tl;dw: The old record was 9.91 seconds -- or 9 seconds, according to the way the game's timer rounds down. The new record is 8.97 seconds. DOOM, like many older

tl;dw: The old record was 9.91 seconds -- or 9 seconds, according to the way the game's timer rounds down. The new record is 8.97 seconds. DOOM, like many older games, calculated forward-speed and strafe-speed separately, allowing a player to strafe diagonal run faster than the maximum official forward-speed. The key innovation was "SR50" -- a glitch that allows the player to strafe at full speed (50, instead of the normal 40) by pressing both strafe mode keys at the same time. The drawback is that it's impossible to turn while strafing like this. So basically, the speedrunner grinded enough to find the right combo of RNG in which he could strafe-run without colliding into enemies.