<story><title>&apos;Super Mario Bros.&apos; speedrunner hits nearly inhuman 4:55 world record</title><url>https://mashable.com/article/super-mario-bros-world-record/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jamespo</author><text>what is the point of that</text></item><item><author>beaconstudios</author><text>Tool Assisted Speedrun. It means you perform input to the game programmatically meaning you can set the input perfectly on a per-frame basis.</text></item><item><author>lars_francke</author><text>For anyone else wondering:&lt;p&gt;TAS = Tool-assisted game movies
&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;tasvideos.org&amp;#x2F;Game&amp;#x2F;nes-super-mario-bros.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;tasvideos.org&amp;#x2F;Game&amp;#x2F;nes-super-mario-bros.html&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>mrob</author><text>&amp;gt;When Kosmic says he&amp;#x27;s tied with the TAS run at 4-1, that means his inputs are matched up exactly with the program&amp;#x27;s and he can&amp;#x27;t physically do any better.&lt;p&gt;It means he can&amp;#x27;t physically get a better time, but it does not mean his inputs are matched up exactly with the TAS. SMB1 level transitions are based around the &amp;quot;frame rule&amp;quot;, which means you don&amp;#x27;t advance to the next level until the number of elapsed frames from the start of that level is a multiple of 21. This means it&amp;#x27;s possible to have slightly imperfect input on all levels except 8-4 (the last level, so no waiting to advance to the next level there) and still get the same time as the TAS (unless the TAS reached the end of the level with no frames to spare). The TAS aims to reach the end of each level as fast as possible even if it would mean no overall time saving because of the wait for the multiple of 21 frames.&lt;p&gt;I think this mechanic has been very beneficial for speedrunning, because it gives clear sub-goals. When you hear runners talking about &amp;quot;saving a frame rule&amp;quot;, that means reaching the end of the level in time for an earlier multiple of 21 frames.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kibwen</author><text>If normal speedruns are like playing speed chess, tool-assisted speedruns are like finding the theoretically-optimal solutions to chess problems (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Chess_problem&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Chess_problem&lt;/a&gt;). Both of them require intense devotion to the game, though the first emphasizes physical ability and execution while the second emphasizes exhaustive thinking.</text></comment>
<story><title>&apos;Super Mario Bros.&apos; speedrunner hits nearly inhuman 4:55 world record</title><url>https://mashable.com/article/super-mario-bros-world-record/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jamespo</author><text>what is the point of that</text></item><item><author>beaconstudios</author><text>Tool Assisted Speedrun. It means you perform input to the game programmatically meaning you can set the input perfectly on a per-frame basis.</text></item><item><author>lars_francke</author><text>For anyone else wondering:&lt;p&gt;TAS = Tool-assisted game movies
&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;tasvideos.org&amp;#x2F;Game&amp;#x2F;nes-super-mario-bros.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;tasvideos.org&amp;#x2F;Game&amp;#x2F;nes-super-mario-bros.html&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>mrob</author><text>&amp;gt;When Kosmic says he&amp;#x27;s tied with the TAS run at 4-1, that means his inputs are matched up exactly with the program&amp;#x27;s and he can&amp;#x27;t physically do any better.&lt;p&gt;It means he can&amp;#x27;t physically get a better time, but it does not mean his inputs are matched up exactly with the TAS. SMB1 level transitions are based around the &amp;quot;frame rule&amp;quot;, which means you don&amp;#x27;t advance to the next level until the number of elapsed frames from the start of that level is a multiple of 21. This means it&amp;#x27;s possible to have slightly imperfect input on all levels except 8-4 (the last level, so no waiting to advance to the next level there) and still get the same time as the TAS (unless the TAS reached the end of the level with no frames to spare). The TAS aims to reach the end of each level as fast as possible even if it would mean no overall time saving because of the wait for the multiple of 21 frames.&lt;p&gt;I think this mechanic has been very beneficial for speedrunning, because it gives clear sub-goals. When you hear runners talking about &amp;quot;saving a frame rule&amp;quot;, that means reaching the end of the level in time for an earlier multiple of 21 frames.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>neetdavid</author><text>People use them as another tool for finding glitches and exploring the possibility space of the game&amp;#x27;s systems. They&amp;#x27;re basically using debugging tools and in some cases even looking at memory allocations etc.&lt;p&gt;As for full length tool assisted runs, I just find them to be a fascinating new lens to examine these games under. It&amp;#x27;s cool (depending on who you ask...) to see what the game looks like when another computer program is piloting it perfectly towards the goal of &amp;#x27;finish as fast as possible&amp;#x27;</text></comment>