Drew T
f8bf50d8c0
12 reader agents over 172 substantial agent findings from waves P and Q; 16 survived their novelty
filter; merging duplicates and dropping what §174-§178 already own left EIGHT levers. The
synthesizer re-read every gcc/maspsx/masked_diff citation and corrected three wrong line numbers
inline; I independently re-verified two of them (loop.c:3500 `src = SET_SRC (bl->init_set)`,
valid_initial_value_p at :3509, bl->initial_value at :3511; and maspsx's tab-literal `.set\t` test
at __init__.py:844-848) -- both exact.
A. A loop-walked pointer PARAMETER hands its argument register to the giv (9 byte-proofs).
record_initial records assign_parms' own incoming-argument copy as the biv's init_set, so
emit_iv_add_mult re-references the HARD register in the preheader, extending $aN's live range
and costing the parameter its hard-reg tie. Fix: body-local copy, or an identity re-tie whose
ASM_OPERANDS SET_SRC makes valid_initial_value_p refuse. Explicitly paired with §70, which
documents the SAME chain used in the opposite direction.
B. The hand-written-asm transcription checklist (10 byte-proofs): `.set` needs a literal TAB or
maspsx never updates is_reorder and re-nops every branch; `.ent` does not update it either;
displacements must be DECIMAL (bare int() before the range check); maspsx's LOAD-delay nop is
UNCONDITIONAL, so you manage branch-delay nops and must NOT manage load-delay ones; internal
labels need a `.L` prefix or masked_diff truncates the function at the stray symtab entry.
Also flags a real CONFLICT with the banked trampoline rules and gives the A/B to resolve it.
C-H. No-epilogue functions must be file-scope __asm__; gte_stflg must clobber $12; a
>2*MAX_MOVE_BYTES copy is a struct assignment; pinning a walked pointer disables strength
reduction entirely; a pin can CREATE a combine LOG_LINK (n=1, marked as such); a mid-body
.global pair slices a byte-comparable fragment.
Ends with a "considered and NOT banked" list -- including a softened claim where the reader's
derivation was not traced line-by-line, and a corrected symbol typo. Nothing silently dropped.
Cookbook 554 -> 564 sections.
BFM-decomp
A matching decompilation of Brave Fencer Musashi (PlayStation, SLUS-00726, USA 1998) — the first public decompilation effort for this game.
What "matching" means
The goal is C source code that, compiled with the original-era toolchain (PsyQ 4.x / GCC 2.7.2-family + ASPSX via maspsx), produces a byte-for-byte identical SLUS_007.26 and, eventually, byte-identical overlay binaries. SHA1 checksums are the ground truth; "functionally equivalent" does not count.
No ROM content
This repository contains no game assets, no disassembly output, and no ROM-derived data — only source code, build configuration, symbol names/addresses, hashes, and documentation. To build or contribute you must provide your own dump of the game disc (4-track BIN/CUE, redump layout). See .gitignore for the firewall.
Project status
Latest (Phase 19, 2026-06-20): the project builds 136 binaries byte-identical from a clean tree (the EXE + the resident engine + all 134 location overlays);
make check-all→ 136/136. Fleet byte-identical-from-source is 58.0% (function-instance-weighted; see the PhaseEnds for the byte-weighted ~30% figure and what it includes). Shared engine functions are matched once inov_SC01_077and propagated ×134 viatools/dedup_propagate.py. (The narrative below is Phase-11/12-era; a full refresh is part of the public-flip prep.)
Gen1 (foundation) complete — the matching pipeline is proven end-to-end. make extract && make build && make check rebuilds SLUS_007.26 byte-for-byte identical (SHA1 143dbb89…) from C + assembly, reproducibly across many sessions.
- Compiler pinned by evidence:
gcc-2.7.2-psx -O2 -G0 -mips1 -mcpu=3000+maspsx --aspsx-version=2.56 --expand-div. - 52 functions hand-matched to byte-identical machine code — including the LZSS streaming decompressor — with a decomp-permuter + matching-cookbook "flywheel" to accelerate the next.
- 959 PsyQ SDK functions linked byte-identical (libcd, libgs, libgte, libspu/libsnd, libgpu, libc2, libmcrd, libapi/libcard, libetc) straight from the real PsyQ 4.0 libraries instead of re-decompiling them — bringing byte-identical-from-source coverage of the EXE to ~50%.
- File-loader / overlay system reverse-engineered, with the resident engine blob + location overlays' load addresses proven byte-identical against a live PCSX-Redux RAM dump.
About half the EXE is still INCLUDE_ASM stubs (correct bytes, not yet C), and the bulk of the game lives in compressed overlays inside the .CD archives — Gen2 (overlays & engine at scale) is underway:
- The build toolchain is binary-agnostic (one parameterized pipeline builds any binary), and the always-resident engine blob rebuilds byte-for-byte from source (SHA1
8e17e02f…) — the second binary reconstructed exactly, after the EXE — and is now 86% hand-matched C (123 / 146 functions, up from 0): its scripting turned out to be compiled-MIPS state/mode dispatch, not a bytecode VM, and the save-file + sound (SQV) formats are documented. The harvest used a reusable swarm-of-agents + bit-for-bit byte-gate method (a wrong match can't be accepted) —tools/harvest_verify.py+tools/match_one.py, which carry straight into the overlay phase. - A cross-binary deduplication pipeline is live: a Ghidra-free signer fingerprints all 134 location overlays, and the report finds ~9,000 byte-identical function groups shared across binaries (~28 MB of collapsible code) — a single engine function is byte-identical in all 134 overlays. This is "one match unlocks many": each engine match will be auto-credited across the overlay fleet.
Current phase and detailed progress live in phase-ends/ (newest PhaseEnd_*.md = current state); methodology, rules, and the full roadmap are in PROJECT_CONTEXT.md; environment setup in docs/SETUP.md.
This project is developed primarily by Claude Code driving Ghidra through an MCP server; see CLAUDE.md.
License
Private repository for now. AGPL-3.0 is planned at public release, modeled on sotn-decomp. tools/brave-CUE/ is CUE's BRAVE extractor (GPL, source included) and retains its own license.