# Star Fox (`0400E88025B1A000`)

A Switch 2 game: update v131072, SDK 21.4.4 built for the Switch 2 (`Ounce`), NVN2 with DLSS. A custom engine (its own prefixes: `vfs`, `vrender`, `vjob`, `vscript`, `vspirv`, `veffects`, `vphysics`; project name `eclipse`), with Wwise 2024.1 for audio, Bullet physics and NPLN for online play. Modules `main`, `sdk`, `subsdk0` (the SDK's movie module), `subsdk3` (`nn::camera`); `subsdk1` (the C library) and `subsdk2` (`NintendoSDK_DLSS`) are shipped but `main` imports nothing from them. **Plays on the Mac** (M4 Pro, 48 GB): the title, the prologue cinematic and the tutorial flight, with sound. The tutorial runs at 56 to 60 fps with a 4K screenshot every 4 s and at 60 without them; the cinematic at 30 fps, which looks like the game's own choice (not checked). Scripted input here reached the tutorial's first lesson and worked its options menus; flying under input has not been watched on this Mac (pull request #1259's author reports 7 minutes of it with a controller on an M5 Max). No IPA has been built.

## What it needs

| Setting | Where | Why |
|---|---|---|
| `mem_alias 0x400000000`, `mem_reserve 0x550000000`, `mem_stack 0x10000000`, `app_pool 0x240000000` | [`game.tsv`](game.tsv) | the Switch 2's 9 GB. The alias region mapped up to +8.26 GB of its 16 GB, 6.78 GB at most at once, through the tutorial's start; 8.5 GB resident, 4 GB of it allocated on the GPU |
| `sys_resource 0x1000000` | `game.tsv` | the NPDM declares 16 MB, so virtual address memory is on; `main` never sets a heap |
| `modules main subsdk0 subsdk3 sdk` | `game.tsv` | `main` imports 17 movie functions from `subsdk0` and 19 `nn::camera` functions from `subsdk3`, nothing from `subsdk1` or `subsdk2` |
| `romfs_marker data.zip` | `game.tsv` | the RomFS has two files, and this is the game |
| `zip_store .zip:.metallib` | `game.tsv` | the archive's members are LZ4-compressed already |
| `shader_groups /data.zip=shader` | `game.tsv` | every shader is a member of the archive |

There is no game-specific patch, and only v131072's build row: the base game, v0, has not been run.

## Files

- A NUP container of 30 GB: a base package (v0) and an update package (v131072), each with its own ExeFS and RomFS. Neither package carries a NACP or an icon, so the name comes from the profile, the display version is the placeholder `v131072`, and the app has no icon.
- The RomFS is two files: `data.zip` (14.5 GB) and `veclipse_build.cvar` (a JSON line: `system.is_shipping_build: true`). `main` opens `rom:/data.zip` through its own virtual file system (`vfs.zip.c`): [LZ4-chained zip members behind a VZIP preamble](../../../docs/reference/shaders.md#lz4-chained-zip-members-behind-a-vzip-preamble-and-shader-binaries-of-one-stage). Its 114,154 members are named by a 16-digit hash with no folders or extensions; 92,069 are chained, 22,085 (the Wwise `RIFF` sound files and `BKHD` banks) stored plain.
- `main` is 192 MB of code with 1,036 imports, of which the host and the other modules supply all but two (gRPC thread-local initialisers, `_ZTH…`). No shader is in any code module.

## Shaders

2,856 in [`shader_map.tsv`](shader_map.tsv): 1,483 vertex, 1,305 pixel, 68 compute; 2,828 one per archive member, no task or mesh shaders, and the rest from the two NDSR upscaler networks embedded in `VIPR` containers. All of them translate. A build takes about 4 minutes in all on an M4 Pro. Each member is the engine's shader binary (`_vrender_shader_binary_t`), read as a single-stage program and paired at draw time (`separable_pairs`: 1,480 cover pairs).

## The picture

Docked, every 3D target was 768x432 from the first frame of the title to the tutorial: MetalFX stands in for DLSS at 768x432 to 768x432, the game's NDSR compute networks take that to 1536x864, and the result reaches the 3840x2160 swap chain, whose top-left 1920x1080 holds the picture. The game's own defaults give the reason for the figure, not the cause: `render.dynres_min_scale_x` is 0.5 and `max` 1.0, so 768x432 is the minimum of a 1536x864 base, at 6 to 11 ms of GPU time a frame on the M4 Pro. Segment timestamps (the profile key `gpu_timestamps segment` then, the host's default since) changed nothing, with the GPU's idle gaps still counted. Resolved, the cause of the docked size: the host answered graphics scale tier 1 docked, and the game renders 0.8 times smaller below tier 0 (byte +0xa of its mode event, `main+0xba69970`): 768x432 for its 1920x1080 window where tier 0 gives 960x540, its handheld size. The host now answers tier 0 in both modes ([The graphics scale does not follow the operation mode](../../../docs/reference/services.md#the-graphics-scale-does-not-follow-the-operation-mode)). Peppy's close-up 65 s into the intro has a mean luminance gradient (x1000 at 1080p) of 5.8 in console footage, 5.3 with tier 0 and 4.6 with tier 1. The sizes and gradients were measured on a build of the PR author's fork, not on `main`. Whether a console renders above 960x540 is not known.

## Driving it on the Mac

`python3 scripts/build_ipa_from_nsp.py <folder> --platform mac` builds the Mac shaders and the host and prints the run command. Headless, through `DM_CTL`: the title is up about 40 s after boot and `A` starts the game. The prologue cinematic follows, about 4 minutes on every run (a save holds no progress yet, and skipping it was not tried), then the tutorial's first question, about 300 s after boot: `LDown`, `A` answers no. Shots of the swap chain hold the picture in their top-left quarter. A `shot` takes about 165 ms: a hitch every few seconds in a run that takes them is the shot's.

## Found on this game

- [SDK 21 socket initialization and overloads](../../../docs/reference/services.md#sdk-21-socket-initialization-and-overloads) and [Socket `Poll` and `Select` with nothing to wait on](../../../docs/reference/services.md#socket-poll-and-select-with-nothing-to-wait-on): the game's HTTP thread aborted on a failed `poll`.
- [SDK 21's OutputStream on a virtual output device](../../../docs/reference/audio.md#sdk-21s-outputstream-on-a-virtual-output-device) and [SDK 21's hardware Opus decoder manager](../../../docs/reference/audio.md#sdk-21s-hardware-opus-decoder-manager): its voice and music.
- [GameChat queries from the title screen (SDK 21)](../../../docs/reference/services.md#gamechat-queries-from-the-title-screen-sdk-21): a null read in `nn::chat::GetChattingUid`.
- [The camera commands of SDK 21's own camera module](../../../docs/reference/services.md#the-camera-commands-of-sdk-21s-own-camera-module): the game's own camera module, a console with no camera plugged in.
- [sRGB textures loaded and stored raw through an image](../../../docs/reference/rendering.md#srgb-textures-loaded-and-stored-raw-through-an-image): the pale picture with grey blacks (the upscaler network's encoded store was encoded again); measured on a build of our fork, not on `main`.
- [A GPU copy into a texture uploaded from its storage uploaded all of it again](../../../docs/reference/nvn-objects.md#a-gpu-copy-into-a-texture-uploaded-from-its-storage-uploaded-all-of-it-again): 7.6 s and 10 s frames at the prologue's scene changes; measured on a build of our fork, not on `main`.
- [The graphics scale does not follow the operation mode](../../../docs/reference/services.md#the-graphics-scale-does-not-follow-the-operation-mode): the 768x432 scene docked; measured on a build of the PR author's fork, not on `main`.
- [The DLSS network resized](../../../docs/reference/rendering.md#the-dlss-network-resized): `nvnDlssNetworkResize`.
- [TXD through a uniform register kept no handle](../../../docs/reference/shaders.md#txd-through-a-uniform-register-kept-no-handle): 281 pixel shaders, the fur shells among them.
- [A handle pair ORed sampler word first](../../../docs/reference/shaders.md#a-handle-pair-ored-sampler-word-first): 62 pixel shaders.
- [NVN2 compute's separate handles in c\[0\]](../../../docs/reference/shaders.md#nvn2-computes-separate-handles-in-c0): `1002069a331ceded`, dispatched in the prologue.
- [Ampere BMSK and the read of a covered pixel](../../../docs/reference/shaders.md#ampere-bmsk-and-the-read-of-a-covered-pixel): the last 3 shaders, `58046f286de779e1`, `46040940ce0fd49b` and `826168691af2e211`, none asked for in play so far.
- [Compute pipelines compiled at first use](../../../docs/reference/shaders.md#compute-pipelines-compiled-at-first-use): 233 compute pipelines in the app's archive, none built at the title.
- [Compute pipelines outside the bundled archive built at every start](../../../docs/reference/shaders.md#compute-pipelines-outside-the-bundled-archive-built-at-every-start): the second headless start took its 8 from the device's archive.

## Open

- [The picture](#the-picture): the 3D stayed at 768x432 docked because the host answered graphics scale tier 1 there; the host now answers tier 0, which gives 960x540 (measured on a build of the PR author's fork, not on `main`). Whether a console renders above that is not known.
- `[RED] DLSS: the game's bias mask (a reactive mask for MetalFX) is not passed on`.
- The game's wake-up eventfd fails (the host refuses `nn::socket::EventFd`), so its HTTP thread polls without a wake-up; harmless offline.
- A `pso_manifest.tsv` has not been recorded; the later levels and combat, and iOS, not tested.
- Mario Kart World 1.8.0 has not been run with the camera answers changed for this game.