Game:

Mario Kart 7 (2011)

Duration: 1:00

3,427 views

130

Inspired by https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcBVLxmuON4

The aim of this "TAS" is to do a Time Trial and get to the point where the game cannot save anymore inputs to the ghost file in the shortest time possible. When you reach to this point, the game notifies you that it is "unable to save the ghost data". It doesn't appear in this video likely because I was using Live Replay to play back the ghost, rather than doing the run "in real time".

The input data in Mario Kart 7 ghost files has a maximum size of 0x27D4 bytes. This data is divided in two sections, one for the buttons and the other one for the joystick.
In both sections, each input is composed by two bytes: one that states what inputs are being held, and another one that tells the time said input is being held in frames.

When switching to another input, two new bytes are created in the input data. This means that we can simply hold an input for one frame, then change to another different input on the next frame, and so on.
By doing this repeatedly with both the buttons and the joystick, we can max out the input data to the point where the game is unable to save more inputs to the ghost file anymore, in a very short period of time.

For this video, I edited the input data of a ghost file to alternate between the A, B, X, Y, L and R buttons, and also between clockwise joystick movements.
The result is that a total of 2549 inputs are saved (one button and joystick input per frame). Thus the total runtime is 2549 frames (~42.453 - 4 seconds from the countdown = 38.453)

Mario Kart 7 ghost file format: https://wiki.tockdom.com/wiki/User:B_squo#DAT_.28File_Format.29_.28Mario_Kart_7.27s_Ghost_Format.29

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