psxrecomp/docs/internal/NATIVE_WIDE_PLAN.md

Native-Wide Rendering — High-Level Plan (handoff)

Branch: feat/native-wide (both repos), forked from feat/widescreen (psxrecomp b1b7d6b / TombaRecomp 36dcc42). Tomba's psxrecomp-v4.pin on this branch points at the psxrecomp feat/native-wide tip.

For the next session: this is a direction + phased plan, not a spec. Read the "Current state" and "Core idea" sections, then execute the phases in order, verifying each against the oracle before moving on. The completeness rule applies: native-wide replaces the squash hack — do not ship both side by side. The last phase deletes the hack.

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Implementation status (2026-06-15)

Foundation implemented + verified (runtime-only, committed on this branch). The centering mechanic adopted is the proven draw_offset-shift approach (not the OFX-bias framing the phases below were originally written around — see "Core idea" for why it's strictly simpler). A wide-aspect mode model now lives in gpu.c: 0 = off (4:3 identity), 1 = squash (legacy), 2 = native-wide. Native-wide, on a game frame (not FMV/menu):

• GTE is fed the 4:3 ratio → identity, no squash (main.cpp engage).
• draw_offset_x += OFFSET at the GP0(E5) chokepoint (gpu.c) → 3D and 2D shift together by OFFSET = round(W*(3num-4den)/(8den)) (=53 @ 320/16:9).
• draw_area_right += EXTRA at GP0(E4), clamped to 1023 so a buffer at the VRAM edge clips rather than wraps into textures (EXTRA = 2*OFFSET = 106).
• Present widens the display read by EXTRA (main.cpp present_w); the existing 2× present then maps it 1:1 (isotropic) — the old squash-stretch becomes an honest 2× with no magnification. No renderer-backend change needed (both already render full-VRAM-width; only the read width + offsets changed).
• Diagnostics: gpu_state reports ws.mode/ws.nw_extra; ws_nw on=<0|1> TCP command toggles native-wide vs squash live for A/B.

Verified in gameplay (16:9): content renders at correct native proportions (A/B vs squash: squash visibly stretches the dialogue text; native- wide keeps it compact) and present is 1:1. 4:3 is identity by construction (mode 0 → every native-wide term is 0; present_w == w).

Decision point #1 RESOLVED with ground truth (the gating finding). Tomba's VRAM double-buffer is two adjacent 320-wide buffers: front x∈[384,703], back x∈[704,1023] — the back is flush against the 1024 VRAM right edge, and the two buffers touch (704 = 384+320). So there is no horizontal headroom for the +EXTRA widening on either buffer: widening the back wraps past x=1023 into the texture region; widening the front overlaps the back. The revealed margin strips therefore show adjacent-buffer / VRAM-wrap bleed (a duplicated scene fragment on the right), NOT the clean "stale VRAM" the earlier PoC notes assumed. The center is correct; the edges are not.

The flicker (why the shared-canvas approach fails). The first cut shifted +OFFSET into draw_offset and widened the display read by +EXTRA inside canonical VRAM. This flickers badly (and even segfaults) and cannot be made clean, because:

• The display alternates between the two framebuffers every frame. Buffer A's widened read [384,810] is in-bounds (→ bleed strip), but buffer B's [704,1130] falls off the 1024 VRAM edge → black strip + the draw wraps [1024,1129]→[0,105] over textures/CLUTs (the idle segfault). Two totally different frames → flicker.
• Even widening VRAM to 2048 does not fix it: the buffers are adjacent (Δ=320), so widened-A [384,809] and widened-B [704,1129] share storage at [704,809]. A's content [437,756] and B's [757,1076] are adjacent → each buffer's margin reads into the other's content, and clearing one margin erases the other's content. Unfixable in a shared canvas.
• VRAM is ~95% full (occupancy-mapped) → no room to relocate buffers apart.
• Changing the canonical wrap mask to &2047 is also unsafe: it alters PS1 coordinate semantics (negative/clipped coords, VRAM copies, clears, mask ops) for the opted-in game, not just our framebuffer draws.

Adopted architecture (separate wide compositor surface). Keep canonical PSX VRAM 1024-wide and completely faithful — every GPU op unchanged, so 4:3 / non- opted games are byte-identical (the extensibility guarantee). For an opted-in wide game, maintain independent wide present-surfaces keyed by framebuffer base (learned from the display_x set). Mirror each framebuffer-targeting primitive into its buffer's surface at local coords (SX+OFFSET, SY); clear margins in-surface; present from the surface matching display_x. Textures/CLUTs always sample canonical VRAM; the wide surfaces are render targets, not texture memory. Independent surfaces ⇒ no A↔B sharing ⇒ no bleed, clean margins, no flicker.

Milestones: (1) wide surface + mirror + present → flicker/bleed gone (margins blank until culls widen); (2) regen-class cull-widening submits the off-screen FOV → it rasterizes into the margins → true native-wide. Key complexity driver: whether the game does framebuffer feedback (reads its framebuffer back / VRAM→VRAM copies between buffers); gp0_copy is nonzero for Tomba so worth confirming.

Reusable from the first cut: the opt-in mode descriptor, GTE-identity feed, ws_nw_offset/extra math, ws_nw live toggle, debug fields. Reverted: the canonical draw_offset/draw_area/clamp injections (they move into the wide surface's local coords). Files: runtime/src/gpu.c, runtime/include/gpu.h, runtime/src/main.cpp, runtime/src/debug_server.c, runtime/src/gpu_sw_renderer.c, runtime/src/gpu_gl_renderer.c.

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Goal

Render Tomba (and the framework generally) at a genuinely wide internal frame (16:9 / 21:9) with correct proportions everywhere and no magnification, replacing the current squash-then-stretch hack. The extra horizontal field of view should be real rendered pixels, not a blow-up of a 4:3 frame.

Why (what's wrong with what ships today)

feat/widescreen implements the squash hack:

1. Squash — gte_set_display_aspect() in runtime/src/gte.cpp multiplies projected screen-X by (4·den)/(3·num) (s_ws_xnum/s_ws_xden), cramming more world into the native ~640-wide internal frame.
2. Stretch — the present path in runtime/src/main.cpp (g_logical_w, SDL_RenderSetLogicalSize, the dst rect around line 1339) stretches that 640-wide frame out to the wide window.

Squash-then-stretch cancels for true 3D geometry → wider FOV, but it is structurally lossy and spawns a pile of compensations that all exist only to fight the stretch / squash:

• 2D screen-space (HUD, sprites, FMV, parallax backdrops) is computed without the GTE, so the present-stretch distorts it → hud_sprt_squash, per-prim proportion correction, FMV pillarbox, psx_ws_backdrop_x screenX squash.
• Backdrops authored for a 4:3 extent fall short of the revealed wide edges → the 8C blue void, patched by the depth-gated un-squash (s_ws_suppress, s_ws_far_threshold = 900, the per-vertex SZ split in gte.cpp).
• It's a magnification → softness.

Native-wide removes the cause, so most of the above compensations can be deleted rather than tuned.

Core idea

Make the runtime render into an actually wider framebuffer and stop squashing / stretching:

• Internal frame width grows from the 4:3 W to W · (num/den)/(4/3) (e.g. ×1.333 for 16:9), height unchanged.
• The GTE projection is identity-scaled (no X-squash); instead the projection center X (OFX-equivalent, the s_ws_* bias) is shifted so the 3D scene is centered in the wider frame. The extra width reveals world that was previously off-screen left/right — true FOV.
• The GPU draw area / clip / scissor and the display region widen to match.
• Present is 1:1 (no horizontal stretch); the window's logical width equals the wide internal width.

The hard truth (scope driver)

3D geometry adapts for free via the projection center shift. 2D screen-space elements do not — anything the game positions in raw screen coordinates (HUD, dialogue boxes, the parallax 2D backdrop layers, menus) will cluster at the left and leave the new right-side blank. So native-wide still needs per-game 2D re-anchoring — but the goal flips from "de-stretch" to "re-anchor / widen-layout with correct proportions," which is cleaner and reuses the existing Ghidra-evidenced site lists in Tomba's game.toml ([widescreen], [widescreen.cull], [widescreen.backdrop]).

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Phased plan

Each phase is independently verifiable. 4:3 must remain pixel-identical throughout (the wide path is gated; identity when num/den == 4/3).

Phase 0 — One wide-viewport abstraction. Introduce a single descriptor (wide internal width, projection-center bias, present mapping) consumed uniformly by GTE, GPU, and present. Replace the scattered s_ws_xnum/xden + g_logical_w stretch with this. Keep 4:3 = identity. Files: gte.cpp, gpu.c (gpu_ws_configure, gpu_ws_present_native_43), main.cpp.

Phase 1 — Widen the render target (both renderers), present 1:1.

• Software: widen the VRAM display/draw region and the g_hr SSAA mirror (gpu_sw_renderer.c); present without horizontal stretch (main.cpp dst rect).
• OpenGL: widen the VRAM FBO + viewport (gpu_gl_renderer.c, note ~line 1115).
• Checkpoint: with no GTE change yet, the game renders into the left portion with a blank wide margin — proves the pipeline widened and present is 1:1.

Phase 2 — GTE: projection-center shift, identity scale. Remove the X-squash; add a horizontal projection-center bias so 3D centers in the wide frame. Now 3D fills the wider frame with correct proportions and real extra FOV. Delete s_ws_xnum/s_ws_xden and the depth-gated un-squash (s_ws_suppress, s_ws_far_threshold) — native-wide makes them unnecessary. Checkpoint: 3D world correct & wide; 2D still left-clustered.

Phase 3 — GPU draw offset / clip / scissor for the wide frame. Make drawing-area, clip rects, and scissor respect the wide width so 3D prims and clipping aren't cut at the old 320/640 boundary (gpu.c, gpu_sw_renderer.c, gpu_gl_renderer.c).

Phase 4 — 2D screen-space re-anchoring (the per-game bulk). Repurpose Tomba's existing site lists from "squash" to "re-anchor":

• HUD/sprite tags ([widescreen] sprite_tag_funcs, hud_sprt_squash) → edge-anchor instead of squash.
• Parallax backdrops ([widescreen.backdrop] x_sites, psx_ws_backdrop_x) → widen the layout span instead of squashing screenX.
• Dialogue / menus → center or edge-anchor. This is the long tail; drive it by the Ghidra-evidenced PCs already documented.

Phase 5 — Culling widening relative to the new half-width. The [widescreen.cull] bias/range sites (psx_ws_x_margin) already widen the world-space cull; recompute the margin against the new wide half-width so far geometry isn't culled before it reaches the wide edges. Confirm the 8C void, edge-drift, and grass-top straddle are gone (they should be, structurally).

Phase 6 — 4:3 content in a wide frame. FMV (4:3 source) and the BIOS boot pillarbox/center in the wide frame; menus that must stay 4:3 likewise. Reuse the existing FMV-4:3 / BIOS-4:3 logic.

Phase 7 — Delete the squash hack (completeness). Once native-wide reaches parity, remove the squash codepath entirely: s_ws_xnum/xden, the present-stretch (g_logical_w stretch semantics), gte_set_display_aspect squash math, psx_ws_backdrop_x squash, the depth-gated un-squash, and the now-dead compensation patches. Update WIDESCREEN.md. No dual-mode left behind.

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Decision points for the handoff session

1. Internal width vs VRAM. PSX VRAM is 1024×512; a 16:9@240p wide frame (~853 at 2× internal) fits, but confirm the display-region/DISPENV-width override approach and how it interacts with the game's own GPU display reg writes. Decide: runtime overrides display width, game keeps drawing.
2. Projection-center bias source. Per-frame from camera/projection state, or a fixed center shift? Start fixed-center (symmetric reveal); revisit if the game re-centers projection mid-scene.
3. 2D re-anchoring coverage. How much of the long tail (every UI/backdrop site) is in scope for first landing vs. follow-up. Recommend: core HUD + backdrops first, log uncovered sites (no silent gaps).
4. Single wide mode vs. keep squash as fallback. Recommendation: native-wide is the wide mode; 4:3 stays identity; squash is deleted (Phase 7). Do not ship both.

Verification

• Per phase: oracle screenshot compare + the tools/capture_game_window.ps1 client-area grab (note: this build's window title is "Tomba! Recompiled", so match *Tomba*, not TombaRecomp*).
• 4:3 regression gate: with aspect_ratio = "4:3" the output must stay pixel-identical to master at every phase.
• Known-issue sites to confirm fixed by Phase 5: 8C far-backdrop void, edge object-pop/drift, mountain grass-top straddle, and likely 8F dialogue-split.
• ws_census / ws_margin / ws_far_threshold debug-server commands (port 4470) remain useful for inspecting per-draw extents while bringing this up.

Build / run notes for the next session

• Both repos are on feat/native-wide. Tomba's psxrecomp-v4.pin points at the psxrecomp feat/native-wide tip; build with tools/build-linux.sh --nopin (or check the psxrecomp tip out so HEAD matches the sha).
• Regen Tomba C after recompiler-side changes: recompiler/build/psxrecomp-game.exe --config game.toml (run from the Tomba repo root). regen.ps1 is broken — invoke the exe directly.
• Canonical build dir: TombaRecomp/build-stable (Ninja, RelWithDebInfo, TCP debug on 4470). Build target psx-runtime.
• Reference: the squash-hack equivalents of every symbol above live on feat/widescreen; diff against it to see what each compensation was doing.