Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit
isn't the kind of thing that we would normally cover
in a dedicated video on Linus Tech Tips,
but as one of the coolest applications
of augmented reality that I have seen,
well... Ever, it merited us giving it a try
even if it costs us almost two thousand dollars
in equipment, and pushing it to its limits.
As you can see, under normal circumstances,
you can race with up to four cars,
that is assuming that you have four Switches and,
perhaps the most difficult part,
four friends. With money.
But, as we're about to see,
under more challenging circumstances,
it doesn't necessarily pan out like this.
The insane course that you're looking at here
is not only enormous, but we worked around Nintendo's
multi-level limitation,
and we're going to have some incredible stakes.
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(upbeat intro music)
This is so cool!
I love this course!
There's like... There's obstacles!
LTTstore.com!
It's got everything.
You've got all these different surfaces that
we're going to drive over, like smooth reflective ones,
punchy ones, metal ones, we're gonna go over grates.
- [James] It was challenging to get it up to this
level though, because the game actually doesn't
recognize multi-level courses.
And the cars aren't actually very powerful,
because the cars have to go up really gradual incline,
or else they just get stuck and roll back down.
- And one more fun challenge, recording the gameplay
for you guys to enjoy.
Now, normally the Nintendo Switch supports
natively recording your gameplay
onto the device itself.
But, whether it's because the camera's running, or
the processing is too intensive, or whatever the reason is,
- [James] Privacy!
- Nintendo doesn't allow you to record gameplay
while Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit is running.
So, we had to set up external recording devices
and of course webcams, get them face reactions,
for each one of our four Switches.
- [James] There's no limit to how big of a course
you can make, except for the distance between
all the multi-player Switches,
because there's one host Switch and
all the other switches need to be near it,
and distance from each person's Switch to the car.
We needed the switches to all be in range,
no matter where in the room the cars went.
- [Linus] The thing to remember, guys, is
even under ideal conditions, WiFI,
particularly low-latency video streaming over WiFi,
is challenging.
And as soon as you've got a combination
of multiple wireless devices, all streaming video
at the same time, along with additional peripherals
like wireless controllers, you are basically creating a
hot, ugly soup, of wireless signals
bouncing all over the place.
All in all, this cost us,
I don't know, somewhere between two and three
grand worth of hardware,
plus the recording setups,
plus all the time to set it up,
so I really hope you guys enjoy it,
'cause I might be out more money by the end of it.
- [James] Mapping out your course is actually really easy.
All you do is set it up and then
drive the car where you want the course to be,
kind of painting on the ground.
You set your gates up in order and drive through them,
and the one thing to be aware of is drops.
The wheels need to stay in contact with the ground,
so in the case, like over here,
we actually put some tape on the course
to make it more of a steep hill than a drop-off.
- [Linus] I'm ready to race, boys!
(countdown and starting fanfare)
I'm just going to follow at a safe distance here
so I can go around all the people.
- [Riley] Oh no!
No! Nooooo, I was in first!
- [Linus] My controls are not working.
Oh man.
- [Riley] Come on, come on.
You can do it buddy.
What, why are you going backwards?
- [Linus] Did someone just bump me
and move me up the ramp?
- Yes. - Yep.
- [Linus] Nice. - [Riley] Why didn't y'all do
the opposite? There we go, there we go, okay.
- [Linus] Oh, come on, Luigi! I gotta--
Oh, there's items.
I want me them items.
Oh no, I didn't get that--
Oh, get out of the way, Anthony!
- [Riley] Hello?
- [Linus] MOVE IT! MOVE IT--
(unintelligible yelling)
- [Anthony] I can't move!
- [Riley] I know! Just stop, stop for a second.
Who's Luigi? Stop.
(Sarah laughing)
Oh my gosh.
- [Anthony] Uhhh, I think I'm (beep).
- [Linus] No, I'm good, I'm good. (stammering)
- [Anthony] I'm stuck. I think, I think.
- [Linus] Wait, someone's done a lap already?
- [Anthony] Linus, get the f-- out of my way!
- [Linus] Get out of-- you get out of my way!
You jerk. Oh no--
- [Anthony] Oh, my accelerator--
- [Riley] No! What!? - [Anthony] Ohhh, come on.
- [Riley] What happened?
- [Anthony] Oh, I cannot control this.
- [Riley] Why can't I move?!
- [Anthony] I cannot control-- Aw...
- [Riley] NOOOOOOOO!
Hey! I need help, I'm stuck.
Oh wait, wait no, I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay.
- [Linus] What just happened to me?
- [Riley] I'm okay! (laughing)
- [Linus] I am not gonna fall. - [Riley] YEAAAAAAAH, BABY!
- [Linus] I'm gonna pass. GET OUT OF MY WAY!
- [Linus] SARAH! - [Sarah] No, don't pass!
- [Anthony] God. - [Sarah] I'm stuck on the--
- [Anthony] Ohhh, if Linus hadn't done that,
I had that-- I set up the drift perfectly.
- [Linus] If Linus hadn't done what?!
Raced properly?!
Oh, I guess.
Oh, my god.
- [Riley] I'm stuck on the ramp!
- [Linus] It's so laggy.
- (Riley cackling) - [Linus] I am not gonna fall!
- [Riley] YEAAAAH, BABY!
You could say I'm a... Mario Ka--
OH, I'M STUCK!
I'm stuck.
- [Linus] Riley's a low priority.
- [Riley] What the heck?!
Oh yes, yes yes yes yes.
It's fine. I didn't need you.
- [Linus] Who just-- Did someone just hit me?
(engine revving, lap finished fanfare)
- [Linus] Hello?
MOVE IT, MARIO!
- [Anthony] You're Mario!
- [Riley] Okay, okay, wait. I'm under the ramp right now.
- [Sarah] No!
- [Riley] Come on... Wow, is this actually seven laps?
- Yep.
- [Anthony] I can't...
- [Riley] NOOOOOO! (laughing)
- [Linus] Anthony, get the hell out of my way! Back up!
- [Anthony] You're in my way!
- [Linus] No, you're in my way!
Anthony, move! You don't even need to pass me!
- [Riley] (groaning) GOOOOOOOOOO! Yes!
- [Linus] Anthony doesn't deserve our sympathy!
- [Riley] There's a lot of crazy stuff in this course,
but that one corner...
- [Anthony] Oh God--
- [Riley] I haven't been able to get through it
without reversing once.
- [Linus] Your feed is so much better than mine.
- [Sarah] No it's not! - [Linus] Look at mine!
What are you talking about?
- [Sarah] It's not going!
- [Linus] I can't-- Okay, hold on, I'm gonna use
your feed to drive my car here.
- [Riley] You're weak. - [Sarah] Can I use the track?
- [Riley] You know, I'd just like to thank the
mushroom-- the Toadstool brothers, and--
for this wonderful occasion, you know? I just--
- (Linus clapping) - [Riley] Hey! It's okay,
you know, I can show-- I can give you guys
lessons at any time.
- [Anthony] Oh, my god. - [Linus] Is it done?
- [Riley] If the key - [Linus] Yeah, Riley's done!
- [Sarah] We need a second winner!
- [Anthony] I would love to be, but I'm stuck
on this for some reason.
- [Linus] Oh God, this is so horrible.
- [Anthony] Oh God, what is this?
Outta my way!
- [Anthony] Oh my god! - [Linus] I just lightninged
you all!
SARAH!
MOVE!
Okay, it's kind of working right now.
Or not.
That's thousands of dollars well spent.
What a gaming experience. I don't mind losing,
honestly, but I don't like losing because my
equipment is malfunctioning.
- [Riley] I want to try, like, other people's cars to see
if it was, like, significantly worse.
- [Linus] Oh my God, how did you not win by more?
- [Sarah] Yeah, true! - [Riley] I think I won by
like, two laps.
- (Anthony laughing) - [Linus] This actually works!
- [Riley] Oh, this is really bad.
- [Linus] Oh my God, Riley's is so much better.
I'll tell you what, Sarah. Consolation prize.
You can have a day too.
'Cause it's just clearly not fair.
- [Sarah] Aw! That's so nice.
- [Linus] This is so stupid.
- Well, that was a total cluster, but what went wrong?
Our Floatplane viewers, who've had this video for
over a week now had some suggestions.
Some of them, I'm not sure if I buy.
We had people saying they think it's because of our incline,
but honestly, testing worked just fine
before everybody showed up and actually tried to race.
And we had others suggesting that
wiring up the Switches for networking would fix it.
Now, that's a good idea.
And that's one of the things that I thought of at first,
except that our main problem was really the video feed
between the switch and the cart,
which is going to be wireless,
regardless of how the switch itself
connects to the internet for updates or whatever.
So realistically, what I think went wrong
is a combination of factors.
One, there is a ton of RF traffic going on in here.
Everything from our studio lights, to our microphones,
to obviously all the WiFI devices in this office,
is running over the air, and we have had weird problems
like microphones going (imitates rising static) suddenly,
and stuff like that.
The other one, which I actually think is the bigger one,
is that we had no control
over which frequency our WiFi was running on.
So if it was on 2.4, I mean, oh my goodness--
Anything, even a microwave, could have interfered
with the signal.
And, whether you're running 2.4 or 5 gigahertz,
large bodies of water can have disastrous effects
on wireless connectivity.
So even in our better scenario, when we ran it upstairs
and did manage to have a successful race after the fact,
in fact you can see I'm still connected to that one here,
some of our racers who were just three or four meters away
from me, experienced some issues with their video feeds
when their carts were just
driving around me, lying there on the floor.
So in conclusion, when it works and works well,
it is
a ton
of fun.
But, if you push it to its limits, I wouldn't be surprised
if you run into some problems.
The good news is most people probably won't do that,
'cause it's like two grand in equipment to run four racers.
Just like it's... Expensive, to...
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If you guys enjoyed this video,
maybe check out our DIY first person
car racing video that we did a while back.
It was way more work,
and not augmented reality,
but it kind of worked a lot better.