Progress report September 2023

Delayed till kingdom f

site/content/entry/yuzu-progress-report-sep-2023/index.md

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+date = "2023-10-16T12:00:00-03:00"
+title = "Progress Report September 2023"
+author = "GoldenX86”
+coauthor = "CaptV0rt3x"
+forum = 0
++++
+
+Hi yuz-ers! We have an interesting month to report. Mii’s want to play, GPU changes, Android improvements, and more! Let’s get into it.
+
+<!--more--> 
+
+## Mii and applets.
+
+{{< imgs
+	"./miiedit4.png| Wii want to play"
+  >}}
+
+For quite some time, it has been possible to load the default Miis in supported games on yuzu. 
+However, yuzu's implementation of the Mii service was lacking the necessary support for the Mii database.
+
+The Mii database is a file saved on the Switch which holds up to 100 Miis.
+Without the proper support for this database within the Mii service, it was impossible to load your custom Miis.
+
+Our in-house input emulation expert, [german77](https://github.com/german77), embarked on an adventurous journey to test the MiiEdit applet as part of his ongoing quest to make system applets function smoothly on yuzu. 
+Initially, things seemed to progress smoothly, but his efforts hit a roadblock when softlocks while booting the applet became a recurring issue.
+
+Suspecting that erroneous data from the Mii service might be the root cause of these softlocks, german77 decided to undertake the task of completely reverse engineering the Mii service.
+His dedicated efforts led to an {{< gh-hovercard "11526" "almost fully-implemented Mii service" >}}, with the only missing piece being the ability to send and receive Miis from nearby users.
+This {{< gh-hovercard "11480" "comprehensive implementation" >}} involved rectifying some of the older code, reorganising data structures, and, at long last, providing support for the eagerly anticipated Mii database.
+Adventurous users have the ability to load their own Mii characters in any game by placing their console’s database file at `%appdata%/yuzu/nand/system/save/8000000000000030/MiiDatabase.dat`.
+
+With the Mii service completed and behind him, Narr swiftly returned to the task of making the MiiEdit applet function seamlessly on yuzu.
+Thanks to some troubleshooting assistance from [byte[]](https://github.com/liamwhite), {{< gh-hovercard "11569" "he ultimately managed to make it work" >}}.
+The last piece of the puzzle was {{< gh-hovercard "11561" "completing Mii database support for the applet," >}} and with this crucial addition, yuzu's Mii functionality is now more robust than ever.
+Users can now seamlessly create, edit, and store their Miis using the new MiiEdit applet via Tools->Open Mii Editor, and games can automatically generate a random Mii for players without crashing.
+
+{{< single-title-imgs
+    "Edit to your heart’s content"
+    "./miiedit1.png"
+    "./miiedit2.png"
+    "./miiedit3.png"
+    >}}
+
+Building on the success of the MiiEdit applet, Narr continued his productive streak by {{< gh-hovercard "11632" "fully implementing support for the Cabinet applet" >}}. 
+The Cabinet applet, if you weren't already familiar, is the amiibo manager applet. 
+With these recent changes, users can register, rename, delete, and restore their amiibo data via Tools->Amiibo.
+
+{{< single-title-imgs
+    "And register as many as you want"
+    "./cabinet1.png"
+    "./cabinet2.png"
+    "./cabinet3.png"
+    >}}
+
+## Graphics changes
+
+Switching to the graphics department, let’s begin with some interesting decisions from the Khronos group that affected the Linux Mesa drivers.
+
+After getting reports of crashes when running `Pikmin 4` on Linux, byte[] discovered that Khronos removed the ability to declare an `OpTypeSampledImage` for buffer textures from the latest release of the SPIR-V specification, the shader backend used by yuzu for Vulkan support.
+
+This is extremely unusual–usually a deprecation is preferred (to not affect old code).
+Mesa, being the textbook example of following the specification, followed through with this change, forcing us to {{< gh-hovercard "11435" "skip samplers for buffer textures." >}}
+With these weird Vulkan decisions properly handled, `Pikmin 4` is once again playable for those running Mesa drivers.
+
+Speaking of `Pikmin 4`, and of `Master Detective Archives: RAIN CODE`, byte[] also found the cause of the lighting issues and wrong faces rendering affecting the former, and the latter game respectively.
+
+byte[] noticed an additional validation error Mesa was providing when debugging the issue with sampled buffers. yuzu's SPIR-V emitter was generating atomic operations on a typeless image, which the SPIR-V specification has never allowed. 
+After a false start by trying to avoid typeless images, he found the real culprit: the code for generating SPIR-V atomics incorrectly used the array index of the image, instead of its designated descriptor.
+
+{{< gh-hovercard "11567" "Correcting this shader behaviour" >}} fixed the headlamp lighting required in specific dark sections of `Pikmin 4`, and the facial expressions of characters in Master Detective Archives: RAIN CODE.
+
+{{< imgs
+	"./p4.mp4| A little bit of exploration never hurt anyone (Pikmin 4)"
+  >}}
+
+[GPUCode](https://github.com/GPUCode) joined the fray too this month with several code additions.
+
+First of all, something *light*, let’s introduce {{< gh-hovercard "11535" "separate command buffer uploads!" >}}
+This gives the benefit of a slight performance uplift, caused by reduced renderpass breaks, which greatly helps mobile GPUs. 
+The larger the renderpass, the longer mobile GPUs can keep data in tile memory, so breaking it is a costly operation. Dedicated GPUs benefit from this change, but much less.
+
+We measured an 8% performance increase in some games with a 5800X3D. 
+Lower end systems could see bigger gains.
+
+Round 1. 
+GPUCode also fought against the rendering issues affecting `Mortal Kombat 1` and `Sonic Forces` when using Vulkan.
+For those deep into the yuzu lore, this is a compute shader implementation of {{< gh-hovercard "11556" "MSAA image copies," >}} similar to what epicboy [did back in February](https://yuzu-emu.org/entry/yuzu-progress-report-feb-2023/#other-gpu-and-video-changes).
+As said back then, compared to OpenGL, Vulkan requires a lot more work.
+
+{{< single-title-imgs-compare
+	"Emutality! (Mortal Kombat 1)"
+	"./mk1bug.png"
+	"./mk1fix.png"
+>}}
+
+This change also improves the original shader, allowing games like `Pinball FX3` to render and work correctly now, regardless of the graphics API in use, while also improving the rendering of games like `Fate/EXTELLA: The Umbral Star`.
+
+{{< imgs
+	"./msaa1.png| I ask of you. Are you my Master? (Fate/EXTELLA: The Umbral Star)"
+  >}}
+
+{{< imgs
+	"./msaa2.png| Don’t break it, please (Pinball FX3)"
+  >}}
+
+Players of `The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails`, and other Falcom games like `The Legend of Heroes` series, reported that text was rendered incorrectly, displaying weird colour highlights.
+GPUCode investigated this and found that we were using the wrong colour component order (BGR vs RGB for example) for the `A4B4G4R4_UNORM` texture format.
+Instead, `A4B4G4R4_UNORM_PACK16_EXT` has {{< gh-hovercard "11557" "the order" >}} the game expects, providing correct rendering.
+
+{{< single-title-imgs-compare
+	"Ask Jobs what he thinks about good font rendering (The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails)"
+	"./nayubug.png"
+	"./nayufix.png"
+>}}
+
+Continuing this trend of texture fixes, GPUCode also identified a bug in how sRGB textures were being handled.
+
+The problem was that sRGB textures could not be used as storage images in shaders. 
+The solution was to create the texture as linear, which is another colour space that does not have gamma correction, and then use an sRGB view to access it. 
+This way, the texture can be used as a storage image and still have the correct colours.
+
+However, this solution had an unintended side effect. 
+When the texture was used directly without the view–for example, when it was resolved by copying it to another image–the colours were wrong because the colour space had changed. 
+
+To fix this, the pull request {{< gh-hovercard "11562" "ensures sRGB creation is only disallowed when transcoding," >}} which means that it always applies except when converting compressed formats to uncompressed formats on the GPU.
+This way, the texture is created as sRGB and has the correct colours in both cases.
+
+Thanks to this, `Momotaro Dentetsu` and `Star Ocean First Departure R` can now render with the colours and gamma intended by their developers.
+The way it’s meant to be played, as a certain luxury-focused graphics card vendor says.
+
+{{< single-title-imgs-compare
+	"Don’t mess with my gamma! (Momotaro Dentetsu)"
+	"./momobug.png"
+	"./momofix.png"
+>}}
+
+Now’s the turn for our classic Key visual novel fans, your writer included. 
+Users reported the games had some terrible flickering.
+The cause, as [Maide](https://github.com/Kelebek1) found out, is due to how particular the rendering for these classic games is.
+Most games create a single render target on a single address, either 1080p or 720p. 
+Key’s visual novels instead use the same address to create both 720p and 1080p render targets, with the 1080p one being created first, but never being used. 
+yuzu, by default, always picked the first render target.
+
+This wasn’t an issue for other games, but for this engine, the texture cache constantly detected the wrong image, causing it to alternate between both render targets on each frame. 
+This resulted in a black frame being rendered between two valid frames, causing dangerous flickering for those with photosensitive epilepsy.
+
+By changing yuzu’s behaviour to {{< gh-hovercard "11479" "look for the most recently modified image" >}} to present, the issue is completely fixed, and users can now cry entire nights reading these games.
+
+{{< imgs
+	"./planetarian.png| All the stars in the sky are waiting for you (planetarian)"
+  >}}
+
+And to close this section, [Blinkhawk](https://github.com/FernandoS27) fixed some {{< gh-hovercard "11646" "memory leaks" >}} caused by the recent query Cache Rewrite.
+
+## Android additions
+
+Our resident Terminator and Nier: Automata enjoyer [t895](https://github.com/t895) and other members of the team continue to work hard on improving the experience of the Android build:
+
+- A hardware limitation exposed by the Buffer Cache Rewrite from Project Y.F.C. was {{< gh-hovercard "11471" "worked around." >}} This change was done by GPUcode.
+- A bug where certain temporary {{< gh-hovercard "11505" "settings would be reset" >}} on emulation start (for example, “Limit emulation speed”) has been fixed.
+- An issue where {{< gh-hovercard "11506" "game shortcuts would appear cropped" >}} on certain devices was fixed.
+- {{< gh-hovercard "11523" "The amount of thread workers for shader compilation" >}} was reduced to one. This is intended to reduce memory consumption.
+- More {{< gh-hovercard "11542" "screen orientation and aspect ratio" >}} misbehaviours were fixed.
+- An issue where the {{< gh-hovercard "11564" "input overlay" >}} would {{< gh-hovercard "11583" "draw offscreen" >}} on some devices was fixed.
+- An issue where the {{< gh-hovercard "11594" "settings activity" >}} would appear dim when in landscape mode while using 3 button navigation was fixed.
+- The in-game menu could be unintentionally opened during the loading animation. {{< gh-hovercard "11597" "This is now fixed." >}}
+- {{< gh-hovercard "11613" "Several crashes" >}} related to the initial setup, emulation activity, and emulation fragment are now fixed.
+- The emulator will now {{< gh-hovercard "11616" "correctly reload the settings file" >}} after resetting all settings.
+- Lastly, a new settings menu {{< gh-hovercard "11603" "unifies all content installation" >}} into a single place. Users can now access the `Manage yuzu data` menu to import/export firmware, saves, user data, and install game content, console, and Amiibo keys. The {{< gh-hovercard "11543" "new User data option" >}} allows users to backup and restore all app data. Useful for example when migrating to other builds, like from a GitHub release to a Play Store release.
+
+{{< single-title-imgs
+    "For the convenience of the lady and the gentleman"
+    "./data1.png"
+    "./data2.png"
+    >}}
+
+## Audio changes
+
+Maide shines here by giving us a {{< gh-hovercard "11460" "rewrite" >}} of the hardware Opus service, responsible for handling decompression of Opus-formatted audio in games.
+The old implementation lacked several functions documented by the reverse engineering community, which is what this rewrite focused on the most.
+
+Now the hardware Opus implementation matches the current information available.
+Maide also took the opportunity to move the processing of Opus to the emulated ADSP (the emulated implementation of the audio coprocessor of the Switch).
+
+The end result of this effort is allowing games that previously faced crashes when trying to decode Opus audio, like `MLB The Show 22 & 23`, the Touhou series games, `Pokemon Quest`, `Pokemon Let's Go Eevee!/Pikachu!`, and `Sea of Stars` to play the audio correctly without crashing.
+
+Maide also fixed audio command processing, avoiding some command lists from returning early before being properly finished.
+The previous implementation would restart the list instead of continuing where it was interrupted, stalling the whole process until it finished properly.
+Correcting {{< gh-hovercard "11465" "this behaviour" >}} solved cases where the audio engine would run too slowly, improving performance.
+
+Another issue that required quite the investigation caused background sound in `Xenoblade Chronicles 2` to cut off randomly.
+The cause was found to be in the data source commands during loops.
+Changing the {{< gh-hovercard "11467" "behaviour between its different versions" >}} restored proper ambience noises to this great game and a few others.
+
+To close this section, Maide also discovered what caused the dropping of music and voices in `New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe`’s final level.
+The audio command buffer sometimes took longer to process than estimated, which caused voices in the renderer to be dropped.
+The game depends on this behaviour to some extent, but yuzu's calculation of the estimation was subtly incorrect, causing almost everything to be dropped.
+
+{{< gh-hovercard "11520" "Improving the time estimation algorithm" >}} solved the issue.
+Let’s hear those voices!
+
+## Miscellaneous changes
+
+Sometimes, we overlook testing on devices that don't meet our standard hardware recommendations.
+With the addition of the new Vulkan VSync options, we made an incorrect assumption. As it turns out, users do not always have Vulkan drivers installed! Shocking, right?
+
+While most of the time users do have support for Vulkan, that certainly is not the case for NVIDIA Fermi users (people that were promised a Vulkan driver but never got it), or users of Linux distros which don't package GPU firmware files, like [Trisquel](https://trisquel.info/).
+This caused the {{< gh-hovercard "11450" "VSync combobox" >}} to refuse to offer any options when no Vulkan driver and device was detected, which blocked OpenGL-only users from toggling VSync.
+
+While it’s easy to just ask the users to upgrade to newer hardware, and/or use a more functional distro, that doesn’t change the fact that the behaviour is incorrect.
+
+Enter [toastUnlimited](https://github.com/lat9nq), who fixed the UI and took the opportunity to improve the broken Vulkan detection, ensuring OpenGL is selected as the default API if needed.
+
+{{< imgs
+	"./ogl.png| Fermi still rocking it"
+  >}}
+
+byte[] fixed {{< gh-hovercard "11473" "language selection" >}} being ignored in multi-program applications, which was affecting games like `Super Mario 3D All-Stars`, `Grandia HD Collection`, and others.
+Proper localisation is very important to us! 
+Not everyone can corrupt their minds by learning English, after all.
+
+{{< imgs
+	"./sm3das.png| ¡Mamá Mía! (Super Mario 3D All-Stars)"
+  >}}
+
+Newcomer [rkfg](https://github.com/rkfg) found one of those bugs that make you think “how did this even work before?”
+yuzu's parsing for the PFS file format would try to read filenames from the header as a C string.
+C strings definitionally end at a null byte, but this failed to account for the fact that the next null byte could sometimes be well past the end of the header, and parsing a file with this specific construction would cause yuzu to fail to find files inside the archive and/or crash.
+By unconditionally {{< gh-hovercard "11553" "inserting a null byte" >}} after the header data, rkfg solved this one.
+Now games like `Luigi’s Mansion 3` don’t get strange crashes out of nowhere.
+
+While working on more file system improvements, byte[] implemented a simple NCA (Nintendo Content Archive) verification system, which checks that the names of NCA files match their contents to guard against filesystem corruption.
+Now users can {{< gh-hovercard "11456" "check the integrity" >}} of their game dumps by right clicking a game in the game list and selecting “Verify Integrity”.
+Implementing proper signature and hash-based verification is planned, but expected to be very slow in comparison.
+
+{{< imgs
+	"./verify.png| Always helpful"
+  >}}
+
+By {{< gh-hovercard "11483" "stubbing" >}} the `GetSaveDataSizeMax` filesystem service method, [FearlessTobi](https://github.com/FearlessTobi) made `Minecraft Legends Deluxe Edition` able to display its boot screen.
+Sadly the game crashes after that, guess there’s more work to do!
+
+{{< imgs
+	"./minecraft.png|This is as far as it goes for now (Minecraft Legends)"
+  >}}
+
+Continuing with the stubbing procedures, axing all {{< gh-hovercard "11540" "purchase info calls" >}} allows `The Settlers: New Allies` to start properly.
+Microtransactions, begone!
+
+{{< single-title-imgs
+    "NVIDIA on the left, AMD on the right (The Settlers: New Allies)"
+    "./nvidia.png"
+    "./amd.png"
+    >}}
+
+As you can see, more work is needed to get this game to render properly.
+Extra points for being a game that renders better on AMD over NVIDIA.
+
+But what about {{< gh-hovercard "11496" "a new service" >}}? byte[] added a stub for the `NGC` service, allowing the `Baten Kaitos HD` collection to work.
+
+{{< single-title-imgs
+    "Oldschool (Baten Kaitos HD collection)"
+    "./bk1.png"
+    "./bk2.png"
+    >}}
+
+Likewise, {{< gh-hovercard "11590" "adding" >}} the `GetFileSystemAttribute` service method makes `Tiny Thor` playable; it no longer gets stuck during the initial loading screens.
+C’mon, without googling, spell the name of Thor’s hammer correctly.
+
+{{< single-title-imgs
+    "So adorable! (Tiny Thor)"
+    "./tt1.png"
+    "./tt2.png"
+    "./tt3.png"
+    >}}
+
+Back again with good fixes is [Squall-Leonhart](https://github.com/Squall-Leonhart), who now focused on Windows file system error handling.
+For example, yuzu used to just crash if you disconnected a removable storage containing games loaded into yuzu’s list, or a network SMB share was disconnected, or a Bitlocker protected location was unavailable.
+
+But not anymore! By adding the {{< gh-hovercard "11499" "proper error handling" >}} to these file system exception cases, the emulator now avoids a crash here; complaining, but working. 
+
+Managing another critical blow to the fight for proper shutdown behaviour, byte[] managed to spot an {{< gh-hovercard "11652" "optimization" >}} that should save around a second of time on high-end CPUs.
+Does this mean the fighting is over? No, some edge cases remain, but now under normal circumstances, closing a game should be almost instantaneous.
+We have a medal ready for byte[].
+
+## Hardware section
+
+### NVIDIA, focusing on the latest hardware
+
+The latest driver releases have proven to be stable for Turing and newer products, but we got reports of small regressions affecting Pascal and Maxwell users.
+If you’re still running older 750, 900 and 1000 series products and you face new issues in games, try reverting to older driver versions like the 52X series.
+
+### AMD, VSync problems and frame interpolation
+
+Windows driver version 23.9.3 and newer cause the VSync options to be ignored, resulting in tearing during gameplay.
+If you’re affected by this, revert back to driver 23.9.2 for now.
+The standard procedure was followed: we opened a ticket of this issue to AMD with a generic test case.
+
+Switching to something more interesting, we heard you! Despite our previous (deserved) rants about frame generation, we think
+vendor-agnostic frame generation like FSR3 would be cool to make Pokémon games playable, but the same requisites which prevent us from using
+FSR2, or even DLSS/XeSS for that matter, apply here. 
+Games don’t report their motion vector data to the console, since they were never developed to support DLSS.
+While coding a generic way to extract motion vector data might be possible, it’s a huge endeavour, so expect it to be a very low priority at the moment. 
+We have bigger fires to put out first, after all.
+These are the kind of things Blinkhawk suggests while drunk.
+
+What could work is [AFMF](https://community.amd.com/t5/gaming/amd-fluid-motion-frames-is-out-now-on-amd-radeon-rx-7000-series/ba-p/634372), if AMD adds Vulkan support for it in the future.
+
+“But writer, AFMF is not vendor-agnostic! It’s an AMD Windows driver exclusive feature!” You say.
+Ah but you’re wrong, it is vendor-agnostic on desktop PCs! Kinda. 
+
+The only thing you have to do is get an RX 6400 (or higher), as a secondary GPU on your desktop PC, connect your displays to it, and enjoy enforcing frame interpolation even when using a primary Intel or NVIDIA GPU for rendering!
+Sadly, this doesn’t apply to yuzu yet, because the current beta driver for AFMF at the time of writing only supports the Direct3D 11 and 12 APIs. 
+
+Let’s hope we get Vulkan support and we may be able to finally see Tears of the Kingdom hitting over 100 FPS, or Pokémon Scarlet model animations reaching ~~smooth~~ cinematic 30 FPS.
+Meanwhile, try to enjoy converting 20 FPS to 40 when using Path Tracing.
+At least you don’t have to pay 500+ bucks for this.
+
+### Intel
+
+Sadly, we have another driver-level issue to report from Team Blue.
+This time, the problem is in geometry shaders.
+The SPIR-V shader compiler crashes the Vulkan Arc driver due to a [null pointer dereference](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLHL75H_VEM).
+This affects many games, even popular ones like `Xenoblade Chronicles 3` and `The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom`.
+
+The bug report has been filed. Fingers crossed for a resolution faster than seven months this time, and a more satisfatory result than 14th gen products.
+
+### Turnip
+
+The latest release of the Turnip driver for Adreno 700 series at the time of writing, [R7](https://github.com/K11MCH1/AdrenoToolsDrivers/releases/tag/v23.3.0_R7), seems to reduce overhead considerably, resulting in less overheating for Qualcomm Android users.
+Since the driver is also compatible with Adreno 600 series GPUs, we recommend users to give it a try.
+
+A word of warning though! Turnip drivers don’t have support for Adreno 725 and Adreno 730 GPUs at the moment. 
+Older releases like [R5](https://github.com/K11MCH1/AdrenoToolsDrivers/releases/tag/v23.3.0_R5) can be used on these devices instead.
+
+The official Qualcomm driver got some updates, but it continues to be absolutely terrible, so we don’t recommend using it, if at all possible.
+
+## Future projects
+
+Project Nice, the implementation of native code execution (NCE) for ARM devices is booting its first games!
+
+{{< single-title-imgs
+    "And so it begins…"
+    "./nce1.png"
+    "./nce2.png"
+    >}}
+
+A lot more work is needed before we can even consider doing internal testing, so please have some patience, Android gang.
+
+With the progress on the Album applet going so well, german77 is progressing further into other interesting applets too. Stay tuned.
+
+{{< imgs
+	"./album.png|There’s an easter egg somewhere here!"
+  >}}
+
+That’s all folks! Thank you for sticking until the end.
+See you next time!
+
+&nbsp;
+{{< article-end >}}
+{{< imgs-compare-include-end >}}
+{{< gh-hovercard-include-end >}}