Lichii nx2 build 125 (cbb512e)

Big update since build 117: 68 changes, including shader precaching before a game starts, a faster Donkey Kong Bananza, Mario Kart World fixes and many Ocarina of Time fixes.

Recommended download: the PGO build.

What's changed

Performance

• Donkey Kong Bananza runs faster. The split GPU back thread does less work per draw (#858, #921); 11.7 → 14.8 fps at the PR's test spot.
• Shaders are precached before the game starts, so fewer hitches the first time you see an effect (#781, #812), and precaching uses less memory (#878).
• Pipeline caches survive updates. A new cache version starts from the newest compatible cache instead of from scratch (#591), and only damaged, stale or duplicate records are dropped (#815).
• Faster NUP loading. NUP files are only decompressed as far as the game reads (#885).
• Cheaper ASTC texture uploads, from SmileyTatsu's fork (#296), and fewer redundant texture uploads (#817).
• GPU threads are pinned to their own cores (#769), except on hybrid CPUs with few performance cores, where Windows schedules them (#698).
• Graphics cards with lots of VRAM keep more textures before collecting (#268), and the GPU thread wastes less time polling and waiting (#621, #752).

Mario Kart World

• The 30 fps lock and low-detail models are fixed when GPU Clocks is set to Boost or Overclock (#664).
• Karts stay on the water and waves are back (#690).

Ocarina of Time

• FPS Unlock is built in, and there's a new Switch 2 frame rate limit slider (#655).
• Fixed a crash in the texture cache (#910).
• Fixed the water flicker (#778, imported from Frizti's Fritchii v4), the red line in the tomb (#820) and missing geometry after a deferred clear (#699).
• Fixed cutscene movies (#721, fixes #676).
• OoT on GPUs without mesh shaders (such as the GTX 10 series) now builds its cached task and mesh pipelines at boot (#841, #642).

Other games

• Mario Tennis Fever: Switch 2 controller button icons and face-button glyphs draw correctly (#691, #821).
• Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour: fixed decoder video frames (#689).
• Switch 2 titles: new textures no longer start from stale memory (#818).
• Movies: video stays in sync with audio (#659, #809), and AV1 video uses libdav1d explicitly (#879, #912).

AMD

• Imported the easy AMD fixes from the CheezerWheezer fork (#679), and cooperative matrix shapes are only queried on supported cards (#614).

Stability and everything else

• When the microphone can't open or start, games now get silence instead of a failed capture (#881).
• Windows keeps fastmem by retrying its memory allocation instead of falling back (#645), and the long-path manifest is fixed (#576).
• Motion controls work with fast sensors and recover when a sensor stops reporting (#712).
• The English title is shown for NUP games (#738).
• Many GPU correctness fixes: fences and queries (#687, #337, #718), cache invalidation (#700, #611, #816), shaders (#610, #902), macros (#688), textures (#575, #880) and command processing (#609, #488, #264).
• Service stubs and fixes: vi2/nifm (#727), audio (#600), BCAT (#561) and mod folders (#686).
• Build fixes, including macOS (#932).

Full list: build-117...build-125.

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Automatic build of nx2 at cbb512e.

Linux

Linux packages come as an AppImage (self-contained, needs glibc 2.39 or newer: Ubuntu 24.04, Fedora 40, Debian 13, Arch) and a tar.gz (uses your system libraries, so Qt 6 and the usual libraries must be installed).

Build Type	Standard	PGO (Recommended)	Notes
amd64	AppImage · tar.gz	AppImage · tar.gz	Make the AppImage executable (chmod +x) and run it
ARM (aarch64)	AppImage · tar.gz	AppImage · tar.gz

Windows

Windows packages are in-place zip files: extract and run lichii.exe, or eden-cli.exe from a terminal.

Build Type	Standard	PGO (Recommended)	Notes
amd64 / x86_64	zip	PGO zip	Both built with clang-cl and ThinLTO; the PGO zip adds a profile trained on Ocarina of Time

macOS

Build Type	Standard	PGO (Recommended)	Notes
arm64 (Apple Silicon)	zip		macOS 15 or newer. Not notarized: right-click and choose Open the first time, or run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine lichii.app. eden-cli is inside the app, in Contents/MacOS

The PGO builds are the same programs compiled with profile-guided optimization. Linux uses clang with Eglantine's profile; Windows uses clang-cl and ThinLTO with a profile trained in Lichii on Ocarina of Time, so other games gain less. Prefer them when your CPU supports it.