Top Gear 2 All Tracks Beaten in under 2 Hours!

Game Objectives:

Emulator:
  • System: Super Nintendo Entertainment System
  • Name: Bizhawk 2.9.1
  • Core: BSNES V115+
Game:
  • File Name: Top Gear 2 (U) [!]
  • Region: NTSC
  • Genre: Racing, Simulation
Movie Tags:
  • Heavy Glitch Abuse
  • Abuses Programming Errors
  • Manipulates Luck
  • Takes Damage to Save Time
  • Goes for 100% (no real incentive) "All Upgrades."
  • Uses a Game Restart Sequence
  • Plays on Hardest Difficulty
Movie Info:
  • TAS Timing: - 1:55:55.91 (FPS = 60.0988)
  • RTA Timing: - 1:55:42 (FPS = 60.0988) *RTA starts from Auckland upgrade menu*
  • Frame Count: 418,042 (FPS = 60.0988)
  • Re-record Count: 276,869
  • SHA1: 8AC5DAB79B319DEB525DE73F9A51877DF7A7ED9F
  • MD5: C9FC87528511770DB888B28A4C506F46

Game Description

Top Gear 2 is an arcade-style Racing Simulation game for the Super Nintendo. The sequel to the ever so popular Top Gear 1. The game was released in 1993 on the Super Nintendo, later to the Sega Genesis and Amiga CD 32. The Sega Genesis version plays differently than it's SNES and Amiga ports.
The game has 64 tracks to race through although most get skipped in this run. Win prize money to spend on upgrading your car to compete with the other racers. Finish the game and claim to be the world champion.

RNG Manipulations:

  • Change color of the car
  • Start Press on the Upgrade Screen
Tricks, Glitches, Techniques
When getting the car in a speed state above the 238 MPH threshold, the game can't calculate fast enough to determine what speed you have if you end up going in reverse gear. By slamming into a stacked CPU car while going in reverse and then 1st gear you can stack their speed with your speed giving an upper bound of 400 MPH+ This is significantly faster and makes tracks that would normally take 5 seconds longer to finish 5 seconds sooner.
Some tracks are straight enough to where you can keep the hyper speed active for much longer then possible. By perfectly timing the release of the X press I can go around somewhat sharper bends at speeds of 355 MPH, this extends the speed and allows for much different routing then playing the track normally.
When an object and a wall are too close to each other the car can get wedged in between them. When the car is in this state, the track lap count will go to the maximum number such as 5/5. This finishes the track quickly and efficiently.
By keeping the car in a state where the speed value is too high to calculate back down to the normal reverse speed, the speed kept over from the HRSS will allow the car to slam into the backend of a wall and finish the race. in most cases this is the fastest method.
Like a backwards wall glitch, this glitch can also be used on the front end of the wall surface.
Found by RallyFTW this trick is to keep the car from starting it's Hydroplane timer. By pressing Right or Left (depending on the turn) semi-quickly to very quickly, the timer tied to the Hydroplane event with start back at 0 and keep going to 0 each time you press and re-press right or left. This is used on Rainy and Snowy tracks.
To make a track even quicker, the fastest way is to faze through a turn merger and then quickly get back on the track. This prevents any need to slow down.
When you go off the road, sometimes the time you get will better which you would think would go against any logic. Some tracks such as Andalusia or Barcelona have this effect.

About the Movie Making:

A lot of time and rigorous effort has been applied to this movie. It's taken 3 years to get a time below 2 hours, and now you can finally view the efforts applied. Here you'll see a totally different movie from 3 years ago, where you'll question "how is this possible". A time such as this was deemed undoable for many years, even outside the 3-year date range, since there were no known methods at the time to exploit the game and take advantage of the game's mechanics until now. Many branches were tested for this movie with a general count of 538 (five-hundred-thirty-eight) with many of the name labels being "y" and "n" for yes and no to test the current known limits.

Track by Track Comments:

  • Brief information will be talked about here. I'll talk about each track and how it was done. For a more detailed description of a trick, please refer to the trick/glitch/techniques section of the submission text.

Track 1-1: Australasia: Auckland

Tags: CPU push
  • The most notable part of this track is getting pushed by the yellow car. This is manipulated at the upgrade menu. No upgrades are purchasable here, as there is no money to spend.

Track 1-2 Australasia: Ayers Rock

Tags: Gearbox Upgrade, Downhill Speed
  • Here I'll purchase the 2nd Gearbox upgrade to keep some speed from a nitro boost. I'll use the giant downhill to gain extra speed of 181 MPH.

Track 1-3 Australasia: Canterbury Plains

Tags: No Upgrades, Nitro Timing
  • It's faster to boost before the big uphill section near the finish line. On lap 3 I'll boost near the same spot I did for lap 1.

Track 1-4 Australasia: Sydney

Tags: No Upgrades, Nitro Timing, Hydroplane Timer Refresh
  • Rainy track without wet tires makes this track possible. Usual upgrade path would be wet tires here but since I need to keep the money, I won't upgrade. First track to have 2/2 laps.

Track 2-1 Britain: Loch Ness

Tags: Best Nitro Upgrade, Reverse Hyper Speed
  • Here you'll see the first instance of the many RHS's. Since the best nitro can get past the 228 MPH threshold, I'll be able to take advantage of the glitch.

Track 2-2 Britain: London

Tags: Object Displacement Clip
  • This track has 4/4 laps, but fortunately I can use the ODC and skip to the end of the track by slamming into the turn merger.

Track 2-3 Britain: Sheffield

Tags: Reverse Hyper Speed, Backwards Momentum Wall Glitch
  • Using the RHS glitch I can slam into the wall behind me that's at the start to finish the race. In order to do so, I'll need speed and a lot of speed.

Track 2-4 Britain: Stonehenge

Tags: Reverse Hyper Speed, Hyper Extended Super Speed, Computer Bump Speed Up
  • I'll use RHS near the start and maintain some of the left-over speed to the speed bump location. I'll get bumped by a CPU player, to gain extra speed.

Track 3-1 Canada: Banff

Tags: Wall Glitch
  • Like most tracks, Banff is one with a wall glitch. I'll take advantage of it to finish the race quickly. Some strange properties on the wall different speed variables. When I was testing it, it seemed as if the bush protecting the wall was changing positions, (unless my eyesight has become poor).

Track 3-2 Canada: Niagara (without the Falls part)

Tags: 3rd Best Engine, 3rd Best Wet Tires, Reverse Hyper Speed
  • Niagara did in fact become faster, I used RHS at the beginning and the end of the track, and the ost finished right at the end for a cool transition.

Track 3-3 Canada: Toronto

Tags: Reverse Hyper Speed, Backwards Momentum Wall Glitch
  • So, the reason for the slower start is because I'm faster than the CPU cars. Without this slow start I wouldn't be able to use RHS to glitch to the wall. The cars need to be at 0303 on the timer as trying any other was not possible.

Track 3-4 Canada: Vancouver

Tags: Reverse Hyper Speed, Computer Bump Speed Up
  • Taking advantage of the Speed Up Pick Up I'll boost so that the nitro barely hangs onto 228 MPH and grab the Speed Up to maintain extra speed. Using this method was the fastest. I'll use RHS on lap 3 and get bumped by a CPU car for extra speed.

Track 4-1 Egypt: Abu Sunbul

Tags: Reverse Hyper Speed
  • In order to make this track less boring I'll use RHS to give it some flare. It's also an oval, so not much to talk about.

Track 4-2 Egypt: Aswan

Tags: Nitro Timing
  • Known for the sharp turn. I'll need to time my nitro usage properly right after the turn to get the quickest time.

Track 4-3 Egypt: Cairo

Tags: Money Pickups
  • Not much to say here, just grab the money for upgrades later.

Track 4-4 Egypt: Hugh Sitton

Tags: Wall Glitch
  • Not the actual name of the location but named after the Real-Life photographer. I'll use the wall glitch here.

Track 5-1 France: Bordeaux

Tags: Wall Glitch
  • This track used to do the spin-out method, but thanks to new discoveries, the wall actually has a finish property tied to it.

Track 5-2 France: Monaco

Tags: new Boost Path
  • My favorite track in the game. This one has a new boost path, leave the first nitro pickup and grab the second one.

Track 5-3 France: Nice

Tags: Backwards Momentum Wall Glitch
  • Pretty Nice. Faster BMWG here.

Track 5-4 France: Paris

Tags: Hydroplane Timer Refresh
  • Rainy. I'll use HpTR trick to drive faster here.

Track 6-1 Germany: Bavaria

Tags: Why, Filler, Gross, Hydroplane Timer Refresh
  • Gross. There are puddles everywhere, mostly a filler track.

Track 6-2 Germany: Cologne

Tags: Reverse Hyper Speed, Backwards Momentum Wall Glitch
  • Previous version uses the wall past the streetlights, this version uses the wall behind the finish line, and it's faster.

Track 6-3 Germany: Frankfurt

Tags: Reverse Hyper Speed, Hyper Extended Super Speed, Nitro Management
  • Foggy. I'll blast my way through by carefully positioning the car around corners while going 355 MPH. I'll need to manage my nitros so that I can use them at the right spots.

Track 6-4 Germany: Munich

Tags: Hydroplane Timer Refresh, Nitro Management
  • 206 MPH after each lap is the appropriate boost part. This will make it so getting up that hill and back down is possible which is the overall goal. Using HpTR here to race quicker.

Track 7-1 Greece: Athens

Tags: Nitro Management
  • Time each nitro so that you make it down the small downhill before the lap increase.

Track 7-2 Greece: Meteora

Tags: Backwards Momentum Wall Glitch
  • It's faster to drive on the strip, than it is to drive on the road and then do the glitch.

Track 7-3 Greece: Mykonos

Tags: Backwards Momentum Wall Glitch
  • It's faster to drive on the strip, than it is to drive on the road and then do the glitch. (yes, you read that twice, because it's the same thing)

Track 7-4 Greece: Santorini

Tags: Reverse Hyper Speed, Backwards Momentum Wall Glitch
  • Cars can do flips; did you know that?

Track 8-1 India: Amber Port

Tags: Reverse Hyper Speed
  • 7 laps of one giant oval. It doesn't get much more exciting than that. I'll use RHS on the lap I don't boost to gain extra speed.

Track 8-2 India: Bombay

Tags: Backwards Momentum Wall Glitch
  • Currently the wall here starts at a sharp angle, so opting for further out then Reverse backwards while avoiding the CPU cars.

Track 8-3 India: Delhi

Tags: Wall Glitch
  • Instead of the reliable setup of waiting, I instead brute forced the RNG in my favor so that I can get into the area where the glitch occurs much faster

Track 8-4 India: Taj Mahal

Tags: Object Displacement Clip
  • By carefully eyeing my speed value I can manipulate the position the car and the lap count to 3/3 to finish the race. This is very precise and for some reason works on a real-life day to day basis for me.

Track 9-1 Ireland: Dublin

Tags: Reverse Hyper Speed, Backwards Momentum Wall Glitch, purposeful Spin-Out
  • This track has an interesting property where you can keep your speed, but it's also faster to purposefully crash against the mergers to get a quicker time.

Track 9-2 Ireland: Galway

Tags: Object Displacement Clip
  • By crashing into the light post which will be really close the wall, the car will get wedged in-between them.

Track 9-3 Ireland: Killarney

Tags: Hydroplane Timer Refresh, Reverse Hyper Speed
  • I'll use HpTR and RHS to drive even faster.

Track 9-4 Ireland: Limerick

Tags: Reverse Hyper Speed
  • I'll use RHS at the start to get a faster time

Track 10-1 Italy: Florence

Tags: Reverse Hyper Speed
  • RNG played out a little differently here, so I had to settle for what was given. The previous method was 4/4 right before the finish line.

Track 10-2 Italy: Pisa

Tags: Backwards Momentum Wall Glitch
  • Driving on the strip is faster ... Just like the other ones and nothing really changes.

Track 10-3 Italy: Rome

Tags: Nitro Management
  • Yellow car was chosen here for a faster start. I'll manage the nitro's to get a good time.

Track 10-4 Italy: Sicily

Tags: Reverse Hyper Speed, Hyper Extended Super Speed
  • Enough straight turns here to keep going 355 MPH around the track for the first half.

Track 11-1 Japan: Hiroshima

Tags: Reverse Hyper Speed, Hyper Extended Super Speed
  • Blue car was used here and instead the wall on the right side ended up being so much faster than the one on the left. It requires speeds above 262 to work currently.

Track 11-2 Japan: Kyoto

Tags: Nitro Management
  • The place of Nintendo. Nitro here and Nitro there, the track rewards fast play.

Track 11-3 Japan: Tokyo

Tags: Reverse Hyper Speed, Hyper Extended Super Speed, Backwards Momentum Wall Glitch
  • Driving on the ... I think you know.

Track 11-4 Japan: Yokohama

Tags: Reverse Hyper Speed, Hyper Extended Super Speed
  • 355 MPH is the name of the game.

Track: 12-1 Scandinavia: Copenhagen

Tags: Reverse Hyper Speed, Hyper Extended Super Speed
  • By timing the glitches, I can extend the speed gotten ever further by running into the speed up.

Track 12-2 Scandinavia: Helsinki

Tags: Reverse Hyper Speed, Computer Bump Speed Up
  • Using the RHS here causes the CPU to catch up and bump me for extra speed not once but twice!

Track 12-3 Scandinavia: Reykjavik

Tags: Nitro Management
  • Really fun snowy track with precise boost spots.

Track 12-4 Scandinavia: Stockholm

Tags: Nitro Management
  • Slower start to manage the speed variable to reach the downhill. Reaching the downhill is very important to the start of the track.

Track 13-1: South America: Chile

Tags: Reverse Hyper Speed, Hyper Extended Super Speed, Off-Road Timer Manipulation
  • Known for its crazy sharp turn I have to manage my speed value of 171 to 179 MPH. I'll use RHS and extend it to the finish while also manipulating the timer.

Track 13-2: South America: Mexico?

Tags: Reverse Hyper Speed, Wall Glitch
  • It's faster. Also, I put the question mark because this game is from 1993 yet still didn't follow the real-life thing.

Track 13-3: South America: Peru

Tags: Reverse Hyper Speed, Object Displacement Clip
  • Okay I'll be honest, I kind of lost time for entertainment purposes, but only because it's funnier.

Track 13-4: South America: Rio De Janeiro

Tags: Reverse Hyper Speed, Nitro Management
  • It's faster to grab the nitro on the 3rd lap and leave it on the 1st and 2nd.

Track 14-1: Spain: (without the S) Andalusia

Tags: Nitro Management, Off-Road Timer Manipulation
  • Before you ask, yes, it's faster to drive off the road.

Track 14-2: Spain: (without the S) Barcelona

Tags: Reverse Hyper Speed, Nitro Management
  • Fun night-time track.

Track 14-3: Spain: (without the S) Madrid

Tags: Reverse Hyper Speed, Nitro Management, Hydroplane Timer Refresh
  • In order to make it up the hill on the first lap, I'll use RHS. This produces a faster finish. I'll also use HpTR to get around quicker.

Track 14-4: Spain: (without the S) Seville

Tags: Reverse Hyper Speed, Hyper Extended Super Speed, Wall Glitch
  • Currently the fastest way is to make to the wall near the end and get a finish.

Track 15-1: Switzerland: Geneva

Tags: Wall Glitch
  • This wall glitch is faster than the old method of using the object displacement clip

Track 15-2: Switzerland: Grunwald

Tags: Backwards Momentum Wall Glitch
  • Taking advantage of the second wall on this track lets me use the BMWG and allows the track to become not only faster, but easier in return.

Track 15-3: Switzerland: Lucerne

Tags: Reverse Hyper Speed
  • 2 Speed Ups on this track, and also use RHS here to go even faster!

Track 15-4: Switzerland: Zurich

Tags: Hydroplane Timer Refresh
  • This track rewards the player by understanding the core parts of not only the speed up but it's tight turns. I'll take advantage by weaving in and out of the track to tactfully go quicker while also maintaining the HpTR trick.

Track 16-1: The United States: Las Vegas

Tags: Reverse Hyper Speed, Nitro Management
  • This track has been tested, theorized, studied, and routed for many years. Las Vegas now uses the RHS glitch, to make the track even faster than previously thought possible.

Track 16-2: The United States: Los Angeles

Tags: Reverse Hyper Speed, Wall Glitch
  • Under normal conditions the wall glitch is driving straight to the location go forwards, however I asked the question what if what I know from the RHS I can combat that idea! So I did just that, and it turns out to be significantly faster.

Track 16-3: The United States: New York

Tags: Reverse Hyper Speed, Hydroplane Timer Refresh
  • Using both RHS and HpTR here made the track ever so slightly faster. On first watch it might not seem faster, but I tested it, and it was faster.

Track 16-4: The United States: San Francisco

Tags: Reverse Hyper Speed
  • The final track in the game. San Francisco sends off with one final RHS to compliment. I'll use Inertia at the end to save time frames wise.

Special Thanks/Trick/Glitch Discoveries

  • RallyFTW - Route Discoveries for The United States, Hydroplane Timer Refresh on New York
  • Yoshimidstu - Discovering first instance of Los Angeles Wall Glitch (further improved)
  • Dunkelgotik - Supportive mod role for Brazil players
  • Leandrom90 - Supportive mod role for Brazil players
  • MixmastaPJ - Supportive player role for USA players
  • Oipo - Supportive deep-dive on the game's code/hacks
  • Me (Technickle) - for making the Tool-Assisted Speedruns for USA% and All Tracks. I took up this role after Rally's first USA% TAS. I also was the first to ever to (without any other evidence being known) to do the first ever speedrun for this game

Possible Improvements:

Without some major time save, like Aswan needing to be skipped and Copenhagen to be skipped, the lowest I think can currently go with current knowledge is roughly 5 or 7 seconds. However, that comes with rigorous effort double the time it'd take that I did for this movie.

eien86: Claiming for judging.

eien86: delayed by request of the author due to new improvements / discoveries

eien86: Replacing with faster movie provided by the author

eien86: Replacing with a movie with an earlier final input

eien86: I had to judge this movie as I'm a sucker for long racing/driving games. This submission rushes through all 64 tracks to improve the previous one (same author) by more than 16 minutes (!)
This movie is very well optimized and makes use of very cool glitches (some of them new to this submission). Most notably among them, one involving crashing against an object to trigger the premature end of the race.
The author also abuses inertia to make the last input way before the end of the race, thereby triggering the credits.
Accepting to Standard (Goal: all tracks).

despoa: Processing...


TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 15580
Location: 127.0.0.1
This topic is for the purpose of discussing #8904: Technickle's SNES Top Gear 2 "all tracks" in 1:55:55.91
GamesFan2000
He/Him
Joined: 1/4/2019
Posts: 84
Location: Canada
After reading the notes on this TAS as well as the notes from the currently published TAS for All Tracks, I'm quite astonished that this was improved by this much. Also, seeing a significant amount of the tracks reduced to "How fast can I crash my car into that specific wall?" is hilarious. Yes vote.
Challenger
He/Him
Skilled player (1689)
Joined: 2/23/2016
Posts: 1061
The new glitches blew my mind. Fantastic work! Yes vote.
My homepage --Currently not much motived for TASing as before...-- But I'm still working.
eien86
He/Him
Judge, Skilled player (1873)
Joined: 3/21/2021
Posts: 262
Location: Switzerland
Hi Technickle, just checking, are you finished with your changes to this movie?
Post subject: TAS will have a Delay (finding new time-save currently)
Technickle
He/Him
Player (185)
Joined: 1/10/2017
Posts: 73
Location: Brattleboro Vermont
Classic case of "always time to save" motive. Currently the movie you see now will be faster, thanks to new time-saves.
Post subject: TAS update
Technickle
He/Him
Player (185)
Joined: 1/10/2017
Posts: 73
Location: Brattleboro Vermont
Post subject: Found 742 frame improvement
eien86
He/Him
Judge, Skilled player (1873)
Joined: 3/21/2021
Posts: 262
Location: Switzerland
Hi Technickle, Seems like you missed an optimization at the end. If you don't press any buttons, the credits will roll on their own. This means you can finish the last movie much earlier by releasing the gas before the end. Remember in tasvideos.org, we consider the last input as movie end (although exceptions might be considered). Here is the .bk2 file I produced to show this. I'm pretty sure you can improve it further. https://tasvideos.org/UserFiles/Info/638455090636489203 I will not claim co-authorship for this improvement.
Post subject: corrected file with a couple extra seconds saved
Technickle
He/Him
Player (185)
Joined: 1/10/2017
Posts: 73
Location: Brattleboro Vermont
eien86 wrote:
Hi Technickle, Seems like you missed an optimization at the end. If you don't press any buttons, the credits will roll on their own. This means you can finish the last movie much earlier by releasing the gas before the end. Remember in tasvideos.org, we consider the last input as movie end (although exceptions might be considered). Here is the .bk2 file I produced to show this. I'm pretty sure you can improve it further. https://tasvideos.org/UserFiles/Info/638455090636489203 I will not claim co-authorship for this improvement.
Saved a couple extra frames off of your findings, to get 1:55:55.91-> https://tasvideos.org/UserFiles/Info/638455175187388028 Thanks for finding that, didn't quite understand the qualifications of the movie end since before it was done the previous way for a long time, so the commitment to having that threw me off.
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
They/Them
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Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 15580
Location: 127.0.0.1
This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [5854] SNES Top Gear 2 "all tracks" by Technickle in 1:55:55.91