ArcRunner (PPSA21406)

[JJenkx]

Existing thread

• I searched this category for the title ID and no thread exists for this title on any platform.

Title

ArcRunner (PPSA21406)

Content version tested

01.001.000, from sce_sys/param.json. Unreal Engine 4 title. The dump has no sce_sys/playgo-chunk.dat or playgo-scenario.json.

AnyPS5 commit

• main 0db47b263d + fix(libkernel): skip unallocated pages in sceKernelReleaseDirectMemory #10018 (3b1e7757dc). fix(libkernel): skip unallocated pages in sceKernelReleaseDirectMemory #10018 changes only sceKernelReleaseDirectMemory; it is not needed for this title as far as seen.
• The same build + fix(agc): lower import budgets only on memory exhaustion #8091 (17ae5cc23e).

System tested

Arch Linux, Ryzen 9 7950X, Radeon RX 6650 XT (RADV NAVI23), Mesa 26.2.4, Linux 7.2.9. Release build.

Furthest point

Intro cutscene of a new game: the save-slot menu, the opening dialogue ("What happened... where am I?") and the rendered 3D street scene with the police car. Too slow to play.

What is shown

1. Startup needs a PlayGo answer. Without one, the title aborts at about 28 s:

   scePlayGo: sce_sys/playgo-chunk.dat and sce_sys/playgo-scenario.json are missing, so chunk ID 1 cannot be checked; set APS5_PLAYGO_UNLISTED_CHUNKS=installed or =absent to answer for this dump
   

   With APS5_PLAYGO_UNLISTED_CHUNKS=installed, which is correct for a complete dump, the title gets through startup and the menus.

2. On main the frame rate is about 0.4 FPS. Three host imports fail at vkAllocateMemory with VK_ERROR_INVALID_EXTERNAL_HANDLE (-1000072003), and the host import budget is lowered to what is live:

   [gpu] host import budget lowered to the 143.2 MiB live after vkAllocateMemory failed 3 times in a row
   

   By the end of a 300 s run, 834k imports had been refused, and the driver copies those ranges instead.

3. With fix(agc): lower import budgets only on memory exhaustion #8091 the frame rate is about 2.4 FPS. The budget is no longer lowered: 14,584 imports were made in a 300 s run. 3,750 still fail with the same error, each range once (no retries). This is the same issue as in Absolum (Absolum (PPSA28311) #7373), where fix(agc): lower import budgets only on memory exhaustion #8091 took gameplay from 82 ms to 20.6 ms a frame.

4. Where the time goes with fix(agc): lower import budgets only on memory exhaustion #8091. A 20 s APS5_TRACE_SECONDS=200:20 capture in the intro cutscene gives:

   • frame p50 634 ms, with the GPU busy 304 ms per present;
   • queue worker 0x0 busy 96%;
   • the draw committer busy 56%, mostly in Resources.Complete (437 ms per frame inclusive);
   • queue worker 0x20 waiting in Driver.Packet.memory_wait, 400-490 ms per frame.

   A perf sample of the driver threads is spread over page faults on mapped GPU memory (vmf_insert_pfn_prot) and GuestMemory::WriteChanged, with no single hotspot. A guest thread also spins in sched_yield, which looks like the title waiting for the GPU.

   This capture is diagnostic only. The log was redirected, so it is not a performance report.

Current blocker

Speed. Two things to look at:

• the 3,750 imports that still fail and fall back to copies;
• the time in Resources.Complete and Driver.Packet.memory_wait.

No crash was seen in 300 s.

How it was run

1. Build libs and relinker from the pinned commit.
2. Stage the extracted title: unwrap eboot.bin and the modules in sce_module and prx with tools/unwrap_self.py. The relinker searches prx/ by default.
3. Relink and run from a runtime directory that holds the title as app0:

<build>/core/relinker/relinker --registry --rpath <build>/core/libs/libs <stage>/eboot.elf app.elf
APS5_PLAYGO_UNLISTED_CHUNKS=installed LD_LIBRARY_PATH=<build>/core/libs/libs ./app.elf

Input: Cross every 30 s from 40 s.

The relinker reports 331 imports from EOSSDK-PS5-Shipping.debug_prx as absent. Absolum has the same kind of EOSSDK gap and runs; no failure from them was seen here.

Not verified

• gameplay;
• audio;
• Vulkan validation during the title runs;
• other GPUs.

AI-assisted: yes (Claude Code)