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Jul - Gaming - SMB3 Extended 1-Up Explained (there goes the mystery) New poll - New thread - New reply
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Xkeeper

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Posted on 01-13-08 03:38:44 PM Link | Quote
<object width="425" height="355"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/BOhJk0PAp1A&rel=0&color1=0x2b405b&color2=0x6b8ab6&border=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>

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.


Credits:
BMF: Debug, reverse engineering
Xkeeper: Testing, providing demonstration, discovering timing


I guess we're the first ones to discover how to do it, and why it happens... Kind of weird, really.

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Kles

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Posted on 01-13-08 04:11:38 PM Link | Quote
Does throwing a fireball cause the same thing to happen?
Xkeeper

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Posted on 01-13-08 04:31:32 PM Link | Quote
Judging from some quick testing, no. I'm fairly sure the glitch explicitly requires the tail-wag sound effect.

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Posted on 01-13-08 07:34:08 PM Link | Quote
So the glitch happens only on the NES version due to the limitations of the NES, right?

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[Posted by NightKev]
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Posted on 01-13-08 08:10:03 PM Link | Quote
Not limitations so much as an oversight.

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Surlent
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Posted on 01-13-08 09:08:26 PM (last edited by Surlent at 01-13-08 06:10 PM) Link | Quote
It seems to occur rarely indeed, as an older youtube video shows. Despite the music being hihger pitched (bad dump/ROM ?), the same sound occurs at 0:47, also while the player swings Mario's Raccoon Tail immediately after the 1UP symbol appears.
Funny thing these small things never got explained until now, though.
Q
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Posted on 01-13-08 09:25:17 PM Link | Quote
I remember this happening to me when I was a kid. I could never do it again, so I thought it was just my Imajin imagination.
I guess I was wrong.
It's always weird to find out something new in an old game we thought we knew everything about.
TheGreatGuy
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Posted on 01-15-08 02:10:27 AM Link | Quote
Ha, I think I remember this happening to me when I was younger, and when I heard it, I spent at least 5 minutes trying to figure out if that had given me points or unlocked a hidden passage, or something, and it was a glitch. Hah.

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Rachel Mae

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Posted on 01-15-08 04:04:59 AM (last edited by Guy54123 at 01-15-08 01:09 AM) Link | Quote

Yeah, I was kind of hoping this was put in on purpose, like some obscure Easter egg...but it's just a silly oversight. Bleh.

For those that are curious: when Mario wags his tail, the game stores sound number $B0 to RAM; when he gets a 1-UP, it ORs $40 to the same address (probably so the 1-UP sound wouldn't override any other sound currently playing). When both happen in the same frame, the result of the OR operation is $F0. This invalid value hits a snag later in the sound code, causing it to write $6C for the sound's length instead of $30, which then causes the code to fetch garbage "notes."

I'm not surprised that this wasn't caught in testing, considering how many things have to be just right, and the extremely limited (1/60 sec.) time frame in which it can occur. Or perhaps the developers did know about it, but didn't deem it important enough to fix?

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mreeew!
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Posted on 01-15-08 04:58:40 AM (last edited by NightKev at 01-15-08 01:58 AM) Link | Quote
Originally posted by Guy54123
Or perhaps the developers did know about it, but didn't deem it important enough to fix?
Maybe they caught it and left it in on purpose? You never know...

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[Posted by NightKev]
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Posted on 01-15-08 05:22:42 AM Link | Quote
And in case you're wondering what the garbage notes are, here's the 1UP sound data:

($A385, or $38385 in the ROM)
23 2F 35 2A 47 54 6A 74 6A 64 5C 52 5C

The underlined part is what's normally used (in reverse order, written directly to square 2's frequency register), the rest is the additional data for the glitched 1UP sound, which is the last few notes from the "power up" effect (also in reverse order, but originally note pitch values) ...

The $30 being written to $04E8 for the 1UP sound is a countdown timer, divided by 8 to get the data index, while the $6C is used as a starting index for a different table and is normally incremented to read a sequence of notes


Another fun thing to try is to write $FF to $04E2 (some other values work too), which starts the 1UP sound without initializing $04E8, so you get an even longer glitched version of it

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Posted on 01-22-08 06:27:39 PM Link | Quote
Haha, never knew that.
Very interesting.
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Posted on 01-22-08 10:29:26 PM Link | Quote
Good job Xkeeper and BMF! I never knew that this glitch existed either but it's still interesting to see that the source of it has been discovered

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Posted on 01-23-08 03:23:11 AM Link | Quote
does this work for the snes/gba smb3 also?
Rachel Mae

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Posted on 01-24-08 02:35:46 AM Link | Quote

No, those use completely different sound engines.

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mreeew!
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Posted on 02-04-08 12:36:12 AM Link | Quote
I totally had this happen to me a few times when doing the 1UP trick in world 1-2.

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Posted on 07-08-09 10:57:29 PM Link | Quote
This can happen with other sounds too. I got it to happen with the "hit an empty coin block" sound and the death sound overlapping, thus causing the former sound to stretch out for the length of the death sound.
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Jul - Gaming - SMB3 Extended 1-Up Explained (there goes the mystery) New poll - New thread - New reply


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