Why are the Mario Kart 64 Computers so Fast?

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[nicocchi]

If you observe a CPU it acts like a wave, but if you don't, it acts like a particle

[micahsmith]

Playing Mario Kart 64 a lot growing up, I absolutely noticed the rival system even if I couldn't ever put it into exact terms. I could tell that 2 of the CPUs always were better than the others, and 1 of the 2 was also just a little better than the other.

Cool to see the exact mechanics of it laid out and finally justify what I've been saying for years.

[baricode]

Wario coming in and clotheslining Yoshi through the wall gave me such a good laugh, I've been terribly sick the past few days so I really needed it. I appreciate it a lot, thanks for another great upload!

[LightsJusticeZ]

It's always fun to turn on the character location border, take a shortcut, and watch your 2 rivals move at extreme speed to catch up to you.

[novelezra]

It knew it wasn't just because I sucked! Now do a video on every other game I suck at. I'll wait.

[knownas]

I thought they had just, increased speed.
Didn't expect them to have a multitude of techniques at their disposal.

[DavidWonn]

Fun fact: You can trap a CPU player into the train tracks on Kalimari in GP mode and it will remain "jailed" as long as at least one human player can visibly see the player on screen. The moment you drive away and place the CPU out of view, it can glitch itself outside the "jail."

When I finally acquired a GameShark in the early 2010s, I combined approximately a dozen codes together to form what some in the community call the "Wonn challenge." This allows human player(s) to race against up to 3 CPUs in 4P Vs. mode where they can maintain draft mode at will and even turn on a dime in mid-air off of the big jumps, like in Royal Raceway. In this mode you can see all kinds of other interesting effects as well:

Bolts will happen out of nowhere, sometimes zapping all 4 players. You might even get bolted thrice in a row! The first item box they pick up never gets used, so it's ripe for stealing with a ghost. But they'll drop bananas, fake item blocks, and activate ghosts or stars seemingly at will. Also when a CPU runs into a banana, they slide forward (since they're now always visible) and they'll additionally crash upward at the end of the slide as though they ran into a fake item. This is much like the effect you see with the last place human player at the end of an all-human Vs. race if that player didn't have a Star activated.

If you're too aggressive with bananas near the end of Choco Mountain, you might get 2 or more CPUs stuck in such a way that they never get back on track, effectively soft locking the game, so this could result in failing the "Wonn challenge" depending on your rule set. Had the CPUs not been visible, they'd find a way back on track...

[Waluigiisbest]

i laughed so hard at the part with Wario literally smashing into Yoshi, i can just image Wario going in the distance as he literally flies in lightspeed towards Yoshi.

[hlavco]

I've always loved the Star Cup in this game, because every track has areas where you can mess with the CPU's behavior. Sometimes, on Royal Raceway, they'll get stuck in an endless loop of falling into the water over and over. Lakitu places them back before the curve where they fell in, and they fall right in again.

[akaDL]

Since child I've always noticed the rivals and different behavior upon being hit.Toad's Turnpike is impossible to win if you let a rival get offscreen on first, you simply can't catch up no matter how flawless you play. They have a much higher max speed when ahead and offscreen. Your only chance to win is pray them to spin into bananas a couple of times.

[JimiGosu]

I freakin' knew it! I always suspected the computer characters cheated somehow! I noticed the rival system, to an extent. The computer's inexplicable ability to just overtake me when I was in 1st place seemed so artificial! My brothers said I was crazy. They said I was just being a sore loser! The vindication is PALPABLE!

[joshuathompson]

My mom never believed me when I said the game was cheating.

[catsgonyan]

Always knew the computer cheated, never knew it went this deep though. Great video!

[Secrona]

I also always hated that their speed seemed to stay up even when they are shrunk from Lightning. Watching those icons catch up to you swiftly IMMEDIATELY after using lightning really is frustrating.

[Litronom]

Here's a slight technical explanation for the CPU skip on Royal Raceway:
This course and a few others have special code that overrides the default Lakitu placement behavior. There is a second set of path point values (memory address: 0x80165320), that only updates under certain conditions and that the game will choose to place back on the road when Lakitu rescues the racer.
That second set also only updates when the CPUs are considered on-screen.

Here are the special cases on which the "Lakitu placement" will update for each course:

-Yoshi Valley:
Updates always unless the racer is over 600 units above ground or it detects an out of bound area / tumbling wall / void plane straight below.
-Frappe Snowlad:
Updates always unless the racer drives on the off-road snow.
-Royal Raceway:
Updates always unless the racer is in the air through any means or touching the large boost pads.
-Rainbow Road:
Updates always unless the racer is over 600 units above ground or it detects the void plane straight below.

They never update when the CPU racers are considered off-screen, which means if you switch that property (via having the player camera come close enough) and time it correctly, you can observe the invisible Lakitu pick them up and place them where they've last updated their "Lakitu path point"
That's also why the Frappe Snowland skip works. You can basically enter the off-road snow and drive half the lap, then touch an out of bound surface and Lakitu will place you all the way back, where you've last been on the road.

[kalarse]

i was prepared for a 30 min vid, this will do it
it was a nice explanation on what we suffered as kids

[TimHoekstra]

Can somebody patch this out so they behave? Would be fun to see how the CPU's perform in that scenario.

[DOC_]

I know it maybe helps with challenge or competition… but I hate racing games with such rubber band AI where it literally doesn’t matter how fast or good you drive, because in the last 3 seconds you’ll randomly get hit by a blue shell or etc and passed by a random computer out of nowhere.

MK is definitely the biggest offender of this

[nicholasharvey]

Sometimes, in 150cc mode, a CPU racer in the lead will start pulling away, and you can't catch up to them without shortcuts. One can assume that said CPU racer has been put in "catch-up" mode when it shouldn't have been. I'm not sure what causes this.

As for CPUs not obeying the usual rules and physics of the game, I noticed this even as a kid in the 90s. I always knew that CPUs had a "catch-up mode" where they would be faster than the player character, but only when trailing (unless the above glitch happens). I also caught CPUs using items when they hadn't driven through an item box (most noticeable on Rainbow Road) and yes, I also observed that CPUs recover from crashes faster when they are behind your field of view.

While I never thought about it at the time, it couldn't be more obvious today that the reason for the CPUs "cheating" was ultimately due to hardware limitations. Later Mario Kart games have CPU racers that behave much more like the player-controlled ones. Though even in these more modern Karts, I bet there's still some things going on behind the curtains in order to keep the game running smoothly, especially in Mario Kart Wii where Grand Prix now has TWELVE racers.

[prowler]

>I have always wondered how that Royal Raceway shortcut worked. It always made me curious. I've learned a ton about the weird off screen mechanics from this video.
>I've also noticed on certain tracks about Marty's getting hugely in front and winning races when they otherwise shouldn't, and wondered how that worked. It especially happens in Kalamari Desert, if the rivals get hit by the train, while a random Marty gets through. As long as they can avoid hazards through the rest of the race, a Marty can become unstoppable on that track.
>I've seen the reverse to Royal Raceway happen to the loop in Rainbow Road - where instead of a shortcut, it screws the off screen character over. Usually a rival will fall through the track in the loop around the star, and get stuck on another part of the track, doomed to come last.
>Something I try to do is to take out a rival in Wario Stadium or Royal Raceway's jumps, and watch them fly up the rankings - or do it on the last lap and doom the rival to one of the last place positions, giving me a huge advantage for the rest of the cup.