Hey all, I'm new and have a simple clarifying question.

Every speed runner jumps down to the warp tubes at 4-2. Why does everyone jump and not simply fall? Does this not lose a frame rule?

Current world record at 2:20. My thoughts is his jump takes him all the way to the far wall, then he has to turn around. Why not run off the ledges and turn around? He's losing frames vertically and horizontally on this fall.

Same thing at 0:25, why jump and not just fall?

At 0:25, it's faster to jump so that you're already falling by the time you pass the edge of the platform (if you just run off, you'll have no vertical speed at that moment and have to accelerate from 0).

2:20 has a similar reason on top of the fact that you also have to turn around, and in this case, hitting the wall to instantly go to 0 speed so you can start moving left immediately (while facing backwards, which accelerates faster than facing forwards) happens to be a bit faster than trying to slide off the edge. There is a way to make the slowing-down-at-the-edge strategy a couple of frames faster, but the inputs are a lot more precise and it's also not needed to save this framerule, so there's no reason to go for it.

Edit: Here's a comparison of the wall strat vs. simply holding left to slow down and fall off the edge. When both are done optimally, it's actually a lot closer than I thought it would be, but if you're even just a little bit late on the left press for the latter strategy, your momentum will send you flying off to the right when you fall off and it'll be even slower than what you see here:

I don't know how to tag people, but good answers everyone! Thanks!

@Lonetree <- tag, basicaly @ + name