Roadmap

Roadmap

What we plan to implement next, in order. Where things stand: Status. Ticked items say where they landed. Sources: bbport 0.6 (deadinside28/bloodborne_pc 8185b88, reviewed 2026-10-19) and the Windows fork (Supermedo/bloodborne_pc de2e38a 1.9.2, reviewed 2026-10-19 from e5d04e2), and the macOS fork (Wooloomooloo2/bloodborne_mac_port 308992e / metal-native ff830e6, reviewed 2026-10-19). Performance changes from any of them are adopted only after an A/B on our own build (same backup, route and settings, alternating runs); their numbers come from other machines and architectures. Code taken from them is credited in the same commit (CREDITS, the wiki, the commit message, a code comment) and recorded in the runtime's docs/UPSTREAM.md.

Save editor (launcher)

• Preview readable characters in each profile's save set: name, level, attributes, Blood Echoes, Insight, playtime and journey (launcher 6f6f64a).
• Edit offensive attributes, Blood Echoes and Insight with a full pre-edit backup, staged save swap, stale-preview check and edited-save trophy marker (launcher 6f6f64a).
• Add Vitality and Endurance with coherent saved HP and stamina values, and a level 544 Max all action (launcher 1697795; see Save manager).
• Verify other character fields and inventory one at a time.
• Import/export complete save sets and manage backup history.

1. Small fixes (runtime)

Landed in runtime 63f043a (2026-10-19); each fix logs when it acts.

• Thread records below 40 bits (bbport 0.6): already handled here, the runtime's allocations come from its own heap below 1 TiB (runtime_heap.h).
• Blur-kernel assertion 0xa0020007 logged and ignored at its two known sites (bbport 0.6).
• Larger GX per-frame command heap patch, against the crash at 0x2199310 (bbport 0.6); on by default, BB_GX_HEAP=0 turns it off.
• A stale texture format no longer stops the game (fork 3e3b760, parsifal295): also our watch-list assertions data_format=6/num_format=1 and 15/4.
• A garbage PM4 header drops the rest of that command buffer instead of aborting (fork c07f0ff).
• A null vertex-buffer table skips the draw (fork 2c4ddeb; bbport 0.6 "crash 139").
• A flip IRQ ahead of its label waits briefly instead of stopping (fork 76f5b5f, from Awaken).
• Two copied-save playtests with lamp travel and fights: no fault, none of the fallbacks fired.
• Release notes (next release).
• Trophy notifications draw in the game's ImGui overlay after a persisted unlock; the launcher only records and lists trophies (runtime and launcher main, 2026-10-22).

2. GPU crash with character motion vectors

• Reproduced with Metal API validation from the pre-boss backup: Metal names objects "destroyed while still required to be alive by the command buffer" (a 64 MiB detiler staging buffer, texture-cache images and views).
• Fixed in runtime 57fba4f (2026-10-19): removed residency-set objects retained until the submission open at their removal completes; texture-cache deletions one submission later (draw pipeline); large staging buffers kept (MoltenVK's argument buffers referenced a trimmed one; turning argument buffers off cost ~85% FPS). The pre-boss backup's boss was won; a 20-minute launcher session had no crash at 50–65 FPS.
• Frame-rate A/B of the three changes (expected nil).
• 0.8.0 release notes recommend motion vectors again for the sharper moving image at a small frame-rate cost.
• In-game menu values out of sync with the actual settings: the launcher keeps the settings in its database and the game and launcher exchange changes while it runs (runtime 8cbcf64, launcher 1dc03d8, 2026-10-20). The menu shows every launcher graphics setting under the same tabs (runtime 511b7ac).

3. bbport 0.6 (before the next release)

Every item of bbport 0.6's change list (CHANGES_0.6.md, 8185b88, with 0.6-pre1 72e5c8c), sorted for our build. 0.6 replaced bbport's renderer with its own code, and its hook and overlay code calls that renderer, so a merge does not fit (86 conflicts in a trial merge): each feature is ported by hand onto our renderer and bbcpu.

The hook base. bbport 0.6 hooks the game's code with x86 stubs and trampolines that save every register. On macOS bbcpu runs such stubs like the game's code (their pages are guest code ranges; a call to a host function is a bridged host call). Runtime Core::InstallGuestCodeHook (bbport's interface) is a jump to a stub int3; the replaced instructions; jmp back, whose int3 reaches a host handler with every register (bbcpu bbcpu_trap_state: flags, MXCSR, YMM). Functions rewritten while the game runs stay with the translator (bbcpu_recomp_exclude).

Renderer and small fixes:

• Push constants after the pass begins (the half-screen/corner frames); a draw without a pixel shader no longer takes the previous draw's fragment settings (runtime 8b2aaac).
• The present waits for its frame at every stage (single black or grey frames; runtime 2bdc2f7).
• Already here: blur-kernel assertion 0xa0020007, the larger GX command heap, crash 139 (null resource tables), 40-bit thread handles, command buffers copied at submit (BB_COPY_GPU_BUFFERS), the save-load Bad PM4 packet (command-buffer guard).
• Empty character-creator preview (#178): GPU-written images keep their mip hashes from the first upload; a new save's character creator draws the character. Decoder and format asserts (#144, #165, #166): already handled (stale formats logged and skipped).
• Draw preparation on a quarter of the hardware threads: ours already uses half.

Features:

• Frame rate through hooks (bbport_frame_rate.cpp): the pacer, the main loop's step and 48 per-frame values follow the frame's time; the community patches remain with BB_FRAME_HOOKS=0. The frame rate limit applies live; F3 toggles a 30 FPS limit (runtime 2bdc2f7). Hooks 66.6/67.8/68.0 FPS at 473/462/480% CPU against the patches' 65.0/67.3 FPS at 471/455% (60 s holds, Hunter's Dream): no measurable cost.
• Physics check in play: running speed above 90 FPS, cloth, corpses, Laurence above 30 FPS.
• Laurence's cinematic above 30 FPS: failed render jobs give their pool slot back; the render resource cache gets 512 MiB of port memory past the game's (BB_DMEM_EXTRA_MB, runtime 2bdc2f7). [ ] Checked at the cinematic (needs a save there).
• Effects switched live: chromatic aberration, depth of field, motion blur, SSAO, the game's anti-aliasing, dynamic-light shadows; SSAO only where the game has its target (the crash after selecting an item); SSR stays a patch at start (it sizes a target). Bloom is a new live setting in the launcher and the menu (20 languages).
• Aspect ratios 4:3, 16:10, 21:9, 32:9 and Auto (camera, HUD at the edges, full-screen fills, markers), separate from the resolution, in the launcher and the menu; 16:9 by default. Checked at 16:10, 21:9 (with the game's menu) and 16:9 (no cost). The blur-kernel clamp too.
• Keyboard and mouse: mouse camera without the stick's limits, a menu pointer, a Dark Souls III layout with chords, the movement-key ramp, the port's cursor; the mouse-capture jump and the Escape double toggle fixed. The launcher's Controls page shows the new defaults (Run, Dodge). [ ] Button prompts for the device in use; [ ] assigning mouse buttons and chords in the launcher.
• Online: Seamless Hunt with BBSC seamless co-op, and The Hunter's Dream, on shadPS4 0.20's network code (libbbnet20). Dependencies in build-deps.sh (Protobuf with Abseil, nlohmann_json, OpenSSL, miniupnpc, epoll-shim); its game hooks on InstallGuestCodeHook; the launcher's Online page. Decision (maintainer): may a save marked as edited go online? Trophies stay local either way. Tests with real accounts.
• Real occlusion queries counted at the game's resolution (part of their new memory model: check against ours).

Not for our build: the new memory model and its NVIDIA/Intel/VRAM fixes (we use the unified pool), NVIDIA startup and RIP 0, Debian/Steam Deck/AppImage, FSR 4.1.1 assets and its white picture after loading, RX 580 labels, light-shaft tiling over the bus (discrete GPUs), the GPU choice for laptops with two GPUs, the old shadNet module (shadPS4's server refuses other builds).

4. Other forks' fixes (medium)

• Mods: more folder layouts load, and folders that do not are named (fork dd2314e).
• An external FPS patch replaces the built-in preset (fork 8042500).
• Field of view; mute in the background (fork b75e811).

5. From the Huax-1839 and Wooloomooloo2 macOS ports (each measured on our build first)

• MoltenVK without Metal argument buffers (MVK_CONFIG_USE_METAL_ARGUMENT_BUFFERS=0): +13–16% FPS there. A/B uncapped and capped.
• MoltenVK prefilled command buffers (MVK_CONFIG_PREFILL_METAL_COMMAND_BUFFERS=2): about 6× fewer late frames there. A/B frame pacing (p90, late frames); check MetalFX and FSR.
• DingDong order: queue the game's compute work before waiting for the previous submission (black loading screen there). Correctness: loads with the copied save.
• Texture budget without the game's memory pool (their #19): our collector counts the 6 GB pool as texture use and never evicts. Check Metal's working-set limit on 16–18 GB Macs.
• Draw-list task lock (stuck loading screen): check whether our command-buffer guard covers the render thread's draw-list task as a whole.
• Character-name entry in fullscreen (IME text box, Noel Miller): check ours first.
• Native renderer (R5): Huax-1839's direct Metal renderer, further developed in Wooloomooloo2's 0.5.x Metal port (GPL-2.0-or-later), is adapted into our backend where it fits the multiplatform design (an adapter per graphics API): the SPIR-V to MSL compiler and its rect-list, tessellation and geometry rewrites, the pipeline cache with a binary archive, the format and state tables, FidelityFX on Metal. Credited in the commits that bring the code.
  • Every pipeline builds in Metal too (BB_METAL_SHADOW=1, runtime dfb01fd): 550 pipelines, 0 failed.
  • The frame drawn through Metal behind BB_METAL_FRAME=1 (runtime 1992ecf): 65.5/61.7 FPS against 58.0/58.1 on MoltenVK in two alternating pairs; MoltenVK stays the default.
  • A renderer choice in the launcher and the in-game menu (MoltenVK / Metal, experimental).
  • MetalFX as a macOS upscaler choice with either renderer (runtime PR #2, launcher PR #1; 1080p Balanced on an M3 Pro: 23.9 ms median against FSR 3.1's 21.3 ms in one copied-save scene). Its name and render resolution appear in the big FPS overlay.
  • The render adapter specified and approved: the project's own GPU interface, with Vulkan and Metal backends, replacing the Metal interception layer.
  • Adapter A0–A6: the renderer moved onto it with the Vulkan backend, each step measured (runtime d6e8199).
  • Adapter M1–M4: the Metal backend (resources created in Metal); then MoltenVK is left out on macOS. M1 done (runtime 4ca9561); M2 step 1, all shared recording through the adapter, done (runtime 1dda5fb).
  • Pipelines created in Metal own their shaders (runtime 8c7fa5b, 8f6e731): with the Metal frame the device builds Metal pipelines only, holding their shaders, without MoltenVK modules or pipelines. The compiled forms stay for the session (the session's Metal pipelines point into them, and the pipeline cache keeps every program anyway).
• Later: review other ideas from DiAvisoo/bbport-mac-optimized separately.

6. Visual bugs

• Blood on already killed enemies after a save reload can be pale with bright edges instead of dark red. The cause has not been isolated.

7. Launcher and tooling

• Outputs above 1080p start again (runtime 74c556e): the pool is imported in overlapping windows and direct memory follows the scene size; the Graphics page and the menu estimate memory against the Mac's.

• Character lighting above about 3.5 million scene pixels: the texture collector kept GPU-written images whose contents could not safely be downloaded. Native 1440p clothing highlights returned on Metal and MoltenVK with normal collection active (runtime b2ff9cd).

• Trophy notices only over the game (launcher 6f626d7), sent without waiting for SDL's focus (runtime 77bcc30), activation handed back to the game (launcher 4b9a90e).

• Keep test progress between test runs: KEEP_SAVE=1 (test_run.sh).

• Native 1080p GX worker crash: live dynamic shadows keep the game's disabled state in a secondary render context without a shadow target (runtime e8e14a3). Copied-save tests passed on both renderers, including a five-minute Metal run with left turns.

• Recurring shader-cache rebuild: save only successful pipeline keys (runtime e8e14a3), emit each tessellation output location once (runtime PR #3), and rebuild older shader binaries once (0e940e9). A warm launch reused the cache without the damaged-entry warning.

• Background shader compilation: a missing pipeline compiles on a worker and its draw is skipped until ready (no hitches the first time an area is seen), behind a setting.

Not taken

• Online for shadPS4's public server (0.51's module): the server accepts only shadPS4's own builds since 2026-10-12.
• NVIDIA, Intel, Polaris, Steam Deck, AppImage and Windows fixes; DLSS, frame generation, FSR 4.1.1; VK_EXT_device_fault (MoltenVK lacks it).
• bbport's new memory model and the fork's VRAM budget fixes: we use the unified pool.
• Fork 9566a1d and 5012c6f (stretched polygons): bugs of their newer shadPS4 base; our push block and index binding do not have them. The fork's barrier memo (08cd804): we have it.