Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

Base game 1.0.0 (v0), SDK 13.3.0, with the Bonus Content add-on (add-on index 1: songs and backgrounds, unlocked at the first boot). Capcom's RE Engine on NVN, Wwise audio, Havok. Modules main, subsdk0 (the SDK's movie library, NintendoSDK_movie 13.3.0) and sdk. Plays on the iPhone (IPA 3.0 GB).

On the Mac, from a fresh save: the opening movies, the language screen, the first-boot notices, save creation, the Bonus Content notices, Chapter 1's opening in the junkyard (the Ghost World, moving between cores, the first trick on the crossing gate, the portraits and dialogue). A second boot loads that save and reaches the title menu. 60 fps (frame interval p99 about 17–19 ms), about 2.3 GB resident and flat after the first scenes, CPU about a quarter of a core (0.3–0.6 W); no red line on that route.

What it needs

The provisional profile's guesses held; the two texture keys were added after the first boot.

No fps_target: the game runs at 60 on the Switch. No pad_layout: the virtual gamepad starts in the default 2D layout.

Files and shaders

• One RE Engine PAK, re_chunk_000.pak (2.66 GB), and natives/NSW/runtime.args. romfs_marker is re_chunk_000.pak.
• Current: 7,744 shaders from the PAK's SDF definitions and main (3,731 pixel, 1,559 vertex, 2,401 compute, 20 geometry, 15 hull, 18 domain) and 8,530 pairs (SDF definitions in RE Engine PAKs). 7,739 built on chain dec5ee141a9f; the other 5 are compute shaders that do atomics on a 3D image (16a78d0fd09ccc18, 33559ae5667779fe, 7c65836255e05a87, a838b76ccc822be7, ecef686222a38548), which SPIRV-Cross's MSL 2.3 emulation indexed with an int3 (array subscript is not an integer), as Octopath Traveler 0's 16. With native image atomics all 5 build (a build of those keys on chain 0ce4b5e8aefb, 2026-10-27; 33559ae5667779fe is a compare-and-swap): Image atomics. The whole library was not rebuilt and none of the 5 was requested in the runs above (a missing one prints a [RED] failed to load shader line).
• PR #138 (not merged) built them by flattening the coordinate in dmsh_build.py (x + width × (y + height × z) into the atomics pointer); that is a change of the chain, so every game's libraries would be rebuilt. It is left out until a run of this game requests one of them.

Movies and audio

• The opening logos are H.264 (1280×720) into an NVN texture with PCM sound, through subsdk0 (H.264 into an RGBA texture and AAC through AudioToolbox).
• Wwise opens one 6-channel AudioOut. A muted run with DM_AUDIO_DUMP had sound under the logos; the language screen is silent.

Input

• The pad. In the Ghost World the D-pad (or the left stick) stretches the soul toward a core while held; Right+Up~3 from Sissel's body reaches the crossing gate in the first scene. A tricks.

Mac routes

• The work folder's run/boot.sh <log> [secs] VAR=… runs build/ghosthost (a renamed copy of dmhost) with the DLC folder; run/ctl.sh, run/step.sh and run/see.sh (a step plus a 640-wide copy of the shot) drive a run started with DM_CTL. run/save_ref is the save right after the first-boot notices (language English, Bonus Content unlocked, no chapter saved).
• From a fresh save the language screen is up about 35 s after the boot: A (English), A (Next), LRight~0.2 and A (Next on the privacy notice), A (create save data), A (autosave notice), then about nine A for the Bonus Content notices, which start Chapter 1.
• In Chapter 1: about 63 A through the opening dialogue, Right~0.3 and Right+Up~3 to the crossing gate's core, then A through the dialogue and A for the trick.

iPhone

• Plays (user, IPA 3.0 GB with the autorelease fix). The first IPA (A20 Pro, before that fix) logged the boot, the opening movies and save creation at 60 fps (frame interval p99 about 18 ms), no red line, 4.2 GB of headroom to the system memory limit at frame 1200, and the same freed-but-alive pools as the Mac.

Memory

• Resolved: 125 to 146 finalized memory pools stayed alive (freed but alive in the memory line: 6.6 to 8.7 GB of zero-copy buffers, so "GPU allocated" read 9.9 to 11.7 GB against 2.2 GB resident). The game frees large pools while it loads its first scenes, and the host's weak-table bookkeeping of freed pools left each buffer in the finalizing thread's autorelease pool, which never drains (Finalized pool buffers kept by a guest thread's autorelease pool). Now 0, and GPU allocated 2.9 GB in Chapter 1; resident memory unchanged.

Found on this game

General host changes first needed here; each applies to every game:

• Autorelease pools around the pool and residency bookkeeping (mtl_pool_del, res_add_at, res_remove): Finalized pool buffers kept by a guest thread's autorelease pool.

Open

• The chapter autosave was not reached in the runs above (the save files kept their first-boot contents through the junkyard tutorial).