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Despite being over 21 years old, GTA San Andreas still remains the third most active speed game in the GTA franchise.
Explore how GTA San Andreas speedrunners use complex glitches to beat the game in under 30 minutes, revolutionizing the speedrun scene.
Key Takeaways
- Arbitrary script execution drastically reduced GTA San Andreas speedrun times to under 30 minutes.
- The glitch requires a complex, frame-perfect setup combining decades of discovered tricks.
- Different game versions required unique adaptations of the glitch, with the original PC port being the hardest.
- Community collaboration between runners and programmers was essential to fully realize the glitch.
- The discovery revitalized interest and competition in GTA San Andreas speedrunning.
What the video covers
- GTA San Andreas remains a popular speedrunning game over 21 years after release, with any percent records dropping significantly over time.
- A major breakthrough in 2026 allowed runners to complete the game in about 30 minutes using a complex glitch called arbitrary script execution (ASE).
- The glitch builds on decades of community knowledge and involves a 31-step setup combining frame-perfect tricks and mission manipulation.
- The concept of arbitrary jump in script (AJS) was first discovered in 2019 by PoudiNet, enabling skips from early to final missions but limited to the Windows Store version.
- Joshimas quickly adapted the glitch, setting world records and inspiring further attempts on other game versions.
- In 2025, the glitch was adapted to the San Andreas Definitive Edition, reviving its speedrun community with a slightly harder setup.
- The original PC port saw the glitch discovered in 2026 as ASE, requiring runners to program their own script to warp to the final mission.
- The video explains key glitch techniques like 'on mission zero' and 'GOTO zero,' which allow mission skipping and running parallel game scripts.
- The setup involves precise actions such as winning horse races via pause buffering and exploiting game code side effects.
- The video highlights the extreme difficulty and technical mastery required to perform these glitches, marking a milestone in GTA speedrunning.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction to GTA San Andreas Speedrunning
- 01:14Discovery of AJS Glitch by PoudiNet in 2019
- 02:28Impact and Challenges of the AJS Glitch
- 03:33Joshimas Breaks the Glitch Record
- 04:43Adaptation of Glitch in Definitive Edition
- 05:47Community Efforts to Port Glitch to Original Release
- 07:02Detailed Explanation of Glitch Setup and Techniques
- 08:15Exploiting Game Mechanics and Final Steps
- 09:17Conclusion and Channel Call to Action
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
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For literal decades, the any percent record has steadily dropped from the discovery of tricks like on mission zero, mission duping, phone call manipulation, and even sliding movement tech, equating to roughly 3 hours being cut in the run over the last 17 years.
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But in 2026, something was discovered that took over 20 years for the community to find. And all of a sudden, the any percent record went from 2 hours and 50 minutes to just 32 minutes within four short months.
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A discovery so complex that most runners don't even dare to try it. Involving a 31-step setup that is the culmination of almost everything the community has learned over the last 20 years, all compiled into one glitch that skips nearly the entire game. This is the
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story of how the GTA San Andreas community learned to use what is simply known as arbitrary script execution, and how they can now beat the game in just 30 minutes.
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Although this glitch was found only a few months ago for the original release of San Andreas, it was actually first discovered over 7 years ago with a slight caveat. On October 5th of 2019, PoudiNet, a well-known GTA speedrunner
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as well as code breaker of the series, released a post on Reddit that had people equally as shocked as they were confused. The post went into detail about a proof of concept for a new glitch that would allow you to skip from
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Ryder, the second mission in the game, all the way to the last mission, End of the Line Part 3. This glitch worked by utilizing something known as AJS, or arbitrary jump in script, and it had taken PoudiNet over 3 years of testing
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just to get it to work. Some of you may be familiar with the popular ACE or arbitrary code execution used in the Ocarina of Time speedrun, and this is very similar. However, instead of programming your own instructions for
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the game's code through a complex setup in order to warp you to certain locations, San Andreas' AJS instead programs the game to jump to a certain section of the game script. And in this case, to the script handling the last
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mission of the game. This was a revolutionary discovery for the speedrun, as PoudiNet would post a video of him beating the game in just 25 minutes. However, the setup for a glitch like this was exactly what you'd expect
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for a discovery this big. It involved ending a vigilante mission within a 23 ms window, which is less than a single frame. And on top of this, it essentially used a combination of every trick learned over the last two decades
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like on mission zero and mission duping to make it work. And most of these tricks are all frame-perfect as well. We won't go into too much detail about the setup as it is both confusing and unfortunately not the topic of this
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video. Because despite PoudiNet spending 3 years to develop this method, there was one major downside to his discovery that it could only be done on the Windows Store version of the game. So, even though it was one of the greatest
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discoveries in the game's history, no one ran this version, so it was likely that no one would be actively trying it.
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PoudiNet even joked at the end of his post saying, "Now, let's see how many years it takes for someone to do this." Little did he know that it would take Joshimas, one of the kings of GTA speedrunning, just 2 days to pull off
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the trick and secure a world record with a 1:32:08. 1:32:08. [ __ ] to the [ __ ] G. I did it. Yeah.
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A lot of runners would participate in this just to say that they had done it, with Joshimas even managing to lower his own time down to just 16 minutes. But beyond this, the run would merely remain as a novelty within the community.
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This is when we fast forward to April of 2025. Even though this version had only been available for 4 years at this point, this AJS glitch would eventually be discovered in the San Andreas Definitive Edition as well. Following a
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similar setup as the Windows version, it is yet again another string of complex tricks, frame perfect inputs, navigating through the interior world, and steps that truly just make you ask how people even find these in the first place.
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Including only being a 21 millisecond window to set up the trick this time instead of 23, making it ever so slightly harder than the original. But much like the method from 6 years ago, runners like Joshimas would race to see
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who could be the first to complete this new method and fight for a world record.
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And on April 9th of 2025, a runner named Skipper Skip would manage to set the first world record with a time of 40 minutes and 17 seconds. This discovery would actually manage to revive the Definitive Edition speedrun scene for a
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few months, since not many people had been actively running it prior to this point. So, even though the Windows Store version and the Definitive Edition both technically had faster speedruns, most people were still running any percent on
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the original PC port. All they needed to do was to find a way to get the glitch to work on that version as well. And in January of 2026, that would finally come to fruition. After months and months of
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work by a collective of both runners and programmers, the community would finally figure it out. A glitch to skip from the mission Just Business all the way to the End of the Line Part 3 had been discovered in the original release.
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However, the discovery for this version is actually classified as an ASE or arbitrary script execution instead of an AJS. This setup is much more like the Ocarina of Time speedrun we discussed earlier as the runners need to actually
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trick the game into programming their own script which will warp them to the final mission. And the setup to do this is unlike anything I've seen from a GTA speedrun before. So, prepare as you are now about to get a PhD in beating GTA
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San Andreas in under 30 minutes. So, after starting a new game, we immediately need to run over a drug dealer to get some cash. We will need at least $10,000 in order to buy a certain safehouse later. And the best method for
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getting this amount is by taking the money to the horse betting which can be teased using a pause buffer. All we have to do for this is wait for our horse to be in first for one frame and then keep
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pausing the game over and over until the game eventually ends the race and our horse has won. Now, we just need to play the first few missions as you would normally in any other speedrun. Before beginning the mission Tagging Up Turf,
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we need to execute a trick known as on mission zero. On mission zero is a glitch that tricks the game into thinking you are inside of a mission while you're actually in free roam, letting speedrunners skip entire
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missions or even duplicate them. By completing a duplicated mission, we can save that mission's progress to be used in another allowing us to skip it entirely. This glitch is used even in the regular any percent run and is the
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most fundamental tech ever found for the GTA San Andreas speedrun. Once we have completed the duplicated mission, we now need to perform what's known as GOTO zero, or go to zero. By completing a specific set of inputs on frame perfect
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timings during Sweet's cutscene, the game will start running a completely separate copy of the game's main script independently from the one we were on beforehand. Think of it like running the program twice on your computer, but both are controlled by the same controller.
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If you're confused at all, that's okay because so was I, and all you really need to know is that doing this glitch causes a lot of side effects within the game's code that we will be exploiting later. GOTO zero has the weird effect of
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also spawning a second or duplicate CJ into your world. As strange as this is, given that you can even find this CJ roaming the map, it also has the added negative effect of stopping your sprint every 4 seconds. While this can be fixed
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by killing the original, it isn't optim...
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which we then need to execute another glitch known as zero star glitch. It's exactly as the name implies and will ensure that we can never get a wanted level again for the rest of the run.
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Now, using the money we got from the drug dealer and horse race, we buy the Jefferson safehouse. Our next step involves finding a bike in order to complete a few stunt jumps. One of the first side effects that we will be
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exploiting of GOTO zero is that money earned from stunt jumps, for whatever reason, gives us negative money. So, we need to land enough to get us anywhere over, or I guess under, negative $101.
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Now, we head to our Jefferson safehouse and save the game. Another major side effect to this go to zero glitch is that when you save the game at one marker, you will be teleported to another save marker instead. These warps aren't
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random and every fifth time will take us to the Prickle Pine safehouse in Las Venturas, which is where we need to be for the next step. We then head over to the casino, which is where the main part
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that allows this glitch to work takes place. As if it can't get any worse given what we've already done, when entering the casino, we are now at the complete mercy of RNG. In order to make the bets correctly, two conditions need
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to be met within the casino. The Wheel of Fortune table needs to be spawned in and a maximum of one Blackjack dealer can be spawned in as well. You can leave the casino and retry if you don't get it
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right away, but if at any point you see two or three Blackjack dealers have spawned in, the run is over and you will have to reset everything that we've done up until this point. But, given that we got good RNG, we can now make the bets
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themselves and this is where we will be programming the game to launch the final mission after the last step and we will be using negative bet values to do this.
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I will show you the values of the bets you need to set and what they are used for, but as for how you set them and in what order, is a process that would take me an entire video to explain given its
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complexity. I will leave a link in the description to a video made by pitterat, who is a top runner in the category, if you would like to learn about this part in detail, but all you need to know is
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that I now fully understand why this article exists. Once we have completed all the bets and the math has been figured out, we move on to completing a couple more missions and using the on mission zero glitch to speed up this
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process, finishing with the end of the mission wrong side of the tracks. Even after everything that we've gone over so far already, now is when we shift to the steps that will execute the script in order to take us to the end of the game.
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We start by beginning pimping and waiting 3 minutes for the timer to end. We then head back to Grove Street and prepare to start Big Smoke. Now, this might sound confusing given we have already finished a bunch of missions at
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this point, but thanks to the duplicate script we ran after doing the go to zero glitch, that mission hasn't been completed on the duplicated script yet, so we can start the mission again using that. Now, in order for all of this to
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work, there is a certain value that needs to be attributed to Big Smoke's NPC. Long story short, the way we do this is by manipulating the game by looking down to despawn all pedestrians near Big Smoke's house, and then using
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the firefighter mission to set Big Smoke's character to the correct value, which can only be done by playing a replay and then starting a firefighting mission 60 times in a row. Once we finally manage to start Big Smoke, we
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will receive a phone call thanks to our progression in the first or main script we finished most of the previous missions on. So, we will need to skip the first cutscene, then during the second with the gang getting into the
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Perennial, we hang up the phone call which gives us control of CJ during the cutscene. Now that we have control of CJ while in this cutscene, we need to somehow make it to a clothing store. The easiest way this is done is by reversing
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all the way there in Ryder's car. This works because the ending of the cutscene is actually triggered by specifically accelerating the car. So, if we we instead, the cutscene won't end. Once we get inside the shop, which doesn't load
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since we are technically still in a cutscene, we head to the change room to bring up the apparel menu. Once it's open, we can now hit the left mouse or space, which is the accelerate button, which will progress the cutscene we
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avoided ending earlier, and will teleport us to the cemetery where the mission starts, despite the world clearly not being loaded in yet. Now, here is where it gets really tough.
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While in this void world, or interior world as the runners like to call it, we need to navigate to a 24/7 shop only to enter the store and then immediately leave so the world can load in properly.
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You'll notice that the Binco clothing interface is still open, and we need it to keep that way while we get into a car and head back to Grove Street. The way we do this is by holding the accelerate
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button and never letting go, and using the brake as our only tool for navigating back to the Grove. We now need to grab an NRG-500 from the garage and park it in a very specific spot so CJ can enter it easily later. We leave
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the bike where it is and immediately head to the nearest dance club and start the dance mini game. Immediately press enter in order to leave the apparel window and gain control of CJ while still in the mini game, similar to what
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we did with the cutscene earlier. Now, we walk back to Big Smoke's house and start the mission Just Business from the original or main script. While on our way back, we will receive a phone call that details the mechanics of the gym
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system within the game, which will briefly play a cutscene of the gym at the same time. In the game's code, it internally teleports CJ to the gym while this cutscene is playing, though we aren't supposed to see it. So, if we
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answer a phone call at the exact frame that it's starting, it will warp us to the gym exactly where we parked our bike. You need to then immediately get on the NRG we parked earlier and head towards the Grove to hit the Just
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Business marker once again. But, this has to be done before the cutscene for the gym ends. Even done as fast as possible, you only have about a third of a second left to spare. And if you miss it, you have to go all the way back to
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the step when we saved at the Jefferson safehouse. But, given that it worked, the gym's cutscene ends and the phone call will give you control of CJ for good now, so you just need to start Just Business once again. Now, this might
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sound confusing, but stay with me here. Thanks to starting Big Smoke in the duplicated script a few steps back and now starting Just Business again on the main script, the game is technically running two missions at the same time,
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entering a very confused state which allows us to complete the final step. And if you've completed every step correctly up until this point, you can now blow up Ryder's car to fail the mission. And if your game didn't crash,
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you will jump ahead to the last mission of the game, successfully completing GTA San Andreas in under 30 minutes.
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Despite how confusing this was, it is undeniably one of the most revolutionary discoveries ever made for GTA San Andreas speedrunning. And it makes sense that it would see a lot more competition than the previous two versions with the
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world record now being set at 32 minutes and 3 seconds set by Kris Evl.
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So, what was 10 years in the making is now finally complete as of 2026.
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If you guys did enjoy, make sure to leave a like and subscribe and consider becoming a member. You get every video early and it really helps out the channel. If you guys would like to see how Vice City can be completed in under
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8 minutes, leave a comment down below. I hope you all enjoyed and I'll see you all in the next one. Peace.
Topics:GTA San Andreasspeedrunningarbitrary script executionAJS glitchany percentPoudiNetJoshimasgame glitchesmission skippingvideo game speedrun
