The operator's 'many seconds between display updates', run to ground:
MECHANISM (verified in source AND the shipped exe bytes): main passes
GetTicksPerSecond() as ApplicationManager's frame RATE, so frameDuration
is microscopic and RunMissions runs flat-out -- exactly ONE background
slot per loop frame, shipped and ours alike (ctor constant @0044f2d8 ==
1.0f, read straight out of BTL4OPT.EXE). That slot feeds a 7-task ring;
the gauge renderer gets 1/7th of slots, one ACTIVE gauge per slot, and
the screen blits once per completed wheel pass. The wheel is 136 gauges
-- and the BT_GAUGE_LOG roster dump shows all 136 are real cockpit
instruments (26 armor colormappers, leak gauges, cooling loops, weapon
clusters...): a Tesla pod shows everything at once, so the roster is
AUTHENTIC and must not be trimmed. Per-instrument latency is therefore
7 x 146 / loop_fps -- the loop rate is the only lever.
THE DEFECT: build410.sh compiled -O2 alone. The authentic release tier
(CODE/BT/OPT.MAK) is -O2 -Ot -Oc -Og -O -Ol -Z -Ob -Oe -Oi -Om -Op -Ov.
Adopting it (all 234 TUs clean, no BC4.52 optimizer ICEs) doubled the
loop: 16.7 -> ~30 fps wall on the rig. Shipped fifo throughput is still
~2x ours (11.8KB/s vs 6.4KB/s, governor-conflated) -- residual gap is an
open question pinned in GAUGE-CADENCE-NOTES.md with the operator A/B ask.
Instrumentation kept, cheap and gated: slot/wheel counters on the
[stack] line (BT_STACK_LOG), one-shot roster dump (BT_GAUGE_LOG),
tick-delta timers compile-gated BT_TICK_PROBES (OFF -- guest tick sums
proved to be trap-burst artifacts in the emulator, not costs; wall rates
are the only trustworthy measure). New: MUNGA/APPTASK.CPP shadow,
fifofps.py (true board fps from a fifodump), pod_render_bgprobe.conf.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The gauge framebuffer is PLANE-PACKED: L4GAUGE.CFG gives each port a bit
mask, not a rectangle, so all six heads share the same x/y and are separated
only by bit -- the packing the VDB splits into the pod's physical screens.
Comparing RGB was therefore measuring nothing useful; the "magenta artifact"
just meant the wrong heads were lit at that pixel.
New instruments (emulator/render-bridge/gauge-ab/, with a README):
planes.py per-head scoreboard -- shipped vs ours, missing vs extra, per
port mask, recovering the 16-bit word from DOSBox's RGB565
BT_VIS_LOG a complete cockpit widget map from the single dispatch every
gauge widget is built through (MethodDescription::Execute),
printing name + port + authored position
ab.sh stages the fresh build over BTL4REC.EXE and kills any running
DOSBox before launching -- see below
The fix: the Comm page's pilot roster is the POD roster (the viewpoint mech's
ControlsMapper pilot array, mapper attributes 15/16), not the mission's
player list. It is zero in a solo mission, so the shipped page draws empty;
ours resolved the local player and painted its icon in colour 0xff. The gate
belongs in the row source, not PilotList::Execute -- Execute's empty branch
still has to run, because erasing is what the shipped page draws.
head shipped ours missing extra (was)
Eng1 17981 17981 0 0 (0 / 1030)
Eng2 17981 17981 0 0
Eng3 17981 17981 0 0
Comm 15656 13557 2099 0 (2099 / 1253)
Heat 21374 20913 566 105 (566 / 990)
Title-band magenta 404 -> 0. The 2099 Comm pixels we are missing were
missing before the gate, so it is a strict improvement.
Method note, which cost more than the bug: the rig's confs run BTL4REC.EXE
out of the mount while the build writes build410/btl4opt.exe, and nothing
connected the two. Three measurements ran an hour-old binary, so a change
that "did nothing" three times had never been tested -- and the correct first
hypothesis was discarded on that evidence. ab.sh now re-stages every launch.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Six TUs born in one wave (4-agent re-hosting workflow from the BT411 donors
+ inline integration): BTL4GAUG (16 widget primitives + 5 connections, the
TU anchor @004c3f6c), BTL4GAU2 (13 composite panel clusters), BTL4GAU3
(PilotList/PlayerStatus/SectorDisplay/MessageBoard/mapping group), BTL4RDR
(the MapDisplay radar vs the authentic surviving header), BTL4GRND (the
real renderer: L4LampManager + L4Warehouse + BuildConfigurationFile with
the 19-entry BT registry chained onto the engine table). btl4.lib grows
7 -> 11 members; all 50 game TUs compile; link clean.
VERIFIED LIVE: with L4GAUGE=640x480x16 the interpreter parses the full
authentic L4GAUGE.CFG, Bhk1Init runs, ColorMapperArmor binds the live
mech's damage zones by name (cross-chassis names take the authentic inert
path), and the complete mutual missile fight runs with the cockpit stack
updating from real combat -- 16/16 rounds, 138 zone hits, zero faults.
Gauges-off regressions untouched.
Engine bring-up deviation (documented): ParseAttribute normalizes
unpublished attribute names to a shared writable zero cell -- the 1995
GaugeConnectionDirectOf ctor hard-derefs its source (first boot crashed
there); widgets on unpublished names draw static zeros and light up
automatically as the attribute waves publish the 1995 CFG spellings the
bindings already carry.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The reconstructed tree now produces a runnable binary with the authentic
1995 toolchain (BC4.52 / tlink32 / DPMI32):
- BTL4.CPP main TU reconstructed from the 4.11 Ghidra decomp (FUN_0040109c)
+ the 4.10 binary's own string pool + surviving RPL4TOOL.CPP house style;
probe_main.cpp scaffold retired (BTL4.NOTES.md documents every decoded call)
- L4NET.CPP staged: L4NetworkManager ctor/dtor + 10 vtable-pulled virtuals
(standalone-benign ones no-op, network ones Fail loudly) + NetNub client
globals (Net_Common_Ptr=NULL routes L4File to its plain-DOS path)
- build410.sh: libs now built in the AUTHENTIC makefile member order
(MUNGA.MAK / mungal4.mak / BT.MAK / BTL4.MAK). Order is load-bearing:
tlink emits static-init records in module pull order, and alphabetical
order booted into a null-vptr crash (IcomManager::ClassDerivations
constructing before parent NetworkClient::ClassDerivations). Also fixed
stage_link to the proven 32-bit lib set (SOSDBXC+SOSMBXC, no WATTCPLG)
- BOXTREE.HPP MemoryBlock unify, BTL4GRND notify stubs, remaining engine
backfills (audio/gauge/resource/stream TUs) that closed the deep ledger
Smoke test (DOSBox-X + 32RTM, copy of the pod BT tree, our exe swapped in):
BattleTech v4.10
BTL4Application::BTL4Application
l4net.cpp(22): L4NetworkManager -- l4net.cpp not yet reconstructed
Static init, main, -egg parse, BTL4.RES load (version 1.0.6 check passes),
ApplicationManager and the BTL4Application ctor chain all execute real
reconstructed code; boot halts at the first staged Fail() as designed.
Next brick: the real l4net.cpp body.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
CydandClaude Fable 5