NX Play 1.7.11

Added

• Tools › Update All Builds… brings every game up to date with nxnative, one build after another, so each one is ready when you want to play it. After an nxnative update a game's next build can take from a few minutes to an hour. After an Xcode update every game recompiles its graphics once. A game that's already current takes a few seconds. The window explains this two ways, and you pick one: Gamer compares it to the shader pre-caching Steam and consoles do after an update. Old school describes it as a make world with a cold compiler cache: nxnative's shader chain, and its cache of compiled shaders keyed by the Metal compiler. Kept builds and games without their game files are skipped. Only while plugged in, on by default, holds the next build while the Mac is on battery and starts it once you plug in. The status bar then says it's waiting for the power adapter.

Changed

• Controllers use the Switch's buttons in NX Play too: on an Xbox or PlayStation controller, the right button now plays and the bottom one goes back, as A and B do once the game starts (nxnative maps them by position). Before, Console Mode used them the other way round. The hints show the button to press, such as Ⓑ on an Xbox controller. Pro Controllers and Joy-Con work as before.

• Console Mode's build progress is a staircase: one step per stage of the build. Finished steps are solid, and the current one fills as it goes, or pulses when its work can't be counted. A little stick figure climbs them. Its legs bend at the knee as it plants each foot on a step, its arms swing against its legs, and its body rises as it climbs. It walks to where the build is and runs to catch up after a jump. When the build stops moving, it paces its step, stops, looks around and taps a foot. It waves from the top when the build is done. With Reduce Motion it stands still. The line under it uses a player's words, such as "Step 8 of 9 · Preparing the graphics · 12,339/18,503 shaders · 15:33 left", instead of "8/9 Mac shaders · compiling". The library's status bar and log keep the build script's own words.

• The Mac stays awake while a build runs, so an overnight build no longer stops when the Mac goes to sleep. App Nap is off too, so a build in the background runs at full speed. The display can still sleep.

• An update build on a game that's already built says "Building", not "Extracting".