The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles

Base game 1.0.0 (v0), with its DLC 010036E00FB21001. SDK 10.4.1. Capcom's MT Framework on NVN. Modules main, subsdk0 (the SDK's movie module, NintendoSDK_movie, whose extractor runs natively while the host decodes the H.264 movies with VideoToolbox) and sdk; subsdk0 and sdk are the same builds as Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp's (0100300012F2A000). Plays on the iPhone; 30 fps, as the game paces itself.

What it needs

Rendering

• Upper-left window origin, depth mode near = 0, a 1920x1080 RGBA8 swapchain; the game asks for present interval 1 and paces itself at 30 fps. Mario's binding layout (combined textures at 0x20 + 8 × slot, slots 0–2).
• Resolved: black screen at boot, with the draws of a dialog box in the pass dump (sampling 256x256 and 1024x256 textures of format 0x4d). No texture had been uploaded from guest memory (packaged textures: first uploads 0), and DM_NVN_TEXINFO=1024x256 showed storage that already held data at first use (226,555 of 262,144 bytes non-zero): no packaged layout, block-linear, in a 1000 MB CPU_CACHED | GPU_CACHED | COMPRESSIBLE pool (flags 0xa4). A log of the pool flushes, texture creations and file reads (temporary lines under DM_NVN_LOG) showed how they are filled: every .tex is read into staging buffers (512 KB ReadFiles, none into the pool), and the CPU copies the texels into the texture's storage after nvnTextureInitialize, with no nvnMemoryPoolFlushMappedRange over them and no WriteTexels; only the four linear 1024x64 text textures are flushed, every frame. main has no cache maintenance instruction at all, so there is no flush for the host to take as the signal. With tex_dirty_upload a registered texture whose pages the CPU writes after creation is uploaded at its first use (as for FINAL FANTASY TACTICS - The Ivalice Chronicles, 010038B015560000).
• Resolved: court-record pictures black, or showing the previous item (reported on the Japanese release, 0100D7F00FB1A000, GitHub issue #568). Some BC1 images are written into their storage before nvnTextureInitialize, which tex_dirty_upload does not see: the court record's evidence and profile pictures, and the chapter title cards. For the next item, the game writes the new picture into the same storage and builds a new texture object over it. These are now CPU-written at first use: Block-compressed storage the CPU wrote before first use. Nobody has checked yet whether the Western release shows the court-record problem.

Services

• Resolved: the first boot crashed in oe::DisableAlbumImageTakenNotification (a null read at sdk+0x338070, the first call in nnMain, main+0x6b188c: the SDK asks am through the applet proxy the host never made).
• The import list against the hooks (nso_syms.py, then main's undefined nn:: symbols no HLE_FORCE names) gave the rest before they were met:
  • oe::IsInStoreDemoModeEnabled (no);
  • vi::ListDisplays (one display, "Default"; the game lists 10 into a stack buffer and does not read them, main+0x808f08);
  • fs::RenameDirectory (as RenameFile);
  • account::StoreSaveDataThumbnailImage / DeleteSaveDataThumbnailImage (nothing kept);
  • the ec::ShowShop… overloads without an ApplicationId (the calling application's own pages);
  • friends::StartFacedFriendRequest / StartSendingFriendRequest (fail);
  • ngc::ProfanityFilter::MaskProfanityWordsInText(int *, char *, uint32_t), SetMaskMode and Finalize, which this game calls by name rather than through the vtable.
• The touch-screen states (GetTouchScreenState<16>) were already hooked by a macro the import table does not see.
• Two NVN calls were red stubs: nvnDeviceSetIntermediateShaderCache and nvnCommandBufferDiscardColor (a discarded target is undefined, so keeping its content is correct). After that it ran its frame loop at 30 fps; the black screen it showed was its textures (above).
• Add-on content: index 1 (DLC.dlcp); the game reports it found and added to Special Contents.

Files and shaders

• Everything is under nativeNXx64/: 447 ARC archives (*.arc, 17,910 files; version 7, one zlib stream per file) of models (.mod / .mrl), textures (.tex), scripts and messages (.gmd), beside loose .tex textures, Opus / ADPCM sound and 24 H.264 .mp4 movies (shader_split.py mtarc_members; 01). romfs_marker is nativeNXx64/sa/NX_64/root.arc.
• Shaders: 460 (230 vertex, 230 pixel) in the engine's one shader package, sc\NX_64\root (SPK\0, type hash 0x02358e1a) in nativeNXx64/sa/NX_64/root.arc (shader_split.py mtspk_shaders). All build and every binding decodes. The package's own vertex / pixel combinations are not read, so the vertex shaders are paired with the single-stage cover. CustomShaderPackage.mfx (MFX\0, the effect descriptions) holds no shader code, and neither main nor any other ARC entry does.

Status on the Mac

• The first-boot notices (the DLC found, auto-save), the title and its Options, a new game of The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures, the opening movie, the first episode's opening scenes and its trial, at 30 fps with sound and saves; about 1.1 GB resident, flat over 14 minutes (1.07 GB in the first episode's holding cell).

Mac routes

• DM_KEYS="f700:A*1000/24" (A every 24 frames) goes through the notices, the title and a new game into the opening movie; the first episode's dialogue starts at about frame 6,000 and its trial at about 20,000.

Found on this game

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

• CPU-written textures with no flush (tex_dirty_upload): CPU writes with no flush, caught by page protection, key in dm/games/README.md.
• Block-compressed textures written before their first use: Block-compressed storage the CPU wrote before first use.
• The MT Framework ARC and SPK readers (mtarc_members, mtspk_shaders): SPK shader package in an MT Framework ARC.
• SDK 10 calls found from the import list, nvnDeviceSetIntermediateShaderCache and nvnCommandBufferDiscardColor: services.md, NVN calls that were red stubs.