STAR WARS: Dark Forces Remaster (PPSA19728) on Windows: first mission completed with local startup fixes

[PrintOrb]

Result

STAR WARS: Dark Forces Remaster (PPSA19728, content version 02.000.000) reaches gameplay on Windows with two local startup fixes. I completed the first mission using keyboard and mouse.

This is a patched-build result, not a claim that stock main is playable or that the whole game works.

Build

Base: upstream main e013f8c9c565e4a28be16268c93ec36c64baa34b, Release. The runtime libraries and relinker were built from source.

Conversion: --windows --windows-diagnostics --registry. The title's supplied libc.prx and libSceNpCppWebApi.prx were converted as guest modules, with original modules and assets retained in app0.

Startup fixes used

1. NGS2 voice-index errors. Main terminates with sceNgs2RackGetVoiceHandle: invalid argument. GDB confirms the title creates a reverb rack (0x2001) with max_voices = 1, obtains voice 0, then requests voice 1. The local change returns 0x804A8305 for an index at or beyond the voice count, leaving the output untouched. The game logs the failed requests and continues. The value follows prosper's native-module analysis, which cites the native export at 0xfbd0 and bounds error at 0xfc73. We did not independently probe a PS5. Other validation paths are unchanged.

2. Concurrent SDL audio initialization. After the first change, GDB captures two threads entering SDL_AudioInit_REAL through sceAudioOut2ContextCreate and sceAudioOutOpen, followed by a call to address 0 in SDL_AudioQuit_REAL. The local change routes the AudioOut and AudioOut2 initialization calls through one mutex-protected SDL_InitSubSystem(SDL_INIT_AUDIO) helper. With both changes, intro video, menus, mission selection and gameplay work. Audio was not disabled to bypass startup.

These are separate local commits (a2c15ed91 and c43834d05), not published PRs yet. The audio change still needs a dedicated automated concurrency regression before submission.

Checks

• Full Release library builds pass.
• New ngs2_voiceindex regression aborts against main and passes with the bounds-error change. It covers sampler, submixer, reverb and mastering racks, boundary/larger/UINT32_MAX indices, unchanged outputs and subsequent valid lookups.
• ngs2_voiceindex, ngs2_render, ngs2_stream: 3/3 pass.
• audio_out_ex, audio_out2_latency, audio_out2_port_buffers: 3/3 pass.
• Conventions, test registration and diff checks pass. Linux and full CTest were not run.

Remaining problems

• Pressing Tab causes severe frame-rate drops during play.
• Opening the PDA causes unstable behaviour. We have not yet isolated or quantified it.
• The menu was observed around 60 presented FPS; no sustained gameplay FPS measurement is claimed.
• Later missions, long-session stability and save/load have not been validated. Movement, shooting and audible output were not separately logged as individual checks.

The first mission was completed despite these issues. The Tab/PDA causes remain unconfirmed; they are follow-up investigations rather than part of the startup fixes.

AI-assisted: yes (Codex), with manual gameplay testing by PrintOrb.