Going-Commando/docs/plan/pcsx2-verification.md

PCSX2 verification (gc-trace)

Status as of 2026-10-11. The tfrag lighting magnitudes are verified; this is the file that records how, so the next comparison starts from the harness instead of from scratch.

Tool: tools/trace (gc-trace). It never ships, no shipped crate depends on it, and it reads the game's own memory out of a running emulator, a savestate, or a raw dump.

What exists now

gc-trace pine-info                       # protocol handshake
gc-trace dump-ee   <src> [--out FILE]     # 32 MiB EE RAM image
gc-trace find      <src> --bytes HEX      # content search (the locators use it too)
gc-trace read      <src> --addr HEX --len N
gc-trace info      <src>                  # savestate metadata
gc-trace compare-tfrag-light <unpacked-dir> [--level N] <src>

<src> is --pine [slot], --state FILE / --state latest, or --ee FILE. It may sit anywhere on the command line.

The comparison:

1. Locates the tfrags block in RAM by content -- the key is tfrag 0's bounding sphere, sixteen bytes unique in 32 MiB. A candidate is accepted only when the block header matches, every header matches the disc on the invariant bytes (everything but the relocated data pointer and the runtime occlusion index), and every data pointer is the relocated form table + disc offset. Anything less is a plausible wrong read.
2. Locates the light bank the same way, by its exact section bytes.
3. Runs the pass over the same disc data with gc_engine::tfrag_light::light_tfrag.
4. Diffs per channel, per vertex, bucketed by vertex class, with the first few mismatching vertices' terms (gc_engine::tfrag_light:: light_vertex_terms) printed so a mismatch can be attributed.

Result: levels 0 and 1, verified 2026-10-11

Level 0 (Veldin), three inputs -- the live emulator over PINE and two PCSX2 savestates from that level, all agreeing byte for byte:

level0: tfrags block at 0x848000, table at 0x848040, 833 tfrags
  headers matching the disc on invariant bytes: 833/833
  data pointers relocated as table + disc offset: 833/833
  light bank in RAM at 0x50ab20, byte-identical to the disc's

vertices compared: 40600 (162400 colour bytes)
  equal:              162400 (100.00%)
  runtime-set: 3130 vertices, 3130 fully equal
  single-set: 37470 vertices, 37470 fully equal

Level 1, from savestate slot 2 and cross-checked against the live emulator:

level1: tfrags block at 0x84c000, table at 0x84c040, 401 tfrags
  headers matching the disc on invariant bytes: 401/401
  data pointers relocated as table + disc offset: 401/401
  light bank in RAM at 0x50f4a0, byte-identical to the disc's

vertices compared: 26470 (105880 colour bytes)
  equal:              105880 (100.00%)
  runtime-set: 129 vertices, 129 fully equal
  single-set: 26341 vertices, 26341 fully equal

Level 1 matters more than one more tally: it is a different planet with a different geometry extent, a different light bank and a different runtime-set population, and it agrees on every byte. The two fixes below are therefore not level-0 coincidences.

What this establishes:

• The tfrag locator and the pointer model are right. 833 of 833 headers match on invariant bytes and 833 of 833 data pointers are relocated exactly table + disc offset, so the block found in RAM is the level's and the geometry read out of it is the geometry the game drew.
• The light bank framing is right. The section found in RAM is byte-identical to the disc's: offset at +0x04, an i32 set count, twelve bytes of pad, then 0x40-byte sets. The previous reading -- offset at +0x00, count at +0x04 -- was wrong, and this is what settled it.
• The lighting magnitudes match exactly: every one of the 162,400 colour bytes the game wrote equals ours. This was the open item in docs/roadmap.md and docs/plan/level-assets.md ("Lighting magnitudes are unverified: they need comparison against reference frames").

Two bugs the comparison found

Both produced plausible output and neither was visible in a screenshot.

1. The normal's z was not negated. vertex_normal_bits negated x and y and left z positive, while the renderer's NormalTable::normal negates all three. The result: dA = -0.707 where the game had +0.707, so max(dA, dA·wA) picked the wrong branch and every vertex lit near its base colour -- dark, but not wrong dark. Level 0 agreed on 95.88% of colour bytes with the bug and 100.00% without it.

2. A record with no light set drew transparent black. select 0x000f names set 15; the level's directional bank has 5 sets, so the pass had no set to light with and yielded [0,0,0,0]. The game writes the record's base colour: 3,130 of level 0's 40,600 vertices do this. The vertex is unlit, not invisible.

Finding the next thing

• Compare another level. All three inputs available are level 0; another level needs a savestate taken in it (F1 in-game, or gc-trace pine-savestate SLOT). The harness takes --level N already.
• Point lights. The runtime-set cluster is set 15 and above; those slots are filled by gameplay, so they cannot be verified from a level-load image. Comparing them needs a frame with point lights in it.
• Blended sets. Both levels' vertices are all single-set (select & 0xff00 == 0), so the blend path -- the only path rsqrt touches -- is untested against the game.
• Distil, then test. A comparison is not a regression. When a fact from here becomes load-bearing, distil it into a numbers-only fixture under tools/trace/tests/ and test against that; no test may read a savestate, a dump or a live emulator.

The test setup

PCSX2 is installed and working on this machine, so every comparison above can be re-run rather than being a one-off observation.

What	Where
Emulator	~/Desktop/pcsx2/pcsx2-v2.8.2-linux-appimage-x64-Qt.AppImage — the directory name is lowercase on disk
Game disc	~/Desktop/pcsx2/games/Ratchet & Clank - Going Commando.iso; verified target SCUS_972.68 v1.01 NTSC (docs/disc-identification.md)
Emulator config	~/.config/PCSX2/ (sstates, bios, memcards, inis, logs)
BIOS	extracted into ~/.config/PCSX2/bios/
Savestates	~/.config/PCSX2/sstates/SCUS-97268 (38996035).NN.p2s, NN = slot
Unpacked disc	~/Documents/gc-extracted/, all 27 levels
PINE socket	$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/pcsx2.sock (/run/user/1000/pcsx2.sock), slot 28011

The emulator boots the disc with -fastboot; a level takes about a minute from a cold start to reach. To capture a state manually, press F1 in-game (it lands in the slot's .p2s); to capture from a script, gc-trace pine-savestate SLOT asks the emulator to write one.

The disc integration tests need the image, not the emulator:

GC_DISC="$HOME/Desktop/pcsx2/games/Ratchet & Clank - Going Commando.iso" \
    cargo test --workspace

Running it

cargo run -q -p gc-trace -- pine-info
cargo run -q -p gc-trace -- compare-tfrag-light ~/Documents/gc-extracted --level 0 --pine
cargo run -q -p gc-trace -- compare-tfrag-light ~/Documents/gc-extracted --level 0 \
    --state ~/.config/PCSX2/sstates/<name>.p2s

Exit status is 0 when every byte matches, 2 on mismatches, 1 on error, so it can be run as a check. PINE must be enabled in the emulator (Settings → Advanced); the socket is $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/pcsx2.sock on Linux.

Nothing here redistributes game data. The disc, the BIOS and the savestates are the user's own; the repository holds the tool and the numbers.

Shrub packet headers are rewritten in RAM: the loader relocates them

Answering the "what is the tag byte" question needed an anchor, and searching RAM from scratch was the wrong way to get one -- it finds coincidental matches (04 04 00 01 matches unrelated data at 0x1ac988) and no way to tell them apart. The savestates are the anchor: slot .01 is level 0, and searching one gives candidates that can be checked rather than guessed at.

Range measured: savestate slot 1, ~/.config/PCSX2/sstates/SCUS-97268 (38996035).01.p2s, records at 0x22a6b8 onward, read with gc-trace read --state.

Result: 40+ records beginning 04 04 00 01 00 00 00 00 at 0x30 spacing, which is the packet framing identified on disc, and the loader has rewritten the second half of each header:

disc:  04 04 00 01 | 00 00 00 00 | 00 00 00 05 | 00 80 0e 6c
RAM:   04 04 00 01 | 00 00 00 00 | 13 00 00 30 | 70 6a 93 00

Bytes 0-7 are unchanged. Bytes 8-11 and 12-15 are not:

• on disc, bytes 12-13 are the constant 00 80 and byte 15 the constant 6c;
• in RAM, bytes 12-15 hold what is plainly a pointer -- 0x00936a70, 0x009376f0, 0x00937850, 0x00939c50 in consecutive records, all inside EE RAM, and ascending across the table exactly as a walk of consecutive objects would be.

Byte 11 becomes 0x30 in every record seen, against a constant 0x05 on disc, and bytes 8-9 hold a varying small value (0x13, 0x16, 0x24).

What this means. The packet table at +0x40 is the thing the loader walks: it holds span-relative offsets on disc and absolute RAM addresses after loading, which is what the previous pass found and what these 40+ records show directly. Any header field read past byte 8 on disc is describing something the loader replaces.

Consequence for the tag bytes. The values at record bytes 7 and 15 measured on disc are not stable identifiers -- at least byte 15 sits in a field the loader overwrites with a pointer. The four-value and two-value vocabularies are real (0x30, 0x6d, 0x80 and 0 appear against 1636 records of otherwise-uniform bytes), but byte 15 being a pointer in RAM means its disc values are being read as data by something, not stored as a tag.

Not settled: whether byte 7's vocabulary is also rewritten, and whether 0x6d marks a payload that the loader expands. That needs the same records compared one by one against their disc spans, which is the next step and is now cheap because the anchor exists.

Following the pointers: packet payloads differ by type

The header pointers found above are live, so they can be dereferenced. Two consecutive records from the level 0 table at 0x22a6b8 were followed.

Range measured: savestate slot 1, reading 0x00936a70 (from the record at 0x22a6b8) and 0x009376f0 (from the record at 0x22a6e8), 64 bytes each.

Result: the two payloads have nothing in common.

0x00936a70 -- fixed-point vertex data:

8d 8c 80 80  89 87 7c 80  8d 8c 80 80  89 87 7c 80
4e 4e 4c 80  4e 4e 4c 80  4e 4e 4c 80  4e 4e 4c 80   (repeating)

Every high byte is 0x80 or 0x7c, and the pattern repeats on a 8-byte boundary. Read as s16 these are large negatives in a narrow band around -32500. That is consistent with Q16.15 fixed-point rather than f32, and with a stride of 4 s16 per vertex.

0x009376f0 -- a tagged sub-list, not vertex data:

00 00 00 30  cd 00 00 00  cd 00 00 00  cd 00 00 00
cd 00 00 00  01 00 00 05  22 c1 01 6e  00 00 00 00

Structurally different: small integers, a repeating 0xcd, and 0x30 tags in the high byte. Nothing here is position data.

What this supports. Two records 0x30 apart in the same table hold payloads of entirely different kinds. That is direct evidence for the type reading of the header: the table is a tagged collection where the tag selects what the payload is, not a uniform array of one thing.

It also rules out the alternative I could not previously exclude -- that the 16-byte tiling was a single uniform record format and the varying bytes were all fields of it. Two adjacent records with unrelated payloads is not that.

Still open. The mapping from tag value to payload kind. The 0x30 that appears in record bytes 8-11 in RAM also appears at the head of the second payload, which is suggestive but is one coincidence so far and should not be written up as a link until it is seen in more than one record.

The tag values map onto three payload kinds

Following the pointers out of the level 0 table, all nine that carry the 0x30 tag at byte 11 and an EE pointer at 12..15 were dereferenced and read 32 bytes each. They fall into exactly three classes, three payloads each, with no overlap.

A -- Q16.15 fixed-point vertex data (3 of 9)

00936a70  8d 8c 80 80 89 87 7c 80 8d 8c 80 80 89 87 7c 80
          4e 4e 4c 80 4e 4e 4c 80 4e 4e 4c 80 4e 4e 4c 80
0093cde0  8a 8a 7f 80 92 90 84 80 8a 8a 7f 80 92 90 84 80
          4e 4e 4c 80 4e 4e 4c 80 4e 4e 4c 80 4e 4e 4c 80
009cf4f0  6e 6f 68 80 6e 6f 68 80 6e 6f 68 80 6e 6f 68 80
          54 54 51 80 54 54 51 80 54 54 51 80 54 54 51 80

Every high byte is 0x80 or 0x7c, each payload repeats on an 8-byte boundary, and the values differ between payloads while the 4e 4e 4c 80 tail is shared by two of them.

B -- a 0x30 sub-list with a repeated count (3 of 9)

009376f0  00 00 00 30 cd 00 00 00 cd 00 00 00 cd 00 00 00
          cd 00 00 00 01 00 00 05 22 c1 01 6e 00 00 00 00
00998880  00 00 00 30 c0 00 00 00 c0 00 00 00 c0 00 00 00
          c0 00 00 00 01 00 00 05 11 c1 01 6e 00 00 00 00
009d2da0  00 00 00 30 c8 00 00 00 c8 00 00 00 c8 00 00 00
          c8 00 00 00 01 00 00 05 1d c1 01 6e 00 00 00 00

Structurally identical apart from the repeated word: 0xcd, 0xc0, 0xc8. All three carry 01 00 00 05 at offset 16 and a .. c1 01 6e at 20.

C -- an index/attribute list (3 of 9)

00939700  00 c0 05 6d 3e 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 12 00 00 00
          18 00 c0 00 fe 00 fe 00 ff 00 ff 00 11 01 17 01
009c1540  00 c0 05 6d 36 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 08 00 00 00
          13 00 93 00 c9 00 c9 00 ca 00 ca 00 d2 00 d5 00

Both open 00 c0 05 6d, then a count, then a run of small ascending u16.

The mapping. The tag vocabulary measured on disc -- 0x00, 0x30, 0x6d, 0x80 at record byte 7 -- is not decorative:

tag	payload
0x30	class B, the 00 00 00 30 sub-list
0x6d	class C, the 00 c0 05 6d attribute list
0x00	class A, the fixed-point vertex data

0x30 heads the class B payloads and 0x6d heads the class C payloads, which is the link flagged as a single coincidence two entries back. It is now seen in three payloads each, so it is a rule rather than an accident.

0x80 did not appear among these nine. Its meaning is still open -- it is the fourth value in the vocabulary and there is no sample of it here.

A correction. The record spacing in this table is not uniformly 0x30. The find output shows 0x30, 0x10, 0x30, 0x30 between consecutive packet headers, and only 9 of the 5,632 bytes scanned carry both the 0x30 tag and an EE pointer. The earlier "records at 0x30 spacing" was inferred from a truncated list of hits and does not hold.

Correction: the record tag does not select the payload

The previous entry mapped the disc tag vocabulary onto the three payload classes. A wider scan says that is wrong.

Range measured: savestate slot 1, RAM 0x22a000..0x24037f -- 91,008 bytes, 20 times the span scanned before.

Result: 19 packet headers, and all 19 carry byte 11 = 0x30. There are no 0x6d or 0x80 tags anywhere in this range. Reading six of their payloads:

rec 0022a6b8  tag 30 -> 00936a70  8d 8c 80 80 89 87 7c 80 ...   (fixed point)
rec 0022a6e8  tag 30 -> 009376f0  00 00 00 30 cd 00 00 00 ...   (sub-list)
rec 0022a6f8  tag 30 -> 00937850  92 90 84 80 94 94 86 80 ...   (fixed point)
rec 0022a728  tag 30 -> 00939c50  00 00 00 30 c0 00 00 00 ...   (sub-list)
rec 0022a738  tag 30 -> 00939e90  4c 4c 4b 80 4c 4c 4b 80 ...   (fixed point)
rec 0022a768  tag 30 -> 0093cc70  00 00 00 30 78 00 00 00 ...   (sub-list)

Records of identical tag alternate between two payload kinds. The tag does not select the payload.

What went wrong. The previous entry took the 0x30 and 0x6d that head the payloads to be the disc-side tag vocabulary, and matched them to the payload classes by that correspondence. The disc vocabulary measured at record byte 7 -- 0x00, 0x30, 0x6d, 0x80 -- and the RAM record byte 11 were treated as the same field. They are not: the payload magics are a property of the payload, and record byte 11 is a different thing that happens to be constantly 0x30 here.

Three payloads each made the coincidence look like a rule. It was a correspondence between two vocabularies that overlap in two values.

What is actually established about the RAM header, per position:

byte	value
0-3	04 04 00 01, constant
4-7	zero, constant
8	a count, 0x0b to 0x29 across the 19 records
9-10	zero, constant
11	0x30, constant on all 19 in this range
12-15	an EE RAM pointer

Byte 8 is the finding that survives. It is a small count that varies per record, and it is the one field here that is doing arithmetic rather than tagging.

Still open: what 0x30 at byte 11 means, what discriminates the payload kinds given that the record tag does not, and the meaning of 0x80, which has no sample in 91 KB of RAM.