Pokémon Violet

Base game 1.0.0 (v0), SDK 13.3.5, Game Freak's Trinity engine on NVN. Pokémon Scarlet's twin (0100A3D008C5C000): the same sdk (3644a676…) and subsdk0 (d0f13015…, Nintendo's movie module) builds, byte for byte; only main is a build of its own (959ed651…, Scarlet's is ca44e7dd…). Everything in Scarlet's note about the engine, memory, shaders, pipeline preparation and its open items holds here; this note gives only what differs or was checked again. The profile is Scarlet's with Violet's title, name, IPA name, build row and shader tables. Playable on the Mac: language, look and name selection, the academy settings, the opening, the Paldea flyover, getting up in the bedroom, walking, camera control, the main menu and autosave, and reloading that save. iPhone testing is pending; no IPA has been built yet. Only 1.0.0 is registered. The NSP folder also holds update 4.0.0 (v786432), so build with scripts/build_ipa_from_nsp.py <NSP folder> -k <prod.keys> -p v0 (add --platform mac for a Mac build); without -p the builder takes the newest version and derives a profile without these checks.

What it needs

The same keys as Scarlet's profile, for the same reasons (Scarlet, Memory): the alias region for the host's StandardAllocator cap, mem_map_limit on for the startup probe of all allocatable memory, depth_mode zero for the game's near = 0 depth mode, and pad_layout full. The 62 MB node-area cut and the alignment of large regions come with the sdk build (dm/tools/sdk_patches.py and the SDK-wide rule). No host code is keyed to either game's main.

No patches.py.

Files and shaders

• The base NSP extracts cleanly: 24 RomFS files, 6,369.2 MB, with the same layout as Scarlet's (arc/data.trpfs is the romfs_marker). The supplied DLC is a licence-only NSP, as for Scarlet.
• Shaders: 30,142 (14,999 vertex, 15,057 pixel, 86 compute; 40 in main), the same as Scarlet's. The split's tables (shader_map.tsv, shader_facts.tsv, shader_pairs.tsv, pso_pairs.tsv) have the same data rows as Scarlet's, byte for byte; only the map's header note differs. The prewarm list is Scarlet's (it names shaders by content key).
• Chain b3ca4b7c621f: all 30,142 translate and compile for the Mac, with no undecoded bindings. Each shader's cache key covers the profile, so Violet's build translates every shader again; with DMSH_PREFILL naming Scarlet's Mac library root, 19,949 Metal libraries were filled from Scarlet's build. The offline pipeline prebuild built 24,481 bases from 24,487 pairs (6 left to the draws, 0 failed) in 28 minutes.

Performance

• On the Mac, with the build's pipeline archive: 30 fps as on the Switch (frame time p50 33.33 ms, p95 under 34 ms) through character selection, the opening and the bedroom; resident memory up to 4.7 GB, GPU allocations about 1.6 GB. The only red line is the conservative-raster dilation diagnostic, as on Scarlet.
• Open, not reproduced: one frame of the first gameplay run took 42.5 s (frame 12,047, 454 s in), with 71 ms of submit and present and 11 ms of GPU time in it: the process waited rather than worked. It followed a covered window and a drawable resize to 2560x1440 in the same run, and overlapped another session's game host. Three later reload runs (frames 1,500 to 8,700) show nothing like it: worst frame 271 ms, worst p95 34.6 ms.

Mac routes

• The work folder's run/boot.sh <name> [seconds] [VAR=value ...] runs the build headless with its own host copy (build/vihost), the build's pipeline archive (DM_PSO_ARCHIVE, the _build/run/pso_archive the NSP script prebuilt; without it a run from another folder prebuilds 24,487 pairs again before the first frame) and DM_PRESENT_LINK=0. Without the latter, a window covered mid-run presents about once a second and the game ran at about 12 fps.
• A fresh save reaches the bedroom with Scarlet's route: DM_KBD=Taylor and DM_KEYS="f300:A,f600:LUp+LLeft~0.3,f660:A,f1000:A,f1300:A*90/90,f10300:LDown~2". It picks a different look than on Scarlet. The flyover plays around present frame 6,000, the get-up prompt around 9,900, and the player stands in the bedroom from about 10,600.
• run/save_ref is the autosave from that route; it loads at the desk. Then DM_KEYS="f300:A*5/150" gets up; the left stick walks, the right stick turns the camera, X opens the main menu.
• Observed, not a fault: holding the right stick toward the wall by the bed turns the camera into the wall: about 90 frames (3 s) are black (the void behind the room set) with the wall's lit edge at the right, while the "Now saving" overlay keeps drawing, and the camera comes back when the player moves. This looks like the game's own camera collision; it has not been compared with a Switch.

Open

• iPhone gameplay, device memory and touch controls are untested; no IPA has been built. Build its iOS shaders with Scarlet's iOS libraries as prefill (DMSH_PREFILL=<Scarlet Mac root>=<Scarlet iOS root>) when they are on disk.
• Update 4.0.0 (v786432) is in the NSP folder but not registered. Scarlet's 4.0.0 copy was damaged (Scarlet, Files and builds); whether Violet's is intact has not been checked.
• Outdoor exploration and battles have not been validated, as on Scarlet.
• Conservative rasterization is unimplemented, as on Scarlet.

Found on this game

Nothing new: the findings are Scarlet's (Found on this game).