It's important that racing, fighting, and any other type of competitive game runs at a consistent frame rate, but it turns out the original Mario Kart 8 on the Wii U repeats its 63rd frame if one specific condition is met.
If you're playing Mario Kart 8 on the Wii U with any NPC racers present, the 64th frame will actually be a repeat of the 63rd. This means every 1.066 seconds, rather than seeing a new frame, you get the same one twice.
This will likely be imperceptible to most players, but the issue has been known for a while.
I'll be honest, even seeing it in action, I cannot notice the duplicated frame, but maybe my eyes are just slow.
Mario Kart 8 on the Wii U runs at a bizarre fixed framerate of 59.0625 fps, whereby every 64th frame is a copy of the one before it. This only happens when CPU opponents are present, so it may be an error in the code instead of a performance issue. pic.twitter.com/lkwmOGyyZkApril 19, 2025
Strangely, this error is only a problem when computer-controlled racers are present, so if you're playing with friends, the game is locked to 60fps. MarioBrothBlog on Twitter suggests this means "it may be an error in the code instead of a performance issue."
This issue isn't present at all in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on the Switch, though, so if you've only ever played that version of the game, that's why you've never noticed a drop in the frame rate.
The Nintendo Switch 2 will allow games to go up to 120fps, but outside of a 120fps mode, the upcoming Mario Kart World will seemingly run mostly at 60fps.
You should check out all the other upcoming Switch 2 games that have been announced.
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