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Ring Out 1.4

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@jackpoison-prog jackpoison-prog released this 28 Aug 00:40
· 8 commits to main since this release

The launcher now starts

If you tried 1.3 and got "no native module was supplied" after a setup that
looked like it worked — that was a bug, not your system, and it's fixed. The
launcher was comparing your glibc against a number that was never the real
requirement, so on most current distributions it refused to run a module it had
just built correctly. (#4)

Get the last 10–14%: ./setup.sh --pgo

The profiles that ship can only be read by clang 22 or newer. On SteamOS
(clang 20), Ubuntu 24.04 (18) and Debian 12 (14) they're refused, and you
silently get a slower module.

--pgo fixes that on any clang: it builds an instrumented module, plays 6000
frames of an arcade match on its own, and rebuilds using what it learned.

Measured over the same fixed frames, 8 runs per arm:

unprofiled profiled
desktop (Zen 3) 176.95 Gcyc 158.66 −10.3%
Steam Deck (Zen 2) 233.99 Gcyc 201.07 −14.1%

A profile you train yourself came out ahead of the one that ships, because it
matches your compiler exactly. Costs about 11 minutes on a desktop, 26 on a
Deck, once. Play the game once first — the training run needs your save to
get past the memory-card screen, and setup will tell you if it didn't.

Setup tells you what it's doing

A preflight now lists what's present and what isn't — compiler, cmake, ninja,
disc, free space, and whether your clang can actually read the shipped profile —
then asks before spending twenty minutes. At the end it says plainly whether
your module is profiled, and if not, why and what it costs.

A Steam Deck can build its own module

BUILD-ON-THE-DECK.md ships in the Deck package. Install a toolchain and
SteamOS compiles its own module, needing no bundled libraries at all — and it's
the way to get the full PGO win there. Tested end to end on SteamOS 3.8.25:
34 minutes start to finish.

Also

  • Per-region PGO profiles for all three discs
  • Cross-region netplay refused at connect with a reason, instead of stalling
  • Cheat lists for PAL and JP
  • .rvz and .gcz discs read directly
  • Two new reference pages: docs/measuring.md and
    docs/profile-guided-optimisation.md

Which download? linux-x86_64 compiles on your machine (needs clang or gcc,
cmake, ninja). steamdeck-x86_64 is prebuilt — no toolchain needed, though you
can now build on the Deck if you want to.

You supply your own disc image. No game data or game code is distributed here.