ANIMAL WELL

Update 1.0.10 (v655360), SDK 20.5.7, on NVN (46 BNSH shaders). Modules main and sdk. All its assets, the shaders among them, are embedded in main: the program has no RomFS. The standard host and rewriter run this build with no game-specific fix: no shader overrides, rewriter cuts or host changes. Only this update is registered in the profile. The unsigned IPA is confirmed playable on the iPhone.

On the Mac: the opening rooms at 60 fps with movement, jumping and audio; item pickup and pause menus work. One repeat run recovered from an AudioUnit startup timeout through the existing audio restart path.

Regression recording checked (2026-10-28): a full regress.py check --record against 337186cf3ce7 passed on an Apple M4 Pro, macOS 27.2 / Xcode 27.1, and wrote the last green record. Both 100-second runs reached the opening room at 60 fps, all 46 shaders and their MSL stayed unchanged, screenshots matched within tolerance, and neither run logged a [RED] line. Both used DM_PRESENT_LINK=0 to control the window-occlusion effect described below. One game covers the harness's recording path; this change does not alter the host or shader chain.

What it needs

Files

• Both the base and the update Program NCAs have no data section. The assets live in main, whose read-only segment is about 32 MB.
• Current: nx_extract --romfs-image directly writes a 56-byte DMROMFS1 image (one root entry), with no RomFS directory; survey mode still writes a header-only manifest. It passes the same index validator as a populated image. Since the game keeps its assets in main and does not mount RomFS on the tested opening route, its gameplay check cannot establish populated-image read performance; synthetic filesystem tests cover reads and overlays. See RomFS images.
• Direct extraction checked on 2026-10-27: the NSP pipeline produced AnimalWell-DirectRomFS.ipa (54.6 MiB), with all 46 iOS shaders and exactly one Payload/DmIOS.app/romfs.img entry. Both the extraction and IPA contain no RomFS directory. The archive's CRC check passed. This unsigned IPA has not been tested on an iPhone here.
• Direct extraction regression: PASS. The full 100-second regress.py route against 08b8a3c1ef1c kept all 46 shaders and their MSL unchanged, with no new [RED] lines: 59.5 → 59.7 fps, p99 16.76 → 16.77 ms, peak 980 → 981 MiB. Screenshot differences were 1–3 dHash bits. Both hosts used DM_PRESENT_LINK=0 for the window-occlusion control described below; the report is <NSP folder>/010020D01AD24000-work/regress-direct-extraction/report.md.
• Rechecked after integration with main 4f24ce6489a2: PASS. A fresh 100-second baseline and candidate both ran at 60.0 fps; p99 16.77 → 16.76 ms, peak 997 → 996 MiB, all 46 shaders/MSL unchanged, screenshots within tolerance (2–3 dHash bits), no new [RED] lines. Both used the same diagnostic control and were marked busy by the harness. The report is <NSP folder>/010020D01AD24000-work/regress-romfs-main/report.md. The combined host suite, 347 tool tests, 31 iOS tests, 71 graphics Python tests and the Metal graphics suite passed; the rebuilt unsigned IPA's CRC check passed too.
• Checked on 2026-10-27: Mac runs with the folder and image selected both reached the opening room and passed 2,400 presented frames, with no [RED] lines in the completed comparison runs. Five control-triggered screenshots per input cover the room, pause and resume; all pairs are within the harness's image tolerances (2–6 dHash bits and 0.44–2.71 mean RGB difference out of 255). The folder captures use the windowless path after a busy windowed run missed captures; this establishes picture/boot behavior, not a performance comparison. An initial audio-enabled folder run recovered through the existing AudioUnit restart path. A separate unsigned AnimalWell-RomFS.ipa was built (54.6 MiB), with all 46 iOS shaders; it has not been installed or tested on an iPhone here. The smoke.tsv route uses a fresh save and leaves the character still in the opening room.
• Measurement constraint: a default windowed baseline/candidate comparison reported 59.7 → 27.5 fps and p99 16.75 → 134.53 ms. The candidate logged focus state 2 and display-link callbacks about once per second; the baseline remained active and used the existing silent-link rescue. A reverse-order probe reproduced the slowdown in the unchanged host too. With the existing DM_PRESENT_LINK=0 applied to both hosts as a diagnostic control, both gave 60.0 fps and p99 16.76 ms in the 15-second measured windows. This is the documented occluded Mac display-link behavior; no presentation setting or default was changed by the image implementation. Keep the window visible and foreground for normal timing comparisons. The full multi-game regression remains pending; the attempted run reached Balatro's unsupported OpenGL chain check and began a separate game's 73,330-shader rebuild before this pass was limited to this game.
• Controlled full-route regression: PASS. regress.py check --baseline 08b8a3c1ef1c --games 010020D01AD24000 --no-hud --env DM_PRESENT_LINK=0 compared the baseline with the image implementation for 100 seconds each on an M4 Pro, macOS 27.0.1 / Xcode 27.1. Both built all 46 shaders, with unchanged MSL and no interface failures or new [RED] lines. Baseline → candidate: 59.5 → 59.3 fps, frame p99 16.76 → 17.01 ms, peak footprint 980 → 981 MiB; all three screenshot pairs differ by one dHash bit and mean RGB 0.70–1.13 out of 255. The direct-drawable switch was applied equally to control the window-occlusion effect above; both samples were marked busy by the harness. The report is in <NSP folder>/010020D01AD24000-work/regress-animal-well-direct/.

Shaders

• Current: 46 BNSH shaders embedded in main (1 vertex, 45 pixel), all translated for Mac and iOS by the existing splitter and translator. The prewarm list covers the opening rooms.

Memory

• main has about 537 MB of bss, counted by the existing big-module memory rule.
• During a four-minute Mac run, resident memory stayed near 855 MB and Metal allocations at 159 MB.

Found on this game

• An empty RomFS for a program without a data section (nx_extract; an empty romfs_marker checks the directory itself): dm/games/README.md.
• An empty RomFS image: RomFS images.
• Resolved: --platform mac-app stopped at the pipeline archive (pso_offline: no base to build) because the profile's shader_pairs.tsv holds no pair; a pair list with no pair is now nothing to build and the app is packed without an archive: Offline pipeline archive reuse and fallback (GitHub issue #338).

Open

• Save and reload are unverified: the test did not reach a save checkpoint.
• The bss is 536 MB in game.tsv's comment and about 537 MB in the bring-up notes (Memory).
• The player-facing README lists the games that start in the 2D layout and says the others start in 3D; ANIMAL WELL is not in that list, but its profile has pad_layout simple (2D).