Niftski Breaks Super Mario Bros. Record Dressed as Mario, Now Two Frames From Perfect

Niftski, the world record holder for Super Mario Bros., has set a new personal best, and he did it in costume. During a Halloween livestream he played the 1985 NES classic dressed as the franchise's famous plumber, and beat his own existing record in the process.

The run also pushed him unusually close to the theoretical limit. Speedrunners use "theoretical perfect run" to describe the fastest time the game allows when every input lands on the exact frame it needs to. According to the headline, Niftski's new time sits just two frames from that benchmark. The NES runs at roughly 60 frames per second, so two frames is about 33 milliseconds, a gap that most players would never notice in a normal playthrough.

Staying in character, he also joked about the moment itself. "Hopefully I don't get this today because that would be very stupid," he said, a line that suggested he was in no hurry to hit the theoretical limit on that particular night. It was a playful remark, but it also reflected how hard the last few frames are to find.

That is the nature of this category. Super Mario Bros. has been picked apart frame by frame for decades, and the community tracks every fraction of a second. Gains at the top level now come in tiny steps, and each one demands more precision than the last. Niftski's stream showed that the record can still move, even this late in the game's competitive history.

Whether he closes that final gap, and when, is the question the speedrunning community will be watching next.