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NESBot: Tool Assisted Speedrun On Real Hardware

Posted by Soulskill on from the take-that-game-genie dept.

Xistic writes "For many years tool assisted speedruns were purely theoretical and the domain of emulators. No longer! Using an Arduino Duemilanove microcontroller to drive an actual Nintendo console, pjgat09 plays back prerecorded input to beat Super Mario Bros. in record time. The selection of possible games is limited: 'If the game relies on any uninitialized memory for randomness, or if it is heavily based on console timing, it may not work. In the case of Super Mario Bros however, as long as the button presses start play back at the right time, the movie will play back correctly.' The author includes complete instructions on how to setup the device."

4 of 101 comments (clear)

  1. Welcome Slashdotters by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Welcome Slashdotters.

    An introduction might be in order. Please note we have many other movies for other consoles. We also have a list of recommended movies for first-time viewers.

    Please don't beat up our poor server too badly.

    1. Re:Welcome Slashdotters by damn_registrars · · Score: 5, Funny

      Please don't beat up our poor server too badly.

      Worry not. After the latest "upgrade" here traffic at slashdot is down enough that we couldn't take your server down even mid-day during the week when geeks are avoiding work. On the weekend when former slashdot readers are reading other websites hoping for relevant news, you have nothing to worry about.

      --
      Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
  2. This won't work with all games by Dwedit · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This won't work with all games. Many games made by Konami use aggressive random number generators which depend on the number of clock cycles consumed while the game waits for the next frame.

    Then the game also plays digital samples through the DMC channel, and the DMC channel does not have a known consistent power-on state. Because the DMC channel periodically interrupts the CPU to fetch bytes, that will affect the number of cycles it takes while it waits for the next frame.

    So we have two issues coming together, number of leftover cycles from power-on state, and initial DMC state, so when you play one of these games, the game's own demo mode isn't even consistent between multiple power-ons.

    You can try it with Blades of Steel or Double Dribble, and see that their demo modes aren't always identical between different power-ons, even when you are aren't touching the joypad.

    No chance of those games being TASed on hardware.

    Other games are far more friendly, and don't rely on exact timing for their random number generator behavior.

  3. Re:Holy bug exploitation by Soilworker · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://themushroomkingdom.net/bugs/smb

    everything is there.