Release 0.9.4 dev.16

Release 0.9.4-dev.16

Release: 0.9.4
Build: 0.9.4-dev.16
Status: MatrixPortal one-item GIF look-ahead qualification build

Dev.15 passed the physical MatrixPortal persistent-cache gate: all seven Carousel GIFs fit in the 384 KiB source cache (entries=7, bytes=249267), normal staging stopped at seven cold loads while cache hits rose to 25, and both fallback and eviction remained zero.

Dev.16 keeps every MatrixPortal memory budget unchanged and enables only the already-qualified one-item Carousel look-ahead scheduler.

MatrixPortal policy

• transient stage maximum: 256 KiB;
• free-PSRAM reserve: 1 MiB;
• persistent source-cache budget: 384 KiB;
• maximum persistent entry: 256 KiB;
• metadata capacity: 8 entries;
• one-item look-ahead: enabled;
• delay after current item becomes visible: 250 ms;
• transient /idot_play.gif: never persistent.

The complete seven-GIF qualification corpus occupies 249,267 bytes, so evict:0 is expected for that specific set.

Hardware gate

A cold Carousel should produce non-zero gifPrefetch attempts; ok/cached should increase, fail should remain zero, and later sources should activate from prefetched cache entries with fewer normal stage operations than a staging-only cold pass. PSRAM invariants and smooth playback must remain intact.