A misconfigured overlay_autocompile_cmd silently degrades an entire session to
the interpreter. The diagnosis machinery for this already existed and was good
— autocompile_report_broken_once() fires after 3 consecutive failures and
explains exactly what to check — but it writes to fprintf(stdout), and the
shipped runtime links -mwindows: a GUI-subsystem binary with no console. The
warning is emitted into nothing on precisely the builds people run.
Observed cost: a fresh worktree ran 100% interpreted for a whole session
(runs=8 fails=8 shard_ok=0, dispatch_native=0) because game.toml named a
recompiler path the documented build recipe does not produce. The only symptom
was "it feels slow", and it invalidated a performance A/B before anyone thought
to query the counters by hand.
Three changes:
- Validate the command's path arguments at CONFIGURE time. The existing check
resolves only the first token (the interpreter); it never looked at
--recompiler, which is the argument that actually breaks — it is hardcoded
per-title and disagrees with where the recipe builds. Paths now resolve
against the child's working directory and are checked before any compile is
attempted, rather than the truth emerging after three failed spawns.
Advisory, not fatal: the runtime still runs exactly as before, just not
silently.
- Record WHY in one string, exposed as degraded/degraded_reason in
autocompile_status over the TCP debug server. Rule 3's answer rather than
more printing. Keeps the FIRST cause, which is the useful one.
- Stamp it into psx_last_run_report.json. This is the part that prevents a
repeat: a field you have to query is a field nobody queries. A degraded run
now says so in its own artifact, so "was that measurement valid?" is
answerable after the fact instead of having to be suspected.
test_autocompile_degraded (new, registered in CTest) builds the real failure
shape and asserts it is caught at configure time, that the reason names the
offending flag, that the first cause is retained, and that the reason is
escaped so it cannot break the JSON for every consumer.
Also fixes a pre-existing %d/LONG format mismatch on last_exit that this
change's argument shuffle surfaced; warnings on autocompile.c go 2 -> 1 (the
remaining array-bounds one in watch_thread is pre-existing and untouched).
NOT done here, deliberately: the underlying cause is that every title's
game.toml hardcodes a build-directory path (Tomba 2 names a worktree-relative
dir the recipe never creates; MMX6 hardcodes an absolute path into one
checkout). Fixing that means having CMake record the real recompiler location
and touching six title repos — its own change. This one makes the failure
impossible to miss.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Audit fixes for the async shard-publication pipeline (45a2dda):
- autocompile_shutdown(): stops the pipeline, kills the compiler tree via a
kill-on-close job object (assigned while the child is SUSPENDED so cmd.exe
cannot spawn grandchildren outside it), and JOINS the watcher + preparer —
never abandoning a thread inside the Windows loader lock at ExitProcess.
Wired first into shutdown_runtime(). Crash exits reap the tree via the job.
- Failed off-thread prepares retry (3 attempts, 100 ms) on the worker before
the artifact silently reverts to a synchronous emu-thread first-map; retry
and giveup counters exposed in autocompile_status_json.
- Capacity caps fail closed and LOUD: cand_register shouts once at CAND_CAP;
load_one_dll_prepared refuses at MAX_LOADED_DLLS before registering, so
dll_already_loaded can never lose track and double-register on rescan.
- Publication confinement is filesystem-resolved: published_path_valid
canonicalizes the cache root and the pipe path (GetFinalPathNameByHandle /
realpath), prefix-checks canonical forms, and the worker maps the canonical
string while holding a no-delete-share guard handle (TOCTOU). `..`/junction
spellings that passed the lexical check are now rejected — proven by the
new overlay_path_canon_test boundary test.
- test_autocompile_publication gains a shutdown-mid-run scenario asserting
prepared == committed + discarded with nothing queued; perf guards updated
to require validate -> guard-handle -> canonical first-map ordering.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The tier mis-compiled and has been hard-gated off since 2026-06-25; overlay
gaps fall to gcc/tcc shards and the dirty-RAM interpreter, unchanged.
Re-do on master of the removal validated on the stale branch (6da8c02),
reconciled with everything master grew since the fork:
- Delete overlay_sljit.{c,h}, overlay_compile_worker.{c,h}, lib/sljit,
runtime/tests/sljit_*.c, and the runtime.cmake sources/include-dirs.
- Strip the sljit provider/backend from code_provider.{c,h},
overlay_backend.{c,h} ("sljit" in overlay_backend/PSX_OVERLAY_BACKEND now
degrades to auto so stale configs still boot), main.cpp, debug_server.c
(sljit_status/sljit_async/sljit_try TCP commands), overlay_loader.{c,h}
(live policy, JIT-on-miss, persisted-shard cache, async worker glue,
psx_sljit_call/cop2/memx host helpers — reachable only via the removed
cpu->sljit_helpers table), and cpu_state.h (SLJIT_HLP_* enum + the
sljit_helpers[] member; CPUState layout change reshards via the cg tag).
- Master-only entanglement resolved before deletion: 28165d6's Einhander WS
player-X bound emit existed in three paths (gcc code_generator, sljit,
dirty_ram_interp). The gcc shard link contract now forwards
psx_ws_player_x_bound (ABI v13, previous commit), so deleting the sljit
emit path loses no widescreen behavior; ffc6688's game-dispatch block
inside the dead psx_sljit_call helper goes with it.
- Reword comments that described sljit as a live backend (gpu.{c,h},
ws_*_detect.h, cosim_state.c, dirty_ram_interp.c, autocompile.h,
boot_state.h, config_loader.h, compile_overlays.py, and the CPS marker
comments the recompiler emits).
recompiler psxrecomp-game builds clean; game runtimes rebuilt + boot-verified
separately.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Two framework bugs that made overlay variants run interpreted forever (the
"agonizing lag" in overlay-heavy areas like Tomba's dwarf village):
1. Cache read/write divergence. The loader reads <exe>/cache and the runtime
writes captures to <exe>/overlay_captures.json, but the gcc autocompile path
used the game.toml command verbatim, whose hard-coded --out-dir/--captures
pointed elsewhere (build-stable/build-modern). So compiled shards landed where
the loader never looked and captures were read stale -> the variant never went
native. Fix: the runtime now injects PSX_OVERLAY_CACHE_DIR / PSX_OVERLAY_CAPTURES
(the canonical loader paths) into every autocompile spawn; compile_overlays.py
honors them over any CLI flag (--captures now optional). One source of truth for
the cache location, uniform across all games, dev or prod. gcc/tcc stay separated
by the existing <compiler> namespace.
2. Overlay DLL preamble missing psx_ws_cull_sltiu. auto_screen_x emits this helper
at every width-cull site into EVERY build's C (identity at 4:3), and the main EXE
links it from gpu.c, but the overlay DLL preamble never defined it -> any overlay
variant with cull sites failed to link -> no shard -> interpreter. Fix: provide
the self-contained helper (depends only on the already-forwarded psx_ws_x_margin)
in the DLL preamble.
Proven on Tomba dwarf village: dispatch_native 29/s -> 11454/s (was ~97% interp,
now ~97% native).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Root-cause class: a toolchain-less machine never self-improved via sljit on the
normal play path. Two blocks: (1) `auto` resolved to gcc on EVERY machine because
the discriminator was autocompile_configured() — "is a command STRING set" — and
the shipped game.toml always carries overlay_autocompile_cmd; (2) live sljit mode
was reachable only via a hand-set env var (dead public setter, no policy).
Fix:
- autocompile.c: autocompile_toolchain_available() probes PATH for a real C
compiler (gcc/cc/clang). main.cpp passes
`autocompile_configured() && autocompile_toolchain_available()` to
code_provider_init, so `auto` picks gcc only when one is actually reachable,
else sljit.
- overlay_loader.c: overlay_loader_apply_live_policy() (called from main.cpp
AFTER backend resolution) defaults live ON when the resolved backend is sljit
— so a toolchain-less box runs VALIDATED shards live (self-improves on the
normal path); PSX_OVERLAY_SLJIT_LIVE still overrides. The env-only block in
overlay_loader_init is removed (the policy fn subsumes it).
Runtime-only (no regen). Refs SLJIT.md §11 Phase C.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Runtime detects an uncovered overlay/kernel variant by sustained dirty-RAM
interp pressure inside the capture windows (g_dirty_window_dispatches,
sampled every 600 vblanks; fires only at a coherent non-loading moment via
cdrom_load_in_progress, 60s cooldown, 16/session cap), writes the capture
JSON, and spawns the game.toml-configured compile command
([runtime] overlay_autocompile_cmd, cmd.exe /C, cwd=project root, child
output kept in an in-memory ring — no log files). On child exit 0 the emu
thread rescans the cache (overlay_loader_rescan: idempotent dir re-scan +
checked-regions reset) so the new DLL loads on the next dispatch and the
variant goes native in-session. Dedup is tool-side (existing-CRC skip);
pressure drops to zero once code is native, so the loop self-limits.
New TCP: autocompile_status / autocompile_run / overlay_rescan.
compile_dll now uses absolute native paths and reports exit codes.
VERIFIED live (user-played route): 2 auto-triggers fired, captures written,
child ran recompiler+audit (new variants 1E7DDE2C, A62D0A7C discovered and
audit-clean), rescan picked the compiled DLL up in-session. OPEN ISSUE: gcc
exits 1 with no output inside the spawned cmd.exe child (same absolute-path
command succeeds from an interactive shell) — compile step currently
completed manually; suspect child-env difference, to be isolated next
session.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Matthew Stanley