Hi everyone,

I'm fairly new to smb1 and speedrunning. I own an original Dendy (famicom clone from mother russia) but I prefer to run smb1 on an emulator for savestate reasons.

So I have a question that I could not figure out the answer to by myself and by looking thru the forums here and elsewhere for a few hours.

I have a few roms. E and J/U versions of standalone SMB1 as well as duck hunt / SMB1 rom (NTSC). I setup RetroArch with NesTopia core but also have tried all other cores including FCEU. So the problem is that the PAL version is the only one that seems to give me a possibility to even make it to the platform in time in 4-2 to do the 3 bump method. On NTSC roms it's all the same and the platform seems to always be lower than it should be. All previous levels however seem to be more or less identical except for 4-1 i always make it perfectly in time to hit 340 instead of 341 on the flagpole if i just keep running. On PAL however 4-1 is always 341 unless i deliberately slow down a bit.

I know many of you are not using emulators and so should I. But it is what it is and I want to at least have figured this out before i give up.

The reason I really want to get the NTSC version working is that it runs smoothly 60fps compared to the PAL at 50fps. PAL, even tho it feels correct and 4-2 is actually doable, runs with visible stuttering and throws me off a bit.

So is it possible to make it work and have best of both worlds? Have a smooth NTSC 60fps experience with actually being able to do the 4-2 3 bumb method?

For your information I run my emulators on a Mac book pro playing with a USB Nes controller (looks like the original thing).

Thanks a lot in advance for any information! Much love. Alex

There are easier 3 bump method for NTSC, and unfortunately, unless you want pipe entry to be near impossible, you HAVE to do three bumps. If you look up KosmicD12 on YouTube, he has a tutorial for sub 5. Skip ahead to 4-2 and he shows off an easier method. There are also some other methods that you could find on this forum.

Also, the physics ARE different between the two.

Thanks for the info. So do i understand correctly that there is basically no way to do the 3 bump method i learned on PAL on FCEUX in the NTSC versions? :O It's like learning a whole new game then innit?

You can do the platform bump, it's just harder. If you're just starting out running, I would do one of the other 3 bump methods, but the elevator bump is still possible and is often used.

Ok so when i read that Darbian plays on NTSC and he clearly does the same method i was doing on PAL.. I decided to try it until i get it. And sure enough i got it after trying for 5 minutes.. now I understand it's just a lot harder because the window is a lot smaller and I'm so used to the PAL timing.

Thanks for all the info and help JonnyBoy! I will learn both methods and start running on NTSC from now on. my best time on PAL is 5:36 so there is lots of room for improvement anyways on either version.

Nice!

Clipped from the "Gif Tutorial" Forum Post --- https://www.speedrun.com/smb1/thread/uz8f3

All done on NTSC

The elevator bump is particularly difficult on NTSC, because, as you said - the window to actually bump the elevator before it moves too far down is small. You have to go very quickly to get there in time. However, as long as you're content getting a 374 or 373, you don't have to do the elevator bump. There are also optimal 3 bump methods that don't use the elevator at all (but are not shown in the gifs below)

On PAL you move further with each backwards (or forwards) bump - I believe it's not difficult to get away with only doing 2 bumps (which is technically still possible on NTSC - but you need perfect 10 pixel movement with each of the two bumps, and a perfect, first pixel pipe drop)

4-2) “Easy” 373 ~~~ you can't "coast" on the way to the warp pipe, or you will get a 372, you need to press right

“Medium” 374 ~~~ medium difficulty, it's possible to get a 375 with this method

“Hard” 375 ~~~ optimal method

Tbh, just because other people are not using emulator, doesn't mean you shouldn't. You can keep using emulator, though it may be a bit more difficult because there is input lag (I'm sure you know this) but if you can get a computer like RoyLGamer (who somehow managed to get his computer so good that he has no input lag at all, which makes me WutFace and PogChamp ) then it'll be just as good as the original game on the original console with the CRT TV. But just do whatever your comfortable with, I play with emulator and it works perfectly fine with what I'm doing, even with quite a bit of input lag. You can get used to it as well and it won't be that bad. Something as silly as input lag shouldn't be holding you back no matter what you are doing.

"who somehow managed to get his computer so good that he has no input lag at all" - he can get LESS lag - but it's literally impossible to get no lag on an emulator. A console + CRT will always be the only solution for no lag

But you adjust to lag, especially if it's only a tiny bit. So it's not a big deal, because your muscle memory compensates.

There is always input lag, but he's at a point where he doesn't feel it anymore.

Thanks a bunch Darpey for the tutorial gifs. I totally missed your responses but I've been doing the second "medium" method for the last few weeks and it's been going pretty well. Sometimes I try to do the optimal version and I pretty much always miss the elevator still but I'll get it some day - 4-2 isn't my main problem anymore anyways.

Thanks everyone for your help! Much appreciated.