SMB3 Extended 1-Up Explained

This is a tool-assisted recording. That is, it slows down the game and uses save states, mostly to get the timing perfect to demonstrate.

Explanation:
The "glitch" involves the tail wag sound effect and the 1-up sound effect's calls getting merged. The sound code reads both, treats it like a 1-up sound effect, but writes the wrong length, so it plays more notes than it should. We're still doing some research here, but the general consensus among us is that it's just a glitch.

Timing:
Simply wag Mario's tail 5 frames (1/12sec) after the "1UP" symbol appears. Done right, the sound effects will conflict and the longer "version" will play. This is extremely difficult to replicate on purpose, which might explain why it was never caught.

An ongoing discussion of the topic can be found here.
http://jul.rustedlogic.net/thread.php?id=1819

Technical explanation:
The tail wag sound effect is written (B0), then the 1-UP (40) is ORed, resulting in F0. It writes the wrong "length" for the 1-up, and as it reads bytes in reverse, the beginning is broken instead of the end.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• super
• mario
• bros
• 1up
• sound
• glitch
• explanation

[Beautiworld0]

Okay :P what recorder do you use?

[Xkeeper0]

FCEUX has a "Record AVI" option. No crappy screen recorder necessary :)

[POOPTURTLE]

Xkeeper, do you know of any way to get equally good video in a SNES emulator?

[Xkeeper0]

See an earlier comment... SNES9x-rerecording (tasvideos) has recording-to-AVI support too.

On that note, pretty much every emulator they use has direct-to-AVI recording.

[POOPTURTLE]

For those curious, extended 1-Up starts at about 0:45.

[Xkeeper0]

And again later on (in much more, ah, continuous form)

I really should make a better video of this.

[FinalRound]

Strange! But the sound made is pretty good.

[chriskat911]

i did this once accidently like a week ago!

[QUIZFILTER]

@charemthecharmeleon Ya, there are probably all kinds of cool new sounds hiding in all these games!!

[charemthecharmeleon]

I always wondered if this interesting glitch can be done with other sounds...

[TenPoundHammer]

@invisimario Same here.

[invisimario]

you know that level with the boomerang bros.? i think level 3? it has a hidden red music block at the beginning, sometimes not far ahead of that, i find a green music block, that i cant touch... wtf is it? thumbs up if you've seen it, reply or pm me if you know what it is or why its there!

[BLUamnEsiac]

Very interesting video. It's strange how even after decades, people are still finding cool glitches int he old Mario games.

[gabrielwojcikiewicz]

Dudududududdudidididi

[Pyretix]

omg, does everyone who makes NES videos press buttons in time to the music?  That is the cutest thing ever

[TheSuckerOfTheWorld]

Did you coinship accidently or on purpose?

[Yntec]

@OmegaMaxter If they used this for the real tone, then the glitch would produce yet another new tone.

I enjoy very much to find new stuff in my favorite plat-former #smb3 after all these years. Also, the guy seems to be having fun instead of rushing to the end of the level, that's a welcome change in a TAS

[EasyExpertVillage]

if i knew how to jump that high by bouncing off of a critter on that game. do you controll how high because i can't figure it out at all. can you tell me or post a video about it.