Super Mario Kart - 150cc Mushroom Cup (Actual SNES Capture)

[Note: This video and description were originally posted on Youtube in October of 2014.]Show more

This is a capture of me playing through the 150cc Mushroom Cup in Super Mario Kart for the SNES. This is not an emulator and was not played on the Wii or Wii U Virtual Console. This footage was captured directly from my Super Nintendo using a real Super Mario Kart cartridge.

I wasn't originally planning on redoing my Super Mario Kart footage yet again, but Youtube announced support for 60 fps videos, so I decided to take advantage of that.

Here's a neat little fact: during the 8-bit and 16-bit eras, 60 fps was the standard frame rate for consoles and even handhelds. It was during the 32-bit/64-bit era that 60 fps no longer became the standard frame rate (at least for consoles). However, some games from that era did still display at 60 fps.

Every Nintendo console and handheld (minus the Virtual Boy) was capable of and did in fact output at least some games at 60 frames per second. Whereas the N64 typically had low frame rates (often 20 to 30 fps for 3D games), some N64 games did output at 60 fps, and most NES and SNES games output at 60 fps. The GameCube of course had 60 fps games as well.

I wanted to capture a bunch of old games in 60 fps to take advantage of the Youtube upgrade, so I contacted Tobias Reich (http://retrogaming.hazard-city.de/) to find out if I'd need to buy a new capture card. It turned out I didn't need to. The Hauppauge was already doing this, so I just needed to properly deinterlace my retro console footage to retain the native frame rate. Tobias gave me a special deinterlacing filter to use in Virtualdub, and it works great.

This new deinterlacing method not only preserves the game's natural frame rate, but also results in a clearer video as well.

I think I received Super Mario Kart for Christmas of 1993. Before that I managed to play the game at another kid's house and instantly got addicted to Battle Mode. My brother and I played the hell out of this game growing up. It's amazing; one of the best in the Mario Kart series. The physics are excellent, the courses are fun and the music is incredible. However, this is easily the hardest game in the Mario Kart series. But I like a challenge, so that doesn't bother me.

I used to race with Yoshi, but after a while I switched to Luigi since he has higher top end and is in a heavier weight class.

Recorded with the Hauppauge HD PVR and the official SNES S-video cable at 60 frames per second. I used a Toshiba model D-R550 DVD Recorder to upconvert the SNES's native 240p signal to 480i so that the Hauppauge could capture the console's audio/video signal.

I'm using a standard SNES controller.