Persona 5 Royal (`01005CA01580E000`)

Update 1.0.2 (v65536) over the base game, SDK 13.3.2. Atlus GFD / Needle on NVN, with CRI middleware. Modules main, subsdk0 (NintendoSDK_movie) and sdk.

Current: opening casino gameplay tested on Mac with the complete shader library. The unsigned 1.0.2 IPA is built (15,969,549,546 bytes, about 14.9 GiB). iOS and later battles have not been tested.

What it needs

Setting	Where	Why
`mem_reserve 0x100000000`, `mem_alias 0x10000000`, `mem_stack 0x10000000`, `app_pool 0xCD500000`	`game.tsv`	the NPDM declares no system resource; the game sets a heap in the existing 4 GB layout
`mem_used 0x4c00000`	`game.tsv`	the rewritten modules require 76 MB, exceeding the default 64 MB deducted from the pool
`pad_layout full`	`game.tsv`	movement and camera use both sticks

Rendering

Resolved: the first boot trapped in SetupSurfaceInfoMemoryInside, at main+0x1028fbc, asserting ctx.memorySize <= localmemsetupinfo.memorySize. A 16x16 RGBA8 texture with flags 0x44 (IMAGE | LINEAR_RENDER_TARGET) and stride 128 received only 1 KB from the host; the game independently calculated 2 KB. The general fix is linked below. No executable cut is needed.
Resolved: the casino clears only alpha on a 1920x1080 RGBA8 texture (mask 0x8). The general partial-channel texture clear implementation preserves RGB and supports explicit regions; no game-specific override is needed.

Files and builds

CPK/ALL_USEU.CPK contains 94,631 files, 74,521 CRILAYLA-compressed; CPK/PATCH1.CPK contains one USM movie. The host reads the archives through the game's own CRI file system.
The available release supports English, French, German, Spanish and Italian language codes. The build defaults to American English.
Only the merged update is extracted and registered. Fixed addresses in this note refer to main build d4b150b29a931cd381e2a30318fc299f.

Shaders

Resolved: the initial split found no shaders. NEEDLE HNSHV002 containers hold 228 shader records in main and 30,418 in nine GSC files inside ALL_USEU.CPK. The descriptor-based reader extracts 30,646 unique keys: 29,526 pixel, 1,114 vertex and 6 compute, with 3,342 single-stage cover pairs.
All 13 shader control/code pairs captured during startup match the extracted package bytes and keys (8 from main, 5 from GSC files).
Resolved: all 30,646 keys translated successfully for both Mac and iOS, producing 27,501 variants. The full libraries use chain dec5ee141a9f and profile-input stamp f53e8a12f4ad; there are no unfillable driver reads or undecoded bindings. Final Mac gameplay validation loaded this full stamped library on base 7a3b958. The port was subsequently integrated onto c3a0880, whose upstream image-atomic changes advance the chain to 467efdfd0b62; the affected Metal regression tests were rebuilt and passed there, but a full game shader rebuild and gameplay replay on that chain have not been performed. The existing IPA remains the validated earlier-chain build.

Testing and running

On 2026-10-25, update 1.0.2 was tested on an M4 Pro Mac with Metal API validation enabled. Boot, startup movies, title and language menus, opening dialogue, and casino gameplay rendered. Movement, camera control and the first two platform jumps were exercised. The full-library run exceeded 35 minutes without a crash, missing shader or Metal validation error. Recent casino frame-time windows measured p50 33.33 ms and p95 33.36 ms (about 30 fps); occasional longer frames occurred during the run. Resident memory was about 1.9 GB and GPU allocations about 1.75 GB. This is an opening-sequence check, not a full playthrough.

Build with scripts/build_ipa_from_nsp.py pointed at the NSP folder and the local keys file. The output is Persona5Royal.ipa; it contains no code signature or provisioning profile. For Mac testing use the generated <title ID>_build/tools/dmhost and patched_v65536, with DM_ROOT set to the build directory, DM_ROMFS to extract/v65536/RomFS, DM_MSL_DIR to shader/cache, and DM_FONT_DIR to font. Set DM_NVN_SHMAP to this profile's shader_map.tsv, DM_LANG=en-US, and writable DM_SAVE / DM_TEMP directories under the NSP folder. See the control-file recipe for DM_CTL.

Choose offline mode at the network prompt, then New Game and English voices. Advance the opening dialogue; Plus shows and confirms movie skipping. In the casino, the left stick moves, the right stick controls the camera, and A jumps at marked platform edges.

Found on this game

Linear render-target storage without the LINEAR flag: sizing, row pitch and deswizzle eligibility must all recognize LINEAR_RENDER_TARGET independently.
Needle shader containers in main and GFD archives: descriptor-based extraction of NVN control/code sections.
Texture clears with partial channel masks or regions: a load/store draw applies the requested write mask and rectangle.

Open

Rebuild the complete game libraries and host on the current upstream chain, then repeat gameplay validation.
Test battles, later story scenes and save/load over a longer playthrough.
SetRenderEnableConditional still reports that the host draws unconditionally. No visual failure was identified in the tested opening; conditional rendering remains unvalidated.
Device validation remains for the user after sideloading.

5.6 KiB Raw Blame History

Persona 5 Royal (01005CA01580E000)