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Erick Sanchez cca4cd61ff Unify guided installation and Apple account screens with shared design system
2026-10-27 17:42:59 -06:00
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01-extract.md
Bayonetta (010076F0049A2000, update 1.1 = v65536, PlatinumGames' engine in its Wii U form on SDK 3.6.0, as Bayonetta 2): game profile, no host change. Plays on the iPhone (IPA 8.8 GB, user). Same sdk and subsdk0 builds as Bayonetta 2, so its profile is Bayonetta 2's with its own build row and tables, and the CPK reader and the two NVN fixes made for Bayonetta 2 cover it. On the Mac from a fresh save: the boot, the opening movie (USM; Plus skips it), the title and its attract demo, a new game (PLAY, NEW GAME, the auto-save notice, Normal), the prologue on the falling clock tower, the graveyard cutscene (skipped), the touch-controls tips, the practice tutorial (punch, kick, combos, evade, Witch Time), the graveyard fight of Verse 1 with Witch Time, its autosave and the next loading screen's practice, with CRI ADX2 sound through one 6-channel AudioOut and no red line: 60 fps in play (frame time p50 16.65 ms, p95 17.1-17.5 ms; GPU 2-4 ms a frame on an M6), 30 in its cutscenes, where the game sets present interval 2; about 2.45 GB resident and 1.54 GB of Metal allocations, flat over 15 minutes. No virtual address memory (a 3.11 GB heap in the 4 GB layout, mem_used 102 MB). Files: nine CRI CPK archives (data00.cpk ... data03.cpk, data10.cpk ... data14.cpk, 4.25 GB) of PlatinumGames DAT archives, beside the USM movies and the ADX2 sound. Shaders: 458 BNSH files of one stage each (236 pixel, 222 vertex), the .vso / .pso members of shader.dat in data00.cpk, all built for the Mac and iOS. Profile: the 3D pad layout (the camera is on the right stick; the touch controls are handheld only), a prewarm list recorded on the Mac over the route above (513 lines). Checked: the NSP script packs it from the NSPs alone (Mac and iOS); the Python tool, gfx and iOS tests pass (test_tbdr_budget with DM_GAME set). README (games gallery, a Mac picture of the graveyard fight), AGENTS.md (59 -> 60), docs/development.md and docs/agents 01 / 03 / 04 say so
2026-10-25 11:03:12 +08:00
02-survey.md
Subsystem references and a symptom index: the failure catalogue of docs/agents/03-bringup.md and the per-title material of docs/agents/04-graphics.md (section 1's container list, section 6 and its "Seen in <game>" subsections) move into docs/reference/, one heading per mechanism: rewriter.md, memory.md, threads.md, services.md, movies.md, audio.md, frame-rate.md, nvn-objects.md, rendering.md (with the Vulkan and OpenGL layers), shaders.md and game-state.md, indexed by docs/reference/README.md. Each entry gives the symptom, the cause, the fix (file and function), the games it was found on (linked to their notes in dm/games/<id>/README.md) and any check, caveat or later change; one mechanism met on several games is one entry. docs/agents/symptoms.md lists every entry's symptom (an assertion, a [RED] line, an abort or crash site, a visible result) with a link to it, 350 lines, generated from the Symptom bullets. 03 keeps the loop and reading the log, and its Failure catalogue section now points to the references, the index and where a new finding goes; 04 keeps sections 1-5 and 7 (the container list is shaders.md's Containers by engine), and section 6 says where each kind of finding is. Facts in the old sections about one game only were checked against that game's note, where they already were. Statements the code no longer matches are marked as history beside the current value (movie output slots: MD_NOUT 64, MD_NOUT_AAC 32, MD_NOUT_VIDEO 16; APP_POOL is the profile key app_pool; Engage's layout is 5 / 4.375 GB; inline uniform updates are deferred by default; scaled copies are drawn), and Tears of the Kingdom joins the node-area entry's build list (issue #70). The game notes, docs/agents/README.md, 02 and 05 link to the exact entries, and so do the comments in nvn_mtl.m (nvnTextureCompare) and hle_audio.c (the RemoteIO buffer) and the provisional-profile note in profile_guess.py. 03 goes from 29,600 to 470 words, 04 from 34,400 to 3,500. Checked: every backticked span, module address, issue / PR number and 16-digit hash of AGENTS.md, development.md, dm/games/README.md and docs/agents/01-05 at 6a06877 (4,600 items) still appears in the repository's Markdown (the same five file patterns as before appear as the full names they stood for), every relative link and heading anchor in the repository's Markdown resolves, and the tool tests pass (the four that need capstone or lz4 in the T7 venv)
2026-10-25 12:31:58 +08:00
03-bringup.md
Subsystem references and a symptom index: the failure catalogue of docs/agents/03-bringup.md and the per-title material of docs/agents/04-graphics.md (section 1's container list, section 6 and its "Seen in <game>" subsections) move into docs/reference/, one heading per mechanism: rewriter.md, memory.md, threads.md, services.md, movies.md, audio.md, frame-rate.md, nvn-objects.md, rendering.md (with the Vulkan and OpenGL layers), shaders.md and game-state.md, indexed by docs/reference/README.md. Each entry gives the symptom, the cause, the fix (file and function), the games it was found on (linked to their notes in dm/games/<id>/README.md) and any check, caveat or later change; one mechanism met on several games is one entry. docs/agents/symptoms.md lists every entry's symptom (an assertion, a [RED] line, an abort or crash site, a visible result) with a link to it, 350 lines, generated from the Symptom bullets. 03 keeps the loop and reading the log, and its Failure catalogue section now points to the references, the index and where a new finding goes; 04 keeps sections 1-5 and 7 (the container list is shaders.md's Containers by engine), and section 6 says where each kind of finding is. Facts in the old sections about one game only were checked against that game's note, where they already were. Statements the code no longer matches are marked as history beside the current value (movie output slots: MD_NOUT 64, MD_NOUT_AAC 32, MD_NOUT_VIDEO 16; APP_POOL is the profile key app_pool; Engage's layout is 5 / 4.375 GB; inline uniform updates are deferred by default; scaled copies are drawn), and Tears of the Kingdom joins the node-area entry's build list (issue #70). The game notes, docs/agents/README.md, 02 and 05 link to the exact entries, and so do the comments in nvn_mtl.m (nvnTextureCompare) and hle_audio.c (the RemoteIO buffer) and the provisional-profile note in profile_guess.py. 03 goes from 29,600 to 470 words, 04 from 34,400 to 3,500. Checked: every backticked span, module address, issue / PR number and 16-digit hash of AGENTS.md, development.md, dm/games/README.md and docs/agents/01-05 at 6a06877 (4,600 items) still appears in the repository's Markdown (the same five file patterns as before appear as the full names they stood for), every relative link and heading anchor in the repository's Markdown resolves, and the tool tests pass (the four that need capstone or lz4 in the T7 venv)
2026-10-25 12:31:58 +08:00
04-graphics.md
Port Xenoblade Chronicles 3 2.2.1
2026-10-27 07:58:05 +08:00
05-debugging.md
Separate scripted input from controller state (#326)
2026-10-27 08:36:37 +08:00
06-dev-loop.md
regress.py usage / impact: which games a change can reach (#329)
2026-10-27 08:50:52 +08:00
07-upstream-maintenance.md
Unify guided installation and Apple account screens with shared design system
2026-10-27 17:42:59 -06:00
README.md
Keep full upstream updates and every game surface synchronized
2026-10-26 20:06:32 -06:00
symptoms.md
Guide device installation with app discovery, account inventory, logs and full IPA mode
2026-10-27 10:51:18 -06:00

README.md

Porting a Switch title: agent guide

These pages are for an agent asked to analyse a Switch NSP and port it with the native-execution approach of this repository and d2r-mobile: the game's own aarch64 code runs natively on Apple hardware, a rewriter patches only the instructions Apple's kernel cannot run, the host replaces Horizon system services, and NVN is reimplemented on Metal.

Everything here was learned on Diablo II: Resurrected (SDK ~12, NVN 53, the original target of d2r-mobile) and Super Mario Bros. Wonder (SDK 16.2.0, NVN 55, this repository; its update 1.2.1 uses SDK 16.2.12), then extended by Fire Emblem Engage (Unity, SDK 12.3.7), Metroid Dread (MercurySteam's engine, SDK 11.4.3) 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim (Vanillaware's engine, SDK 11.4.3, the same sdk and movie module as Dread) Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury (Nintendo EPD's sead / agl engine, SDK 10.4.0, NVN API 53) The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (EPD's sead / ksys engine, SDK 20.5.22, DT_RELR relocations, update 1.9.0), The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (Grezzo's engine on NintendoWare, SDK 8.2.0, lower-left window origin) Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity (Koei Tecmo's KTGL, SDK 9.6.0, RDB archives, shaders as GLSLC outputs) Super Mario Galaxy (a Wii game on NERD's Hagi layer: recompiled PowerPC code, SDK 18.3.5, Vulkan with SPIR-V generated at run time, a 2.9 GB bss), Ace Attorney Investigations Collection (Unity 2022.3 IL2CPP, SDK 17.5.3: the C# file API through the SDK's C library), and the bring-up of Octopath Traveler 0 (Unreal Engine 5, SDK 19.3.13: an AES-encrypted pak, Oodle-compressed shaders that the game's own code decodes on the Mac, its allocator replaced by the host's). Where titles differed, each is given; the next title will differ again, so treat every number below as "measure it, don't assume it".

Page Covers
01-extract.md Keys, NSP → NCA → ExeFS / RomFS, update NSPs, the workspace layout
02-survey.md Static survey of a new title before touching the host: SDK version, imports vs. host hooks, SVCs, instructions to rewrite, NVN surface, data containers, Ghidra / REA setup
03-bringup.md Getting the host to boot the game: the run loop and how to read the log; the failures met so far are in the subsystem references, found through the symptom index
04-graphics.md NVN on Metal for a new title: finding every shader container, shader keys, binding layouts, bindless textures, depth mode, the diagnostic switches; what other titles needed is in the rendering, shaders and NVN objects references
05-debugging.md Recipes: crash reports, lldb scripts, Ghidra headless decompilation, objdump, memory growth, render-pass and texture dumps, on-device diagnostics, offline pipeline link checks
06-dev-loop.md The developer loop: which tool to build, run, debug, measure and check with, CI, and what a pull request needs by what it changes
07-upstream-maintenance.md Updating this fork from upstream main, preserving fork features, synchronizing new games and validating releases
symptoms.md One line per symptom met so far (an assertion, a [RED] line, an abort or crash site, a visible result) → the reference entry that explains it

Ground rules

  • Bring your own files. Keys, NSPs and anything extracted from them stay in the game's work folder ($W = <NSP folder>/<title>-work, next to the NSPs on the user's external drive; the home folder is nearly full), never in the repository, never in a commit, never printed. Print key names and lengths only.
  • Measure, then change. Each fix in this repository started from a concrete observation (a crash address and its decompilation, a census over all shaders, a memory profile). Write the evidence into the code comment next to the fix, the way the existing code does; the next title will need it.
  • Fix the cause, not the symptom. A crash, hang or wrong picture is finished when the reason for it is known and fixed where it arises, not when it stops showing. Follow the bad value back to where it was written and the call back to the semantics the host gets wrong; a stub, skip, clamp, retry or timeout that makes the symptom go away is a workaround, kept only when the cause cannot be fixed and recorded as open (AGENTS.md).
  • One repository, one profile per title. nxnative (first called smbw-mobile) started as a copy of d2r-mobile's generic parts. Title- or SDK-specific constants live in the game profile dm/games/<id>/ (dm/games/README.md). That covers program ID, known builds, modules, address-space partition, NVN driver tables, the shader tables and the app identity. The code reads the profile through game_profile.h (host) or dm/games/game.py (tools). Behaviour that fits only one title's code is gated by that title's build ID (dm_main_build()), never left on for every title. Some things are still built into the translator: the texture / sampler handle bases and the depth mode (see 04). dmsh_build.py refuses a profile whose bases differ from the translator's.
  • Write code comments in English, and start log lines that mark something unimplemented or wrong with [RED] .
  • Test where it runs. The Mac host (dm/host/dmhost) is the development loop; the iOS app reuses the same host and graphics code. Never claim something works on iOS without running it there.

Checklist for a new title

  1. Run scripts/build_ipa_from_nsp.py on the title's NSP folder. With no profile for its title ID, it writes <NSP folder>/<title ID>_survey/survey.md:

    • modules and build IDs, SDK version and components, engine and graphics API markers;
    • RomFS containers;
    • the rewrite-site census and imports vs. host hooks.

    It extracts only the code modules plus a RomFS list for the survey. Unless given --survey-only, it then writes a provisional profile into <NSP folder>/<title ID>_build/profile/<title ID>/, extracts the game, boots it on the Mac until its heap request when it has virtual address memory (the heap check) and packs a best-effort IPA. That profile is the starting point for step 3: the static keys follow rules checked against every profile, the rest are guesses or defaults (dm/games/README.md); the run-time keys (render_cond, tex_flush_upload, core_preempt, …) are the bring-up's to find. For Mac runs, export DM_GAMES_DIR=<NSP folder>/<title ID>_build/profile until the profile moves into dm/games/.

  2. Extract base (and update, if in scope) — 01. Finish the survey — 02. Write down: SDK version, NVN API version, module list, imports the host lacks, SVCs, instruction census, NVN loader pattern, shader containers.

  3. Add a game profile dm/games/<title ID>/game.tsv, named after the base game's title ID (start from 010015100B514000/game.tsv: identity, build rows, modules; keep the memory / NVN values until they are measured) and build the host for it with make -C dm/host GAME=<id>.

  4. Run the rewriter and check its counts against insn_census.py.

  5. Boot on the Mac and iterate (03) until the game reaches its frame loop: look up each failure in the symptom index, which leads to its entry in the subsystem references.

  6. Extract and translate the shaders, find the binding layout by census, and get the first frame — 04.

  7. Check memory over a minute of running (footprint, the host's memory report line); fix growth before moving on.

  8. Input, audio, then the iOS bundle (d2r-mobile's dm/ios, RomFS inside the app).

  9. Test on a phone: an unsigned IPA the user sideloads, switches through env.txt, results through Documents/log.txt (05). Several bugs only showed there (the command-buffer byte and the audio buffer size, pipeline link failures in later levels in 04).

  10. For a game update: extract it over the base game, diff the imports, carry the per-build addresses over, and rebuild the shader tables for both versions (01).

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