt transition.

[@TrialzGTAS]

Love me some Mario Kart content!

[@Abyssoft]

Love me some Mario Kart comments!

[@sergioalejandrobricenostap9016]

The first sentence of this video made me subscribe.

[@spoobini]

Bro holy crap. I never even realized its probably been at least 10+ years since anyone has acquired a game with save data. That used to be a staple for me, I always made my account on Save file 2 because I always bought off the return shelf at gamestop

[@ally20]

I'm surprised that the programmers took lap timing on a child's kart racing game so seriously. Kudos to them else we wouldn't have these rabbit holes.

[@wiirambo7437]

Great video! Why is 0.00 seconds impossible?

[@Amelzo]

I assume it’s because the lap last one frame and you can’t go below one frame

[@wiirambo7437]

@@Amelzo Yes, but there are bugs which allow you to have a (shown) lap time of 0.00 seconds... So may these are only the display errors and the time is not 0.00 seconds.

[@Nikola_M]

Þere also is a 0.01 second lap time in MK7 in þe Wuhu Island course where you don't enter þe volcano (I forgot þe name). It's a 1 lap course where you can skip þe finish line between þe second and þird segment and boþ finish immediately after one anoþer at þe final finish line

[@ChaiKirbs]

my guy, the thorn has been dead since the invention of the printing press. no need to bring it back.

[@Nikola_M]

@@ChaiKirbs :þ

[@ExperimentIV]

you’re using a lot of thorns where you should be using an eth

[@Nikola_M]

@@ExperimentIV English doesn't make a voiced-voiceless distinction so I only use þe Þorn.

[@ExperimentIV]

@@Nikola_M feels wrong. i thought english had used the eth before as well. and we definitely use the voiceless and voiced dental fricative in modern english

[@cullenlatham2366]

well, i mean, is it really perfect if it isnt a 3 frame race? XD Jokes aside, 1 frame laps are quite an interesting feat.

[@bimbokoopa7285]

Yoshi...."it still hurts"!!!

[@drakelardoh]

Awesome seeing this premiere , amazing work as always

[@brendanstack5423]

Now that I know the perfect lap is possible. I wonder if the perfect time trial is possible with 100th of a second on each lap for .03?

[@MiTBender]

In 1997 I was 21, my dad wasn't taking me anywhere

[@ricogoins]

Urcontent is so fire

[@jettisonyurei8809]

Is this "Myles B." The famous "Shadow of Myles" by chance? I wouldn't be surprised, he's legendary. I don't care what anyone says.

[@Abyssoft]

Yes

[@ryleighs9575]

I forget if I've asked this before. Abyssoft, are you a Maritimer? 8:42 and around there I feel like I'm hearing a strong Maritime Canadian accent. "Time", "Line", and "Marker" sound very Newfoundland lol. For the record, I love it, I just really honed in on it after that time-stamp and can't stop hearing it lol. I bet anyone who wants to take it, a fair bet I'm not Googling first, $100 Canadian that Abyssoft grew up in Newfoundland (and Labrador). I could use the money and I'm so sure I'm right lol. You have to internally accept the bet before Googling the answer. I'll know. Edit: My second, unofficial guess for betting purposes, as I keep listening to him, is PEI. That's Prince Edward Island to you non-Canadians. That's just for pride. First honest guess was Newfoundland. Just started hearing PEI more as I listen.

[@Abyssoft]

Wrong and wrong on NFLD and PEI.

[@DonkaBingus]

And then, someone in 2030 will come up with a video of a 00' 00" 00 lap.

[@WhiskeyTango0420]

The game you wanted was never on the fuckin shelf at Blockbuster. Didn't matter the day of week.

[@keyshalvern7350]

Did the cartridge hold save data during N64? 🤔

[@ThatOneSuperCircuitGuy]

Probably

[@voncully]

I think it depended on the game, I remember renting paper mario once and someone had a file like halfway through.

[@rtyuik7]

most of them did, but sometimes "extra data" needed to be saved to the controller-mounted MemoryPak instead...for example, MarioKart64 saves the TIMES to the cartridge, but the GHOSTS need a MemoryPak (because its one thing to just store a Number in memory; its another thing entirely, to record a player's movements Exactly, to be "raced against" later)

[@keyshalvern7350]

@@rtyuik7 I would like to see the save data on rented cartridges. (Superman 64)

[@WohaoG]

yes for most games(only game I've played that used the cards was Rayman 2)

[@mastrorick]

Wait wait wait wait. Thou shall not call it perfect until the 00:00:00 lap gets done

[@ac31048]

24:04 I have that same clock.

[@apu_apustaja]

FYI: The past form of grind is ground.

[@-Omega]

11:08 How is this value calculated?

[@Abyssoft]

It's just the range of values a single precision floating point number can have.

[@renakunisaki]

"stored in the FF section of memory" what? You've confused a few concepts there. The memory location isn't involved. Each polygon (or really, group of polygons) is assigned a type, eg road, grass, ice, wall, or out-of-bounds. The latter is type ID hex FF. (Though, not all out-of-bounds polygons use this type; there's another mechanism that can also flag things as out-of-bounds. I don't fully know how that works.) I don't know why this satisfies the "section >20" requirement. It might be that the section gets set to -1 and misinterpreted as a large number, or these polygons just happen to belong to the right section.

[@m.night_shyamamalama_sama_kun]

I came here because someone said this game hurts my gut and guess what...my gut is completely fine, also tomatoes are indeed a fruit

[@Abyssoft]

I see you saw my comment during the MK64 invitational

[@afckingvillainn]

Fuck that, i'll just race normally.😂

[@reptarsrage]

Great video! I would try to sound more natural next time, the narration was a bit robotic 🤖

[@buivars]

how did my rented copy keep the save from.. someone elses controller???

[@Abyssoft]

Times are saved to the cart, ghosts are saved to the memory pack.

[@IVI4V3R1CK]

Be kind; rewind!

[@aberonharmon3710]

Bruhhhh the ending almost made me cryy i wanna know about the othe onessss

[@Abyssoft]

All good things to those who wait.

[@Patashu]

28:43 song name if anyone knows?

[@Seattletyy93]

He linked Novadrome and Vividity in the description of the video. The URL links didn't work for me on mobile but likely that song is from those artists?

[@Abyssoft]

That's a song by Novadrome, it may be on his channel, he didn't always post stuff he made for me.

[@Patashu]

@@Abyssoft Ooh okay, that's why I can't find it, thanks!

[@tea9156]

Had to clock off at 0:02, it is not 1997, if the first sentence you start out with is just misinformation I can tell what kind of video this is going to be. You may have made this is 1997, but I highly doubt it.

[@twipplo]

The Perfect Mario Kart Speedrun Explained

[@ThatOneSuperCircuitGuy]

The Perfect Copycat Explained