Ocarina Recomp & Hookshot changelog

• Fewer stutters on a first visit: the installer prepares 2894 shader variants and 2190 pipelines before play (0.2.9: 1725 and 1297). They come from play recorded in Kokiri and the temples.
• Integrated GPUs and little video memory: ASTC decoded on the CPU is now BC3, a quarter of the memory. A Radeon Vega 11 ended the game at a save load, out of memory for an 894 MB texture (#184).
• Out of video memory:
• a staging buffer that does not fit waits for the uploads and tries other memory types before ending the game (#182);
• after a failed allocation, old released textures are dropped and an ASTC texture that did not decode is tried again (#172);
• the menu skips a frame instead of crashing (#171).

Contributed by GuiSysLima.

• AMD RDNA 1/2: the present waits for its fence on the CPU and uses its own queue. This fixes the opening movie that froze black (#181, GuiSysLima).
• AMD: a compute pipeline the driver crashed in is built without optimization on the next start, and skipped after a second crash (#179).
• Still known:
• blue-green squares in the Kokiri fog;
• some tree canopies vanish up close;
• dark falling leaves;
• occasional black flicker.

Unpack the whole ZIP and open Instalar-Ocarina.exe. Install over the previous version, in the same folder. Experimental. Needs your own copy of the game, version 1.1.1.

SHA-256: 81d9b98efc104bc53bf221a5696a1b65d644e2862f9de0c79a6237ffec96d8e3

Files: Ocarina-Setup-0.3.0-windows.zip (116.3 MB). Full notes on GitHub

• Picture: the exposure the port left at 0 is now -1.25. The picture is no longer washed out.
• Frame generation (experimental): shows frames made between the game's, 2x to 4x, for high refresh rate monitors (2x on 120 Hz, 4x on 240 Hz). Based on Hookshot's (NotRexed). Fast motion may still show artefacts and brightness changes.
• Scene upscaling: the game's upscaler is now stood in for by AMD FSR 1 (a bilinear sample before). The menu also offers bilinear, TAA + FSR 1 and AMD FSR 2.2 (experimental), which use the previous frames for less shimmer on leaves and edges.
• Menu (Screen > Picture): new Scene upscaling, Frame generation and Quality preset (Custom, Auto, Low, Medium, High, Ultra) options. Auto picks by the graphics card's memory and the monitor's refresh rate.
• AMD: a mesh pipeline the driver crashed in is skipped on the next start, so the boot no longer crashes at the same point every time (RX 9070 XT).
• Why there is no DLSS or FSR 3.1/4: docs/upscaling.md.
• Still known: blue-green squares in the Kokiri fog, dark falling leaves, occasional black flicker, tree canopies that vanish up close.

Unpack the whole ZIP and open Instalar-Ocarina.exe. Install over the previous version, in the same folder. Experimental. Needs your own copy of the game, version 1.1.1.

SHA-256: d7311f83add4f0cef206d16039990505f2f8a7d45c6f38d9b3088338dff59abe

Files: Ocarina-Setup-0.2.9-windows.zip (116.2 MB). Full notes on GitHub

• AMD: big shaders are built one at a time and optimized, and the cache is checked before the queue. On an RX 580, the Kokiri forest no longer stays black while they compile. Contributed by LOUMERIM.
• Linux with NVIDIA: scenes are no longer washed out to white.
• Shadows: fixed shadow reads with offset taps, where all four taps read the same texel. This may reduce the flickering stair-stepped shadows (#132).
• AMD: an atomic write loop in the translator no longer gets stuck, which could hang the GPU.
• Tools: the GPU profiler can measure periodically and per draw (jogar\jogar-perfil-gpu.ps1).
• Still known: blue-green squares in the Kokiri fog, dark falling leaves, occasional black flicker.

Unpack the whole ZIP and open Instalar-Ocarina.exe. Install over the previous version, in the same folder. The shader translator changed, so the install prepares the shaders again, and the first run may stutter in the first minute. Experimental. Needs your own copy of the game, version 1.1.1.

SHA-256: 45fd4fc850de9883818626c8a0d8d57ad66067e550f0fc95d0f19f46db7df73f

Files: Ocarina-Setup-0.2.8-windows.zip (115.8 MB). Full notes on GitHub

• Kokiri's trees have leaves again. The canopy was not drawn (bare branches), and without it the sun washed the fog white. Vegetation, filtered light and fog are now much closer to the original game. Fix from a contributor's Linux port.
• The leaves fall. They used to hang still in the air. On the first run they start falling after a while, once the game has prepared their shaders. It costs some fps (about 7 on an RTX 5090).
• Fewer stutters: the installer's shader preparation covers almost twice as many shaders, and an update adds the new preparations to yours.
• Blue-green blotches in the fog are much smaller (a fix to the fog sum, which also avoided a hang on AMD).
• Less video memory: the game's big memory blocks only take VRAM for the part the GPU uses (about 2.4 GB less), and textures use BC3 on cards up to 12 GB (half the memory).
• Installer: free space on other drives is read correctly (it showed 0 GB), and shaders are prepared again when the version changes.
• Fixes: the game no longer closes with FATAL: sm: service "hid" (vibration); laptops with two GPUs use the dedicated one.
• Still known: the falling leaves are dark, some trees lose their leaves up close, occasional black flicker.

Unpack the whole ZIP and open Instalar-Ocarina.exe. Install over the previous version, in the same folder. The first run after updating translates the shaders again and may stutter in the first minute. Experimental. Needs your own copy of the game, version 1.1.1.

SHA-256: 044c4584e16017caf19b6f9308bdd30f9977e50cd32516a68b89c2b7d09aee64

Files: Ocarina-Setup-0.2.7-windows.zip (115.8 MB). Full notes on GitHub

• Installer: fixed the "no file name was provided" error at "Copiar as ferramentas", which stopped the install on some Windows setups.
• Shaders: every shader the game uses up to Kokiri is now converted for the PC GPU (12 failed before). Fixes from a contributor's Linux port.
• Less memory: video memory is reserved in smaller blocks. In my test, about 0.7 GB less VRAM and 0.85 GB less RAM, at the same frame rate.
• AMD integrated GPUs (Vega): the game no longer closes when there is not enough memory for an upscale image.
• Experimental: the game's own upscaling network now works. With TOTK_BIG_CS=0 in totk.ini the picture is sharper, but still slightly darker, with outlines on some leaves. It is not the default yet.
• Still known: blue-green blotches in the Kokiri fog (under investigation).

Unpack the whole ZIP and open Instalar-Ocarina.exe. Install over the previous version, in the same folder: since 0.2.5, updating takes about a minute. Experimental. Needs your own copy of the game, version 1.1.1.

SHA-256: 2ed40e974b9df89a9ac2e5f73bc2d9a4d8a9dbd16cc097bcc5039dc6ca6eda4c

Files: Ocarina-Setup-0.2.6-windows.zip (115.8 MB). Full notes on GitHub

• Updating is much faster. Installing a new version over the previous one, in the same folder, recompiled the whole game (close to an hour on an average PC). Now only what changed is recompiled: from 0.2.4 to 0.2.5, about a minute. This applies from this version on.
• Graphics cards with up to 6 GB: textures take a quarter of the video memory (BC3). On a 4 GB GTX 1650 the game went past 6 GB of VRAM and closed (device lost) when entering a new area.
• 12 GB cards (RTX 5070 and others): the frame rate fell to 9–11 fps in Kokiri after a few minutes. Memory copies in VRAM are now capped at 1 GB.
• AMD: when the driver closes the game while building a shader, that shader is noted. At the next start it is built another way (without optimization), and if the driver closes the game again, it is skipped. The crash still happens once at that point, and the next start gets past it.
• Intel: fixed a driver crash when saving the shader cache, and a device lost when loading Kokiri on integrated GPUs (fixes by AlfaDev23).

Unpack the whole ZIP and open Instalar-Ocarina.exe. Install over the previous version, in the same folder. Experimental. Needs your own copy of the game, version 1.1.1.

SHA-256: 3bbcdce1c1d13468cfcf53161f727289441184c1afd3499554530be2955cf34e

Files: Ocarina-Setup-0.2.5-windows.zip (115.8 MB). Full notes on GitHub

• Leaves, canopy and grass are lit again. They rendered black because a lighting shader writes only some of an image's channels, and Vulkan zeroed the others. Fix by Akane.
• The game no longer closes at start after updating over an earlier version (FATAL: cfg: TOTK_OOT_RESOLUTION has no row). The installer now recompiles the runtime whenever the version changes.
• Memory warning: with 16 GB of RAM, Windows can close the game the first time, at the Deku Tree scene. The installer now warns when the Windows memory limit is low and shows how to enlarge the page file (initial 16384 MB, maximum 32768 MB).
• Save import: warns when your current save is newer than the one being imported. The previous save is still kept in perfil\save-antes-de-importar-<date>.
• The game's neural networks are much smaller (from 1.4 million to 92 thousand shader words), groundwork for console-quality upscaling.

Unpack the whole ZIP and open Instalar-Ocarina.exe. You can install over the previous version, in the same folder. Experimental. Needs your own copy of the game, version 1.1.1.

SHA-256: 45bdd73f3a1db16a3219e348cd494ecb8d3304d3e99296cb219ca379db55eaab

Files: Ocarina-Setup-0.2.4-windows.zip (115.8 MB). Full notes on GitHub

• Shaders prepared at install: the installer reads the shaders from your own copy of the game and prepares them before you play, in under a minute. On a first start, the 12 s stall at boot and the 25 s stall at the start of the Deku Tree scene are gone. For now this covers the start of the game; later areas still build shaders in play.
• Foliage: 15 compute shaders that were rejected at every boot now work. The foliage culling should be among them. The flickering grass and Link should be gone too.
• 6 to 8 GB cards: the game uses less video memory, which should prevent "device lost" on GTX 1060 and 1660, RTX 3050, 4060 and similar cards.
• AMD:
• buffers larger than the card's limit are split into smaller windows;
• a pipeline the driver refuses is built again without optimization;
• the huge shaders stay out of the boot prebuild.

Not tested on an AMD card yet: please report in the issues.

• Resolution: the oot_resolution option in totk.ini (auto or 25 to 200 %) fixes the 3D resolution on cards where the dynamic resolution drops.
• Linux: builds and starts.

Unpack the whole ZIP and open Instalar-Ocarina.exe. Experimental. Needs your own copy of the game, version 1.1.1.

SHA-256: f06f9138f63566a8afbfd5d0ea2c2b172e2e332fc1726e227870d90e18bdb50c

Files: Ocarina-Setup-0.2.3-windows.zip (115.7 MB). Full notes on GitHub

• Fixed the crash after the opening cutscene, at the start of the Deku Tree scene. A task shader was sometimes built as a vertex shader, and NVIDIA's compiler crashed.
• Better frame rate on NVIDIA: fewer background shader builds compete with the game.
• No more freezes of up to a minute after the Deku Tree, and less RAM at boot.
• AMD black screen after the intro: should be fixed, but untested on AMD so far. Please report in the issues.
• Installer:
• Portuguese/English button;
• accepts AVX2 on older Windows 10;
• no longer crashes without Notepad.
• Linux: two crash fixes.
• The log now says where a crash inside a driver happened.
• Still known: the first time, the start of the Deku Tree scene freezes for about 25 s while shaders build.

Unpack the whole ZIP and open Instalar-Ocarina.exe. Experimental. Needs your own copy of the game, version 1.1.1.

SHA-256: 06c86cdecf4ca79710cef1c2422bb082657f0b98d5afbc57412ad12e8c525ace

Files: Ocarina-Setup-0.2.2-windows.zip (115.1 MB). Full notes on GitHub

Brazilian Portuguese. Imports saves from Lichii and Eden. No more freeze of over a minute on a first run. The installer window can be minimized. Recognizes a finished install without asking for the game. Unpack the whole ZIP and open Instalar-Ocarina.exe. Experimental. Needs your own copy of the game, version 1.1.1. SHA-256: 89f20e58f6cdf1018a08db86a0f38c45b4fd48a215609b36d10969d522b326f4

Files: Ocarina-Setup-0.2.1-windows.zip (115.1 MB). Full notes on GitHub

Everything is in the ZIP: it installs nothing in Windows and asks for no administrator. Fixes the black screen at the Great Deku Tree in a new game and the missing voices. Unpack the whole ZIP and open Instalar-Ocarina.exe. Experimental. Needs your own copy of the game, version 1.1.1. SHA-256: 7e06d8bc274bd34eab117d1837375e37b7321ec3c265a625be1d309a51bd30af

Files: Ocarina-Setup-0.2.0-windows.zip (120.9 MB). Full notes on GitHub

Installs only the 3 Python packages the build needs. Test version, experimental. Needs your own copy of the game, version 1.1.1. SHA-256: 39e54454a67a2c8b5a057c6672b369978323dc78c9978b28428826ef74cde9ad

Files: Instalar-Ocarina.exe (75 KB). Full notes on GitHub

Fixes the PowerShell not found error and adds the dav1d package, missing on clean PCs. Test version, experimental. Needs your own copy of the game, version 1.1.1. SHA-256: c9992c4ad0fc5c5213dffc601ca415a249151ba266f02d69ee60f78ae92b848d

Files: Instalar-Ocarina.exe (75 KB). Full notes on GitHub

Fixes winget, py and git not being found on PCs with a long PATH. Test version, experimental. Needs your own copy of the game, version 1.1.1. The executable has no digital signature; Windows may warn you. SHA-256: 4103d9112e36c3695943d09e2ec8656973fe1de017b350777440b60b2bef49a0

Files: Instalar-Ocarina.exe (74 KB). Full notes on GitHub

No RAM limit: below 16 GB, the installer only warns. Test version, experimental. Needs your own copy of the game, version 1.1.1. The executable has no digital signature; Windows may warn you. SHA-256: 30e37720e8bc48dc55fd7ef2a1a83a2184e4f4b4ad1b3f14b312508a4ec56c8e

Files: Instalar-Ocarina.exe (73 KB). Full notes on GitHub

Test version, experimental. Needs your own copy of the game, version 1.1.1. The executable has no digital signature; Windows may warn you. SHA-256: 0cb407952ab3fa1eb082de5ac25e6d17ba8e96a05e221ec3d39a490e9271a8c9

Files: Instalar-Ocarina.exe (73 KB). Full notes on GitHub

Versão de testes, experimental. Precisa da sua própria cópia do jogo, versão 1.1.1. Não há nada pronto para baixar: para compilar, siga o passo a passo.

Test version, experimental. Needs your own copy of the game, version 1.1.1. There is nothing ready to download: to build it, follow the step-by-step guide.

Files: no files. Full notes on GitHub

First test version, experimental. Needs your own copy of the game, version 1.1.1. To build it, follow the step-by-step guide.

Files: no files. Full notes on GitHub

Download HookshotBuilder.exe and run it, or press Update in the launcher (hookshot.exe in your game folder). Linux: the AppImage below.

The shaders are prepared again after this update (a few minutes on the first start).

Fixed

• Dark or black faces and wrong lighting on characters (Saria, the mask shop owner, Link) and other graphics glitches. The shader preparation built the game's compute shaders with the wrong buffer layout, and play used them as they were (#772, BlueHeisenberg). It now prepares them as play lays them out, every compute program and its variants, and predicts graphics pipelines so fewer are built while you play.
• AMD: the grid of dark lines on the terrain in Hyrule Field (#705, madebyjordan).
• The builder showed no Build/Update button on small or scaled screens: the page scrolls now and the buttons stay in view.
• Build cleanups (#735), README brought up to date (#730).

Known

• Floating trees (Kakariko, Hyrule Castle) and holes in Gerudo Valley's terrain are still being worked on.
• If textures look wrong or faces stay black after the shaders were prepared again, please send hookshot_log.txt and say your GPU.

Files: hookshot-linux.txt (1 KB), hookshot-setup.txt (2 KB), Hookshot-v2.0.5-x86_64.AppImage (215.3 MB), HookshotBuilder.exe (176 KB). Full notes on GitHub

Download HookshotBuilder.exe and run it, or press Update in the launcher (hookshot.exe in your game folder). Linux: the AppImage below.

A hotfix for v2.0.3. The update is quick (the game's code is kept); the shaders are prepared again.

Fixed

• Link and other characters drawn dark or black, wrong lighting, lower fps (v2.0.3). The new buffer-pointer analysis in the shader translator took buffers the game's lighting reads; it is off again (the v2.0.2 behaviour). This also takes back the extra plants it drew; that work continues.
• Still in from v2.0.3: controllers and "Failed loading SDL3 library", the 4GB/6GB preset at 5 fps, shaders stuck at 99%, faster replay.
• AMD and Intel: RX_VK_CHECKPOINTS=1 now names the draw a GPU crash happened in (#734). Linux builder: readable on 1440p/4K (#731).

If you still see "Failed loading SDL3 library" on v2.0.4, please send hookshot_log.txt.

Files: hookshot-linux.txt (1 KB), hookshot-setup.txt (2 KB), Hookshot-v2.0.4-x86_64.AppImage (215.2 MB), HookshotBuilder.exe (176 KB). Full notes on GitHub

Parts Hookshot's Linux builder downloads. A file's name is its checksum; a part that did not change is not uploaded again. This release is not a version of the game.

Files: HookshotLinux-usr-lib-hookshot-2cb4bb17bdc3.zip (3.0 MB), HookshotLinux-usr-lib-hookshot-7dcbe3e68506.zip (3.0 MB), HookshotLinux-usr-lib-hookshot-ecb3e350764c.zip (3.0 MB), HookshotLinux-usr-lib-hookshot-emsdk-e4cc57c2bba1.zip (141.5 MB), HookshotLinux-usr-lib-hookshot-ffmpeg-1997108b4e9d.zip (9.8 MB), HookshotLinux-usr-lib-hookshot-sysroot-90c79524e4ba.zip (10.5 MB), HookshotLinux-usr-lib-hookshot-sysroot-a59f71fc5d5d.zip (10.8 MB), HookshotLinux-usr-python-4132ca6b38d2.zip (75.4 MB), HookshotLinux-usr-python-e2391cd6aa91.zip (74.7 MB), HookshotLinux-usr-share-hookshot-5745b0e6a43c.zip (2.5 MB), HookshotLinux-usr-share-hookshot-ed14ddb199fe.zip (2.5 MB), HookshotLinux-usr-share-hookshot-fa5c1448e236.zip (2.5 MB). Full notes on GitHub

Download HookshotBuilder.exe and run it, or press Update in the launcher (hookshot.exe in your game folder). Linux: the AppImage below.

This update compiles the whole game once more (the game's code is split into pieces differently now, which makes later builds faster), and the shaders are prepared again.

Fixed

• Controllers did nothing and "Failed loading SDL3 library" popped up 3 times (since v2.0.0): SDL3.dll is in bin\ again.
• The 4GB (Minimum) and 6GB (Low) presets ran at ~5 fps on cards with more memory: a preset's memory limits now apply only to a card that small.
• Stuck at "Preparing shaders: 99%": when the last shaders stop finishing, the game starts and they finish behind it.
• Foliage and plants that vanish when Link gets close, objects missing: the shader translator finds the game's real buffer pointers (Fritchii's and Lichii's fixes: near foliage, Hyrule Field grass); five programs that read zeros now read their data. Floating trees may be fixed by this too; please report.
• Foliage culling reads its work counts as the GPU wrote them (#252); shader local memory starts at zero.
• Ground streaks after long play (#593), AMD per-tap gathers and occlusion reports (#487), swapchain fixes (#492, #445), Linux: Wayland, udmabuf and SDL3 (#438, #448, #328), many builder fixes.

Faster

• About 15% faster replay on the CPU (#585 draw setup caching and barriers, #423), about 10 ms instead of 14 ms a frame in Kokiri on an RTX 4060 Ti.
• Faster builds: pieces split by compile cost, as many compilers as the memory allows, the lift skipped when nothing changed (#728, #561, #428).

New

• In-game menu with tabs (Q/E or LB/RB), GPU selector, controller layout presets, camera inversion, mouse look and mouse settings (#588, #440, #372, #465, #466).
• The builder shows how much space it keeps and can free it (#623).

Known

• Older builders (from before v2.0.0's installer) say the release has no HookshotBuilder.zip: download HookshotBuilder.exe below once.
• RX 9070 XT: some PCs abort right at start; please send hookshot_log.txt.

Thanks to everyone who sent pull requests.

Files: hookshot-linux.txt (1 KB), hookshot-setup.txt (2 KB), Hookshot-v2.0.3-x86_64.AppImage (215.7 MB), HookshotBuilder.exe (176 KB). Full notes on GitHub

Download HookshotBuilder.exe and run it, or press Update in the launcher (hookshot.exe in your game folder). Linux: the AppImage below.

The first start after the update prepares the shaders again (the shader translator changed).

Fixed

• Linux: the build stopped with conflicting types for 'GetModuleFileNameA' (v2.0.0 and v2.0.1 AppImages, #664).
• AMD and Intel: shaders that did not translate. Six compute programs with a global compare-and-swap (#597) and one with a float atomic add at an untracked address (#598) now translate; on AMD they were left out.
• AMD and Intel: GPU hangs from shader loops that never end. Compare-and-swap loops are bounded (#548). This is the likely cause of the Deku Tree freeze or crash on RX 6600 cards (#614); please tell us if it still happens.
• Two shader recompiler fixes from Lichii: gathers with offsets that are not constant, and register fields of TXD and ATOMG (#566); a storage-range alignment fix (#447).
• A cut-short hookshot_programs.bin no longer crashes the game at start (#463).
• Present semaphores per swapchain image (a validation error, #445); counter reports are no longer overwritten by partial copies (#442); the virtual core is released during GPU invalidation (#485).
• Linux: the launcher works from a relative folder path (#451); a CPU without AVX2 gets a clear message (#414); a headless run ends on SIGTERM (#601).
• The game problem issue form shows again (#653); nup.py --verify names damaged files in a .nup (#626); more checks run in CI (#661, #409, #587).

Thanks to everyone who sent pull requests.

What's Changed

• docs: fix article before hookshot_game.dll in design.md by @lunar-me in https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/pull/632
• Ground fog kept when looking down (texel writes made before the renderer starts are no longer dropped) by @hckrman101 in https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/pull/638
• Linux build: hos_paths.h includes the POSIX windows.h for its Linux hos_game_path_a by @hckrman101 in https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/pull/642
• Vulkan: no exposure flashes without the frame wait (a capture waits only for the write-back of a page it copies) by @hckrman101 in https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/pull/645
• The Windows game built on Linux, with llvm-mingw: RX_TARGET=windows by @gab9281 in https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/pull/381
• test_cpp_preflight: take the Visual Studio route on any host by @Wpaif in https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/pull/409
• AppImage: say up front when its renderer needs AVX2 the CPU lacks by @Wpaif in https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/pull/414
• Preserve partial overlaps with CPU-written report words by @klimovich008 in https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/pull/442
• Reuse present semaphores by acquired swapchain image by @klimovich008 in https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/pull/445
• shader: keep alignment displacement in single-SSBO ranges by @monsterlag in https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/pull/447
• fix(linux): Launch games from relative folder paths by @Matt-Mc in https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/pull/451
• Fix/program cache bounds (FINE YOUNG MAM) by @xellow78-lgtm in https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/pull/463
• runtime: release the virtual core during GPU invalidation by @monsterlag in https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/pull/485

Files: hookshot-setup.txt (2 KB), Hookshot-v2.0.2-x86_64.AppImage (215.6 MB), HookshotBuilder.exe (176 KB). Full notes on GitHub

Download HookshotBuilder.exe and run it, or press Update in the launcher (hookshot.exe in your game folder).

A fix for v2.0.0's builder and launcher; the game itself is the same as v2.0.0.

• "Your game is up to date" when it wasn't. When GitHub's API did not answer (it allows 60 requests an hour per PC), v2.0.0 said your game was up to date and named its old version as the latest. Now the newest version known is GitHub's, read from the release's setup list when the API does not answer, or else the builder's own: a game older than the builder always gets Update. Only when your game matches the builder and GitHub cannot be reached does it say so.
• Desktop and Start menu shortcuts were not made. They are made with Windows' own shortcut object now, pointing at the launcher with the game's icon. After an update, the boxes show which shortcuts you have, and ticking one makes it.

Full Changelog: https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/compare/v2.0.0...v2.0.1

Files: hookshot-setup.txt (2 KB), Hookshot-v2.0.1-x86_64.AppImage (215.5 MB), HookshotBuilder.exe (176 KB). Full notes on GitHub

too bright or too dark zones in the fog**, ported from Fritchii (Frizti's Lichii fork): the water no longer samples a random texture, and the fog's light probes are read in full.

• Crash on scene changes around Hyrule Castle, Castle Town and Kakariko (#287): a buffer the game maps without memory gets scratch memory instead of address 0. Please tell us if you still crash there.
• Neon colours on AMD when an upscale network is left out (PR #425 by klimovich008).
• Fewer device-lost crashes on Windows (since fast-updates) and updates that reuse your compiled game; the build log now says what decides whether compiled files are reused (#624).

Everything from honest-eta is in here.

What's Changed

• Decode RGB9E5 inputs in failed upscale fallbacks by @klimovich008 in https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/pull/425
• docs: fix subject-verb agreement in a64-kit licensing note by @lunar-me in https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/pull/634

Full Changelog: https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/compare/honest-eta...v2.0.0

Files: hookshot-setup.txt (2 KB), Hookshot-v2.0.0-x86_64.AppImage (215.5 MB), HookshotBuilder.exe (176 KB). Full notes on GitHub

Download HookshotBuilder.exe and run it, or accept the game's update offer (a small update: only what changed is compiled).

The builder's time left is right now

• The builder said things like "About 452 minutes left" an hour before the end. It counted finished files, but the build compiles the biggest files first and most of the 579 files are tiny, so 45 files done looked like 8% when it was about 45%. Progress and time left now go by each file's real share of the work. (The build itself was never that slow.)

Also in this release

• 3D textures get the creation flag their 2D views need (PR #576 by klimovich008: a Vulkan validation error on AMD).
• HOS_PRESENT_TRACE=<file.csv>: an opt-in trace of frame returns for stutter reports (PR #573 by klimovich008).

Everything from fast-updates is in here: updates reuse what your last build compiled.

What's Changed

• Enable sampled 2D views when creating 3D images by @klimovich008 in https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/pull/576
• Record native present-call timestamps on request by @klimovich008 in https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/pull/573

Full Changelog: https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/compare/fast-updates...honest-eta

Files: Hookshot-a598b9f-x86_64.AppImage (215.5 MB), hookshot-setup.txt (2 KB), HookshotBuilder.exe (174 KB). Full notes on GitHub

Download HookshotBuilder.exe and run it, or accept the game's update offer.

Updates are small again

• Every builder update recompiled the whole game (2+ hours) (#565, #562): each release installs into its own folder, and the check for changed system headers counted that folder's path as a change, so both caches of compiled code were thrown away. Now only real changes count. Updating to this release already reuses what your last build compiled. Tested here from two separate install folders: the second update compiled 3 files in 10 seconds instead of 579.

Fewer GPU crashes (device lost) on Windows

• Memory the GPU had used is no longer given back on Windows. Giving it back was meant for a Linux AMD driver, and on Windows it was followed by device lost on Intel Arc (#17) and on AMD (Ally X #309, RX 6600 #571). If you had device lost, please try this release and tell us. (RX_VK_KEEP_RETIRED=0 brings back the old behaviour.)

Builder and setup

• HookshotBuilder.exe tries 8 times over ~3 minutes during GitHub outages, alternating GitHub's download link and its API, retries a download that was cut off, and keeps the parts it already has, so running it again carries on (#558).
• The game's update offer retries too and uses GitHub's API when the release link fails (PR #555 by yeetbot90).
• "Can't be read" on a game file now says why, in the file's row (#563).
• After preparing shaders, the pipeline cache is saved at once (PR #559 by klimovich008: less stutter on AMD).

Everything from low-vram is in here.

What's Changed

• Persist the pipeline cache after shader preparation by @klimovich008 in https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/pull/559
• CI: Linux AppImage no longer fails on GitHub 504s; Windows make_game cache test stubs stop_stray_compilers by @amaralthalesalves in https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/pull/556
• Fix Builder updater download retries by @yeetbot90 in https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/pull/555
• Keep multi-second frames in the requested slow log by @klimovich008 in https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/pull/568

New Contributors

• @amaralthalesalves made their first contribution in https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/pull/556
• @yeetbot90 made their first contribution in https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/pull/555

Full Changelog: https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/compare/low-vram...fast-updates

Files: Hookshot-3f5b0aa-x86_64.AppImage (215.5 MB), hookshot-setup.txt (2 KB), HookshotBuilder.exe (174 KB). Full notes on GitHub

Download HookshotBuilder.exe and run it, or accept the game's update offer (a ~4 MB download, a few minutes of compiling).

Setup and builder

• "Github answered with an error" (#537, #538, #539, #543, #544): GitHub's release download links failed with 504 for hours. HookshotBuilder.exe now tries again (5 times for the list, 4 for each part), and when the release link fails it fetches the same file through GitHub's API instead (from PR #546 by nicholasgower). *Updated the exe now tries 8 times over ~3 minutes, and a download cut off half way is tried again instead of failing at once (#558). The parts already downloaded are kept, so running it again carries on.*
• Builds stopping at once with OSError [Errno 22] or WinError 1224 (#501, #530): a build left running by an earlier one (the builder closed, crashed or replaced by an update mid-build) held the work folder's files. A new build now stops that leftover build first, and nothing else.
• Choose the number of build workers in the Windows builder (PR #517 by monsterlag; #502). Automatic is the default and works as before; the Linux builder honours HOOKSHOT_JOBS (PR #505).
• The builder is readable on a light Windows theme (PR #535).

Game

• 4 GB graphics cards dropping to 4-5 fps in big areas (#519): the scene's textures were held uncompressed and overflowed the card's memory. On cards with under 6 GB they now stay compressed (a quarter of the size; the picture looks the same).
• Intel Arc freezing the whole PC (#496): Intel's shader compiler built four large shaders at once. On Intel they are now built one at a time. On every GPU, a shader still compiling no longer slows each frame that uses it.
• Grass shadows: mesh programs that draw points (PR #482); 8- and 16-bit shader stores no longer fail to translate (PR #536).
• Test tooling: scripted input with the game in the background (PR #545), and new regression checks (PRs #506, #516, #540, #541).

Everything from faster-fps is in here.

Files: hookshot-setup.txt (2 KB), HookshotBuilder.exe (174 KB). Full notes on GitHub

Download HookshotBuilder.exe and run it, or accept the game's update offer (a ~3 MB download, a few minutes of compiling).

About 45% more fps

PR #523 (hckrman101): every NVN queue shared one fence timeline, so the game's main thread waited on other queues' work at each submit. Fences are now per queue. On an RTX 4060 Ti in Kokiri Forest: 47 fps, up from 33, and fewer one-frame flicker events (43 in ~1,800 frames, 10 of them large; ~55 and 17-24 before). PR #513's frame wait is in too, on by default on Linux, where its author measured 70 -> 0 flashes (RX_VK_WAIT_GPU=0 turns it on anywhere; on Windows here it cost ~10 fps without changing the flicker counts).

Fixes

• Texture corruption in long sessions (#386): a texture the GPU drew is written back into the game's memory before it is evicted, so it no longer comes back empty or garbled (dark terrain patches, tiled patterns on the Deku Tree's planks).
• Crash after a freeze in combat or when opening the ocarina note sheet (#500): no longer crashes on a texture builder the game passes as none.
• GPUs without mesh shaders (RX 580 and older): the game now tells you at start, instead of drawing a broken picture.

Everything from ultrawide is in here.

Files: hookshot-setup.txt (2 KB), HookshotBuilder.exe (171 KB). Full notes on GitHub

Download HookshotBuilder.exe and run it (an installed builder updates itself: the game offers the update at start, a ~4 MB download and only the changed files compiled).

Ultrawide, for real

With Ultrawide on in the Insert menu (or a window wider than 16:9), the game now draws a wider picture instead of stretching a 16:9 one: you see more of the world at the sides, with the HUD, menus and movies kept in the middle 16:9. Tested at 21:9 (3440x1440) and 32:9, including the pause menu. Based on the ultrawide patch sites NX2navi uses, credited to Ivan0xFF (MIT).

Black screen after the opening (AMD) and long shader waits

• Compute shaders compile in the background. On AMD cards a single compute shader took the driver 15–23 seconds, and the game froze with a black screen while it did. Now the game keeps going and that effect appears once it's ready.
• Twice as many shaders are prepared before the first start (PR #474: the game's compute and effect shaders were missing from the list), so far fewer compile while you play. The first start's preparation takes longer (about 2½ minutes on a 12-thread PC).
• Closing the game during the first start's preparation no longer makes the next start skip it ("stuck at 99%, then compiles everything in game").
• AMD: the foliage culling shaders are built without the driver's optimizer, which hung the GPU a few minutes into Kokiri on RX 6600-class cards (from PR #430).

Flicker and lighting

• One-frame lighting flicker reduced: the brightness meter the game reads back from the GPU sometimes read double or zero, so the light dimmed or flared for a frame (from PR #430). Plus PR #449 (catch-ups) and the release ordering from #430, which help most on AMD and Linux.
• Foliage shadow lines on AMD (PR #475).

Other fixes

• Audio recovers after a failed buffer instead of going silent (PR #472).
• Out of memory: when Windows runs out of memory (RAM + page file), the game now says what to do instead of just crashing.
• The Minimum (4GB) quality preset now really lowers the renderer's memory use (its mirror budget was ignored).
• Game dumps with explicitly compressed files read correctly (PR #456); clearer builder errors (PR #469); memory given back on Linux (PR #446).
• Builds that ran out of memory while compiling are retried, with as many compilers as before (faster-builds).
• A crash in Kakariko's day/night change on a memory pool the game passed as none (PR #510, issues #287, #424, #509).

What's Changed

• perf(vk): give back retired pools' imports once the GPU is past them by @azlekayn in https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/pull/446
• fix(vk): let a catch-up go on only past met waits, not every stopped queue by @azlekayn in https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/pull/449
• Honor explicit NUP compression for .zs members by @klimovich008 in https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/pull/456
• audio: recover after failed buffer submissions by @monsterlag in https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/pull/472
• Shader census: the game's compute programs (Effect/*.vsetb and the agl .sharcb archives) by @ZurielAtr in https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/pull/474
• vk: a mesh program's stage buffer starts at zero (foliage shadow lines on AMD) by @ZurielAtr in https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/pull/475
• test: cover chunk prefetch in the import-window fixture by @monsterlag in https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/pull/488

Files: Hookshot-3601726-x86_64.AppImage (215.5 MB), hookshot-setup.txt (2 KB), HookshotBuilder.exe (169 KB). Full notes on GitHub

If your build said it would take hours (issues #502, #503, #511): run HookshotBuilder.exe again, or let the game's update offer update it (~3 MB).

The compile-retry release used too few compilers at once on 16 GB PCs (1–2). It's back to as many as before (one per 2 GB of free memory, at least 4), and a compiler that runs out of memory is still retried alone. Also: a build started right after cancelling one no longer stops at once with WinError 1224.

Everything from compile-retry and new-installer is in here.

Full Changelog: https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/compare/compile-retry...faster-builds

Files: Hookshot-3adfb63-x86_64.AppImage (215.5 MB), hookshot-setup.txt (2 KB), HookshotBuilder.exe (169 KB). Full notes on GitHub

If your build stopped with "clang frontend command failed due to signal", run HookshotBuilder.exe again and build: a compiler that ran out of memory beside the others is now retried alone, and fewer compile at once on PCs with less free memory (3.5 GB each).

Everything from new-installer is in here (one small download, small updates, foliage and AMD fixes). An installed builder updates itself with a ~4 MB download.

Full Changelog: https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/compare/builder-parts...compile-retry

Files: Hookshot-fa22c2d-x86_64.AppImage (215.5 MB), hookshot-setup.txt (2 KB), HookshotBuilder.exe (169 KB). Full notes on GitHub

A new installer: one small download

Download HookshotBuilder.exe (170 KB) and run it. That's the only file you need: it downloads the builder and its tools (about 460 MB, once), checks every part against its checksum, and opens the new Hookshot window.

If you have an older Hookshot Builder, its update button will ask you to download the new version yourself this one time; after that, updates are automatic and small.

• Finds your game files by itself: .nup files in Downloads, Desktop, Documents and the top of each drive, each with its version checked. Browse or drag and drop still work.
• Game files › Build › Play in one window, with the time left, Play, and Desktop and Start menu shortcuts at the end.
• Small updates: the game's update offer now downloads only what changed (about 4 MB when only Hookshot's code changed), and only changed files are compiled again. A test update took 3 minutes instead of 39, and your current game stays playable until the new one is complete.
• Antivirus problems are named as such, with a Repair button that downloads any removed tool again. The "Windows SDK was not found" error no longer appears when an antivirus removed the compiler.

Game fixes

• Missing tree leaves and foliage (#35): the game could not list its own folders, so it saw no leaf files. Found independently by Evil's fork, NX2navi and PR #436.
• AMD fixes from sharkiix: shader translation fixes for AMD GPUs.
• Crash logs are kept: hookshot_log.1.txt to .4.txt hold the previous runs, so a log from a crash survives a restart. Please send hookshot_log.1.txt if the game crashed and you started it again.

What's Changed

• docs(versioning): add the release scheme and a Factorio changelog by @nicholasgower in https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/pull/443
• vulkan: preserve the game aspect when presenting by @monsterlag in https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/pull/205
• vulkan: initialize presentation upscaling independently of frame generation by @monsterlag in https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/pull/417
• Build: link without oldnames.lib, which recent Windows SDKs no longer ship (issue 439) by @nicholasgower in https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/pull/441

New Contributors

• @nicholasgower made their first contribution in https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/pull/443

Full Changelog: https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/compare/device-lost-fix...new-installer

Files: Hookshot-ef2e1c4-x86_64.AppImage (215.2 MB), hookshot-setup.txt (2 KB), HookshotBuilder.exe (169 KB). Full notes on GitHub

The parts HookshotBuilder.exe downloads and checks, named by their SHA-256. Nothing here needs downloading by hand: get HookshotBuilder.exe from the latest release.

What's Changed

• docs(versioning): add the release scheme and a Factorio changelog by @nicholasgower in https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/pull/443
• vulkan: preserve the game aspect when presenting by @monsterlag in https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/pull/205
• vulkan: initialize presentation upscaling independently of frame generation by @monsterlag in https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/pull/417
• Build: link without oldnames.lib, which recent Windows SDKs no longer ship (issue 439) by @nicholasgower in https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/pull/441

New Contributors

• @nicholasgower made their first contribution in https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/pull/443

Full Changelog: https://github.com/NotRexed/Hookshot/compare/device-lost-fix...builder-parts

Files: Hookshot-ef2e1c4-x86_64.AppImage (215.5 MB), HookshotBuilder-app-0818ebf24301.zip (3.9 MB), HookshotBuilder-app-146481aecb20.zip (3.9 MB), HookshotBuilder-app-2216f1db26e2.zip (3.7 MB), HookshotBuilder-app-4929d8669ecb.zip (3.8 MB), HookshotBuilder-app-4bbe4ddb348b.zip (3.7 MB), HookshotBuilder-app-558340e2bd58.zip (3.9 MB), HookshotBuilder-app-55a5b8f3226e.zip (3.8 MB), HookshotBuilder-app-63773908e7ea.zip (3.8 MB), HookshotBuilder-app-96d88b973cf1.zip (3.7 MB), HookshotBuilder-app-bb5fbf3855ee.zip (3.8 MB), HookshotBuilder-app-cbe9f6b91c8b.zip (3.7 MB), HookshotBuilder-app-cee5c4d0e4bd.zip (3.8 MB), HookshotBuilder-app-d538f3c666cf.zip (3.7 MB), HookshotBuilder-app-db61077fffbd.zip (3.8 MB), HookshotBuilder-app-f3adfe292281.zip (3.8 MB), HookshotBuilder-cpm-c30c77e4cf00.zip (18.6 MB), HookshotBuilder-dotnet-af77ad1a7364.zip (66.1 MB), HookshotBuilder-emsdk-b4c8fc476654.zip (120.1 MB), HookshotBuilder-python-55d9f3c4797a.zip (44.3 MB), HookshotBuilder-third_party-02dca97e7b2b.zip (27.9 MB), HookshotBuilder-third_party-2a3f2879c319.zip (27.9 MB), HookshotBuilder-third_party-acf950d44b0f.zip (27.9 MB), HookshotBuilder-third_party-b90835071781.zip (28.1 MB), HookshotBuilder-third_party-d54df1c5465b.zip (27.9 MB), HookshotBuilder-wgpu-native-a3b3d8253fba.zip (2.2 MB). Full notes on GitHub

Build again with this Hookshot Builder (Windows: HookshotBuilder.zip, no Visual Studio needed; Linux: the .AppImage below, added a few minutes after this release). Your saves and settings stay where they are.

Fixes

• GPU crash ("device lost") while the game loads or right after it starts (#150, about 1 start in 7 on NVIDIA): the renderer's table of the game's memory now changes in the GPU's own order, so a running shader can no longer follow an entry into memory that isn't ready. 14 of 14 test starts without it, with the same fps and no extra flashes.
• Faster builds: the builder runs one compiler per CPU thread, as many as your free memory holds (it used half the threads). HOOKSHOT_JOBS=<n> still chooses.
• One more per-draw lookup saved (SkippySteve, #416).

Everything from no-visual-studio is in here too: no Visual Studio, fewer flashes, the Controls page, text speed, quality presets, ~15% more fps, Linux AMD batching and the crash fixes.

Files: Hookshot-device-lost-fix-x86_64.AppImage (215.5 MB), HookshotBuilder.zip (398.2 MB). Full notes on GitHub

Build again with this Hookshot Builder (Windows: HookshotBuilder.zip; Linux: the .AppImage below, added by the build a few minutes after this release). Your saves and settings stay where they are.

No more Visual Studio or Windows SDK

The builder now brings its own compiler (llvm-mingw, as the TotK port does). You no longer need Visual Studio, the Build Tools or the Windows SDK: unzip, pick your game files, build. "Windows SDK not found" is gone.

Fixes

• Flicker and white flashes: CPU reads of GPU results now wait for the work that writes them (EvilBoyce's fix, #296), and the VRAM mirrors no longer overwrite the GPU query results that decide which passes run (fewer one-frame dark frames).
• Missing geometry on every GPU: 30 mesh shaders that failed to translate (LoadGlobalS16, #351) now work.
• CPUs without AVX2 (older Xeons, Ivy Bridge): the game is built for your CPU and no longer crashes at start (#363).
• User folders with accents (e.g. Magalhães) no longer break the build (#230).
• Movie thread crash when memory runs short (#342).
• Black movies on Windows: if Windows has no AV1 decoder, the game now tells you and opens the free "AV1 Video Extension" page (#380).
• Incomplete .nup files are named as such right away, instead of failing late with "short read" (Linux and Windows).
• Linux on AMD (RADV): the renderer's submits are batched (#413, thanks myylkn): ~10 fps -> 30-50 fps on a Radeon 8060S.

Faster

• About 15% more fps on the CPU side (27 -> 31 fps in Kokiri here): texture lookups, vertex streams, descriptors, programs/pipelines and uniform words are no longer looked up again for every draw (SkippySteve's PRs #300, #322, #327, #345, #349, #362, #373, #392, #397).

New

• Controls page in the Insert menu: rebind every Switch button on the gamepad and the keyboard (gab9281, #335 #343 #350); the menu works from a controller.
• Controller in background: keep playing with the controller while another window has the focus (#359).
• Text speed: dialogue at 2x, 4x or instant (#402).
• Quality presets for 4 GB to 16 GB cards, with a safe texture budget (#398).
• Alt+Enter toggles fullscreen on Windows too (#405).
• Newer SDL (sdl2-compat on SDL 3.4.20): more controllers work, Steam Controller included.
• Mods folder for RomFS mods (#321), an opt-in plain movie upscale for small GPUs (#358), hookshot --prepare-shaders (#320), and more fixes from the community (#73, #162, #206, #207, #217, #225, #235, #237, #341, #404, #412).

Thanks to everyone who sent PRs, logs and videos.

Files: Hookshot-no-visual-studio-x86_64.AppImage (215.5 MB), HookshotBuilder.zip (398.2 MB). Full notes on GitHub

Build again with this Hookshot Builder (Windows: HookshotBuilder.zip; Linux: the .AppImage below, added by the build a few minutes after this release). Your saves and settings stay.

New

• Foliage and lighting from EvilOOT's fork: the tree canopy, grass and falling leaves draw in more places; signs, ferns and Link are lit again instead of near black; Kokiri's pond is green; the game's own fog. Thanks evilmfkr.
• Updates from the game: from this version on, the game tells you at start when a newer release is out and Hookshot Builder downloads it and rebuilds your folder. Set HOOKSHOT_NO_UPDATE_CHECK=1 in hookshot_env.txt to turn it off.
• Linux: an AppImage of the builder (PR 66 by SkippySteve), with the link fix (PR 274).
• Frame generation up to 8x in the Insert menu, which now explains every option (PR 239).
• Rumble you can feel on DualSense, Xbox and other SDL controllers (#263).

Fixed

• Slow motion at 30 fps: Game speed is now Real time by default, also for existing settings.
• Freeze after Load (the movie player's lock, from EvilOOT).
• Builds with Visual Studio 2019 no longer fail with std::projected errors (#100, #163, #185, #201, #259), and __iob_func link errors from an earlier failed build are gone (#231).
• Load-zone freeze on 16 GB PCs from retried memory imports (#218, PR 240).
• Blank menu text on AMD (PR 228). Builder failures now show the real compiler error (PR 272). The FPS counter's first reading (PR 262).

Still open (being worked on)

• Some PCs still lose the graphics device while a save loads (black screen with sound), and there are occasional one-frame dark flashes and fog flicker. Please attach hookshot_log.txt if it happens to you.
• The first start after this update translates every shader again and is slow, and the first visit to new areas can stutter while the driver compiles.

Files: Hookshot-foliage-linux-updater-x86_64.AppImage (215.1 MB), HookshotBuilder.zip (281.9 MB). Full notes on GitHub

Every release includes all the fixes from the releases before it: always take the newest one. Includes everything from less-stutter.

• Intro movie in sync with its sound (#146, #179): the game showed one movie picture per frame, so whenever the frame rate dropped under 60 the picture fell behind and the sound ran ahead for the rest of the movie ("slow motion intro"). Pictures that fall behind are now skipped, so the movie keeps time with its sound.
• Laptops with two GPUs (#176): the game now asks the NVIDIA/AMD driver to run it on the dedicated GPU instead of the integrated one.
• Builder (#180): a translation step could stop on a character the console's code page can't show ("UnicodeEncodeError: 'charmap'"). Every step now writes UTF-8.

Still being worked on: missing leaves and grass (#35), low fps in busy scenes (CPU-bound), dark bars at the screen edges (#95, #145), black screen on a second start on some PCs (#195: please try the cache test in that issue), GPUs without mesh shaders (GTX 10xx, RX 5000).

Files: HookshotBuilder.zip (281.7 MB). Full notes on GitHub

Every release includes all the fixes from the releases before it: always take the newest one. Back up user\save, or build over the same folder with the same .nup.

Less stutter

• No more multi-second freezes when entering a new area. A new shader used to stop the frame until it was built (0.2-3 s each). Now the draw waits a frame or two in the background instead. Measured here on a first start after an update: worst freeze 2.6 s down to 1.2 s, lowest fps 20 down to 30. (RX_VK_PIPE_SKIP=0 in hookshot_env.txt restores the old behaviour.)
• 8 GB cards (RTX 3070, 3060 Ti, 4060...): the GPU-side copies of game memory get their full budget back. small-vram had halved it on 8 GB cards. The smaller budget now only applies to cards with 6 GB or less.
• Some per-frame overhead removed from the renderer.

AMD (from contributor testing on an RX 9070 XT, thanks to AyyBeeDee20738, PR #138)

• Resolution "Auto" no longer gives a black 3D picture on AMD: the dynamic-resolution pass now runs on AMD too.
• Depth-compare sampling fixed (AMD's driver doesn't compare without being told: black blobs and shadows).
• Yellow-white haze from NaN values fixed, and colour channels a shader doesn't write are left alone.
• 30 mesh programs that failed to translate now translate.
• Bright/dark flicker from storage buffers bound one frame and not the next fixed.
• Save loading on AMD: buffers stay within AMD's 2 GB limit, and BC texture views are created correctly (thanks to klimovich008, PRs #139, #142).

Other fixes from contributors

• Shader validation fixes (klimovich008: #140, #141, #143), a crash in the shader dump tool (#182), and the builder now checks your Visual Studio's C++ library before the long compile (monsterlag, #184).

Builder

• The builder app is now a regular folder instead of one compressed program. The single file was often flagged by antivirus. If your antivirus removed the builder's Python, it now says so.

Still being worked on

• Missing tree leaves, grass and ferns (#35): the cause is found, the fix isn't working yet.
• Low fps in busy scenes: preparing ~3000 draws a frame costs the CPU 15-20 ms; that is next.
• Dark bars at the screen edges (#95, #145).
• GPUs without mesh shaders (GTX 10xx, RX 5000) can't render the world.

Files: HookshotBuilder.zip (281.7 MB). Full notes on GitHub

"something went wrong": when the builder hit an error it didn't expect, it hid the reason. It now shows the actual error, and the full text is under Show details**. If you still get stuck, please post that text in an issue so it can be fixed.

• A failed step is named again (it said "-u stopped", #154).
• A leftover code chunk from an earlier build no longer breaks the link with "duplicate symbol" (thanks to leonidasmark, PR #155, #153).
• Output with non-English letters in file names can no longer crash the builder.

Windows Defender / antivirus warnings: the builder is a new, unsigned program that starts other programs (Python, the compiler, the game), which is what Defender's generic "Trojan" verdict reacts to. It's a false positive; all of the source is in this repository. You can report it to Microsoft at https://www.microsoft.com/wdsi/filesubmission ("Incorrectly detected as malware").

Files: HookshotBuilder.zip (275.9 MB). Full notes on GitHub

Back up user\save, or build over the same folder with the same .nup: it skips re-reading the game (a rebuild over the same folder took under 6 minutes here). Includes everything from amd-shared-memory.

• Laptops with 4-6 GB of VRAM (#96, #132): the renderer keeps fewer GPU-side copies of game memory on cards with 8 GB or less, and none when VRAM is nearly full. Before, it could run past what the card allows and the GPU timed out (black screen or "device lost").
• Resolution 100% set before starting no longer gives black 3D (thanks to vzeol, PR #102).
• Builder:
• a different .nup now replaces both the old game files and code, instead of mixing old assets with new modules (thanks to monsterlag, PR #129);
• game file paths can't escape the output folder (PR #128);
• builds from a source checkout without the hot profile work (thanks to klimovich008, PR #74).

Still being worked on: missing leaves and grass (the game's foliage culling now produces draw counts, the leaves don't show yet), AMD black screens (please test amd-shared-memory or this one and report), GTX 10xx noise.

Files: HookshotBuilder.zip (275.9 MB). Full notes on GitHub

Back up user\save, or build over the same folder with the same .nup: it skips re-reading the game. Includes everything from brighter.

AMD

• Possible fix for AMD black screens and gray Kokiri: every compute shader asked for 48 KB of shared memory, more than an RX 9070 XT allows (32 KB), which made those shaders invalid on AMD. Each shader now asks for what it actually uses. Thanks to klimovich008 (PR #91). Please tell me whether your AMD card shows the game now.

Everyone

• Menu text and the logo no longer go missing on the first start after an update (thanks to d3zessete, PR #54).
• Fixed a crash at boot with a controller connected, and a crash at one cutscene point (thanks to chrispository, PR #55).
• The game's foliage culling now runs and produces draw counts (it produced none before). The leaves still don't show yet; that's the next step.

Testing switches without environment variables

Create hookshot_env.txt next to hookshot.exe with one NAME=VALUE per line. If you're on AMD and still see a black or gray screen, try these one at a time and report which ones (if any) help:

HOS_NO_RENDERER_WAIT=1 RX_VK_NO_FOLLOW=1 RX_VK_OOT_VISUAL=0

Files: HookshotBuilder.zip (275.9 MB). Full notes on GitHub

Back up user\save, or build over the same folder with the same .nup: it skips re-reading the game. Includes everything from pointer-lighting-2.

• Brighter, as the game intends (#103): an old workaround darkened every scene to 65% of the game's own exposure. It was there for the washed-out look that the lighting fix solved, and now it only made things too dark. Kakariko is sunlit again.
• Less VRAM (#105, #106): the texture cache now uses at most 6 GB. On 16 GB cards it used to fill most of the card, which looked like a leak.
• AMD testing switch: if you get a black screen on AMD, start the game with the environment variable RX_VK_NO_FOLLOW=1 set and tell me whether the picture comes back. This turns off the newest lighting change.

Files: HookshotBuilder.zip (275.9 MB). Full notes on GitHub

Back up user\save, or build over the same folder with the same .nup: it skips re-reading the game.

Kokiri's lighting is back, with menu text

• The shaded forest from pointer-lighting is back, and menu, title and save text show (#92, #93). That release blanked the text because the change also ran in shaders that had no access to the game's memory. Text was checked in English, French, German and Brazilian Portuguese.

Faster second starts

• Shaders that read the game's memory used to change every run, so the graphics driver recompiled them at every start. They are now the same each run, and from the second start on they come from the driver's cache. This should help most on AMD cards, which took 5-6 seconds per shader on a first start (#82, #97).

Fewer black screens

• On 4 GB cards, a full VRAM no longer leaves the screen black; textures that don't fit go to system memory instead (#96). Slower, but drawn.
• Fixed a GPU crash ("device lost") that could happen when entering Kokiri Forest.

Builder

• "stdio.h not found" with Visual Studio installed (#89): the Windows SDK is now found even when it was installed separately, and the message names the right component.
• undefined symbol: __iob_func at the end of the compile (#80): an old Visual Studio's C library was being used. The builder now ignores it and catches this before the 40-minute build.
• Builds that sat at 0% CPU (#87): the builder now keeps the PC awake and stops Windows from throttling the build, and shows the build's output as it happens.

Still being worked on

• Tree leaves, grass and ferns are still missing (#35, #46, #61, #78, #84).
• GTX 10xx cards show noise (#98).
• Shader stutter in new areas on a first visit (#69).

Files: HookshotBuilder.zip (275.9 MB). Full notes on GitHub

Hotfix for pointer-lighting: that release left every menu and save text blank. Use this one.

• Menu, title and save text show again. The pointer change that caused it is off; it brought Kokiri's better lighting, which will come back once it no longer breaks text.
• Languages: language.txt now works even when Notepad saves it with a BOM, and a stray line no longer silently leaves the game in English (#75). French, German and Spanish were checked to show their text.
• Everything from lighting-fix stays: no dark characters or holes in the ground, thinner fog, and the AMD movie fix.

Files: HookshotBuilder.zip (275.9 MB). Full notes on GitHub

Back up user\save, or build over the same folder with the same .nup: it skips re-reading the game.

Lighting, much closer to the real game

• Shaders can now read through pointers into the game's memory, as the console's GPU does. Before, those reads returned nothing. The fix follows Lichii's work on Ocarina's foliage data (thanks to the Lichii contributors).
• Kokiri Forest is now shaded and moody instead of washed out in white haze, and Kakariko matches the game's own save screenshots.
• Includes the previous release's fixes: no lost startup work (no more dark characters or holes in the ground) and thinner fog.

Still being worked on

• Tree leaves and ferns are still missing in Kokiri Forest (#35, #46, #61). The game's foliage pass still produces nothing; this is next.
• Main menu text sometimes missing (#40, #44).
• Shader stutter in new areas (#69).
• If you used an older builder and see "rtld: not an NSO", download this one (#71).

Files: HookshotBuilder.zip (275.9 MB). Full notes on GitHub

Back up user\save, or build over the same folder with the same .nup: it skips re-reading the game.

Lighting

• Fixed dark or black characters, black ferns and pots, streaked ground and holes in the terrain. The game's first work for the GPU was being lost while shaders were prepared, which hit first launches hardest.
• Much less white fog. Skies in Kokiri are pale blue instead of a white wall, and characters are properly lit.

AMD and cards without the matrix unit

• The opening movie and title background should no longer be black (reported on the last release). It now uses a shader. I tested this path by forcing it on an NVIDIA card, not on a real AMD card, so please report back.
• The rainbow noise on these cards is gone (confirmed on an RX 7900 XTX), and they use a fast upscale in play.

Still being worked on

• Tree leaves, grass and ferns are still missing in Kokiri Forest (#35, #46, #61). I found the likely cause, the game's foliage culling reading empty data, and I'm working on the fix now. The forest stays too bright until the canopy is back.
• Green movies: install the AV1 Video Extension from the Microsoft Store.

Files: HookshotBuilder.zip (275.9 MB). Full notes on GitHub

Delete your old game folder first (back up user\save), or use this builder on the same folder and the same .nup: it now skips re-reading the game.

AMD

• Fixed the black screen with only sound ("stuck on shader 13"). The movie upscaler no longer gets compiled on cards without the console's matrix unit (all AMD cards so far).
• Movies, the title screen and menus should no longer be stuck at 10 fps. Movies use a plain upscale on these cards, so they are slightly softer.
• Gameplay uses a fast upscale on these cards too (less sharp, much faster).
• The game no longer locks to 30 fps when it can't hold 60 (vsync was forced on AMD). You may see some tearing.
• A crash inside AMD's shader compiler now skips that one thing instead of closing the game.

Thanks to JaredEzz (#26) and LNagad (#52) for the analysis. I tested the AMD path by forcing it on an NVIDIA card, not on a real AMD card, so please report back.

Everyone

• Fixed the one-frame black or bright flashes while moving.
• Added a Fullscreen row to the Insert menu (same as F11). F1 also opens the menu.
• Menu text that sometimes vanished should be fixed (#40, #44). Not reproduced here, so tell me if you still see it.
• Things that were skipped every frame (mesh line draws) now draw.

Builder

• Works with older Visual Studio installs (#39, #48).
• Updating from the same .nup no longer re-reads the whole game (#21, #28). The first build with this version still reads it once.

Still being worked on

• Thick white fog, white sky, dark characters and missing foliage (#30, #34, #35, #36, #46, #51). Likely cause found, fix coming.
• Green movies: install the AV1 Video Extension from the Microsoft Store.
• If Windows or Chrome flags the zip: that's a false positive on an unsigned new program (#37).

Files: HookshotBuilder.zip (275.9 MB). Full notes on GitHub

title

Files: HookshotBuilder.zip (275.9 MB). Full notes on GitHub

No release notes.

Files: HookshotBuilder.zip (275.9 MB). Full notes on GitHub

read title

Files: HookshotBuilder.zip (275.9 MB). Full notes on GitHub

title

Files: HookshotBuilder.zip (275.9 MB). Full notes on GitHub

Fix .nup support

Files: HookshotBuilder.zip (275.9 MB). Full notes on GitHub

First version of the builder, supports .nup files and romfs + exefs

Files: HookshotBuilder.zip (275.9 MB). Full notes on GitHub

TriAevum v0.8.0-beta.1.2

The Grass Learned to Stay Put (and So Did the Credits)

Beta.1.2 is what happens when you publish a beta and people actually play it. Every item in the first section below is somebody's bug report, and the rest is the grass, 4K and input-lag work that had been waiting for a release to ride on. Windows and Linux, as usual.

You reported it, we fixed it, you get to check

• The pause map forgot how stairs work (#89): in dungeons, the D-pad and the circle pad change floor again. Jabu-Jabu's belly is navigable once more, which is more than Jabu-Jabu can say.
• Holding A turned the lights off (#91, #95, #99): with Roll Dash on, holding A to run flickered the lighting, the shadows and Navi's hat into the "no scene" state, as if Link had sprinted out of the game world. The dash hook had been clobbering the game's own idea of which scene it was in. It keeps it now; Navi enters the hat only while Link actually dashes, and the scene identity survives the whole run.
• "Won't launch from a long folder" (#92) and "crashes on installation" (#103): same culprit, Windows' 259-character path limit, which the game's title files were cheerfully exceeding under any deep folder (OneDrive, Documents\Games\... and friends). The game and Forge keep their files within the limit now. If your folder path is very long, it works; if it is absurdly long, Forge tells you exactly how many characters to give back instead of letting Windows find out for you.
• Crash on the very last scene (#104): the end credits asked the DSP to flush and invalidate its data cache, two commands the host had never implemented, because who finishes the game? The reporter did. Both commands are served now and the credits roll to the end.
• Video memory growing until it crashed (#98): textures that no draw has sampled for a while are released, the grass refuses buffers past its VRAM budget and frees them after the frame, and the texture-pack cache no longer keeps the previous pack as a souvenir. The budget is read through the Vulkan loader at run time, so the executable still starts on a loader older than Vulkan 1.1 (the 0xC0000139 reports of the first beta, #12 and #35, stay fixed; the release audit caught the import before you could).
• Barinade, round two (#76): the precompiled Enhanced shader library is recorded again on this exact runtime, on both machines, and a release refuses a library that does not match its own source, or a recording made on a runtime that decides shaders differently. From an empty cache, the fight still compiles zero shaders. Round three is not planned.
• AMD (#78, #84, #93): this is the first release qualified on an AMD GPU (Radeon, Mesa RADV, Linux), because there is finally one in the room. Forge installed from the ROM, the game booted to the file select with zero shader compiles, twice, from both the AppImage and the Flatpak. Windows AMD drivers remain untested by us; please keep the reports coming.

Ocarina Reframed's file selection

The file select is now Ocarina Reframed's: Link stands beside the three files on the upper screen, with the copy and erase confirmations, all drawn by typed code at the game's own block boundaries. The title logo is drawn as a layer over the resolved scene, and the file select has its own scene lighting identity, so starting a new game and loading a save look the same, instead of one of them looking like a different game.

SingleScreen 3.1 and the HD interface

• Sheikah Stone Visions list on the upper screen (3.1): play, complete and cancel without losing the game (#83 asked for the 3.1 update; here it is).
• HD interface by language: Forge offers the HD UI texture pack for the language your ROM boots in, downloaded with your consent and never bundled, and ships the SingleScreen HD font (with its author's permission). The SingleScreen 3.1 archive is preselected when you drop it beside Forge.
• Vanilla+ Link (optional): a local RomFS overlay in mods/ remodels Link without touching the ROM. Your ROM stays yours; Link gets a tailor.

Grass, 4K and input lag

• Grass that stays: its placement and residency now live within a VRAM budget; when the budget is tight the visible grass is thinned evenly instead of vanishing by cluster order in one camera direction. Hyrule Field no longer mows itself when you turn left. Whole blades draw with early depth, as camera-facing ribbons by default, and two more surface rules find grass where the first ones missed it.
• 4K without an upscaler: water reflections and ambient occlusion run at half resolution with a depth-aware upsample, which is where the 4K frame went. On an RTX 3060 at 3840×2160, Kokiri Forest goes from about 19 to 18 ms and Hyrule Field with the river from 26 to 18 ms per frame, with the same image and a lot less heroism from the GPU.
• Input lag: input is sampled after the previous frame ended and the presentation cadence was fixed; at 60 Hz with interpolation the time from button to screen goes from about 33 ms to 9 ms on the development PC. Link now jumps when you press the button, not shortly after.

In-game menu

Esc (or R3) opens a settings menu in the game's own UI renderer, with a photo mode tab and an aspect ratio picture. F1 stays for everything else, because some habits deserve respect.

Windows package layout

The ZIP's root holds TriAevumForge.exe, README.md and LICENSE; Forge puts TriAevum.exe at the root when it installs, with its DLLs in runtime/. Launch the game from the root as before. Fewer files to stare at, same game.

Updating

Files: SHA256SUMS.txt (332 bytes), TriAevum-v0.8.0-beta.1.2-Linux-x86_64.AppImage (465.8 MB), TriAevum-v0.8.0-beta.1.2-Linux-x86_64.flatpak (269.9 MB), TriAevum-v0.8.0-beta.1.2-Windows-x64.zip (550.5 MB). Full notes on GitHub

TriAevum v0.8.0-beta.1.1

The Mod Moved House, So It Lives With Us Now

It is called beta.1.1 and not beta.1d because beta.1d sounded like a vitamin. It is the update for everyone: Windows and Linux, beta.1b and beta.1c.

Forge installs again

• No download, no archive, no TopScreen 2.1.1 (#81, #82, #86, #88). The author of TopScreen replaced version 2.1.1 on GameBanana with its successor, SingleScreen 3.0, so Forge's pinned download received a web page instead of a ZIP and every new installation stopped at "Could not prepare TopScreen textures". Hosting someone else's mod on a random drive is not a plan, so: with the author's permission, the two SingleScreen 3.0 files TriAevum needs (the low-resolution UI atlas and Link's extra animations) now ship inside the package. Forge needs your ROM and nothing else. All rights in those files stay with M-1 (rlgcarrot), the author of SingleScreen; see LICENSES/SingleScreen-3.0.md.
• HD interface, if you want it. Place the official SingleScreen 3.1 (singlescreen_31_989c3.zip) or 3.0 (singlescreen_30_25aeb.zip) archive beside TriAevumForge.exe, in mods/ beside it, or in data/downloads/: Forge verifies it and imports its HD UI atlas and HD fonts. Without it you get the native resolution, as on a 3DS.

TopScreen grows into SingleScreen 3.0 and 3.1

TriAevum's TopScreen profile is now a port of SingleScreen 3.0 with the 3.1 fixes, written as typed code at the game's own block boundaries. None of the mod's code or patches is executed.

• Items page with the four-row shortcut column: circle pad and D-pad navigation, reordering, the in-page D-pad picker (hold A, also from the Gear page) and held-X clearing.
• View Model: X on the Gear page, or Y in the D-pad picker, shows the item's 3D model; the circle pad turns it, X and Y zoom, the D-pad pans it, B closes it. Yes, you can now inspect the Hylian Shield like it owes you money.
• Gameplay options: quick put away, landing roll, roll dash and the aiming reticle, plus 3D rain.
• SingleScreen 3.0's HUD: its button circles, D-pad cross and labels, its placement of the A and button groups, the rupee counter, the C-stick aim speed, the Items hint and the D-pad cycle marks, the cutscene rules (no HUD during cutscenes) and the pause page titles. Compared side by side with the real mod running in an emulator, not eyeballed.
• SingleScreen 3.1 fixes: the landing roll breaks the Deku Tree's floor web again, as any self-respecting landing should; leaving a scene while objects were still loading could corrupt memory, and no longer can; room changes wait for their files the same way; the roll dash cross-fades its animation.

One TopScreen layout for everyone

The maintainer's layout is now the standard: HUD at 70 %, its margins, every gameplay option and 3D rain on. F1 → Display → TopScreen HUD offers one choice, Native (100 %) or Optimized (70 %, the default), and the SingleScreen credit. The HUD tab is gone; the TopScreen sections of Controls (shortcuts, gameplay options, C-stick aiming, free camera) stay where they were. Fewer sliders, fewer ways to make Link's hearts sit on his head.

Fewer crashes

• AMD Radeon cards dying during preparation (#78, #84). When the driver refused a Vulkan pipeline, NVIDIA's NRI library called DebugBreak(), which outside a debugger simply means "close the game". A refused pipeline is now retried as a whole pipeline and reported in the log (TRIAEVUM_NRI_PIPELINE_CREATE_FAILED), and the game carries on. There is no AMD GPU in the test lab, so this is unverified on AMD hardware. The access violation inside amdvlk64.dll reported later in #84 may be a different problem: if it still happens, the console output and a crash dump would help a lot.
• Changing the window or display settings on the title screen no longer closes the game (#87), and runs with the TopScreen profile no longer end after a minute with "native PICA display transfer source has no Vulkan render target". Resizing during parallel presentation also kept its GPU copies instead of reaching into the running game.
• SELECT opens Save/Quit again (#80), as in TopScreen.
• "Cannot query the playable runtime: Expecting value" (#85): the cause on the affected machines is still unknown. Forge now saves everything the runtime printed in TriAevum-preflight-error.json and ignores lines another program prints before the answer. If it happens to you, please attach that file.

Faster, and no shader compiling in the middle of a boss fight

• Barinade stops stuttering (#76). The Enhanced graphics preset relies on a library of precompiled shaders, and that library had quietly fallen behind the renderer: from an empty cache, the boss fight compiled shaders on the spot, for about 22 seconds in total. The library is now rebuilt from recorded play, every scene of the game under both the default and the maintainer's settings, plus boss fights, storms, a game over, a cutscene and the boot to the file select. A release now refuses a library that does not match its own source code. With an empty cache, the Barinade fight compiles zero shaders.
• 4K is faster. At 3840×2160 without an upscaler, the water reflections searched every pixel for a pond that was not on screen. They now look only where water can be: on an RTX 3060, Kokiri Forest goes from 37 to 55 fps, the opening scenes from 52 to 54, with the same image.
• Grass is cheaper: its selection runs on the GPU, entering Hyrule Field stalls less, and trees, bushes, rocks and signposts shadow the grass again (their shadows are cached instead of redrawn every frame).
• Texture packs reach the TopScreen HUD (#73): with Henriko's 4K pack the hearts, item icons, rupees, button rings and digits are upscaled too.
• A video memory leak is gone: each change of the texture pack setting kept about 15 MiB of the previous textures until the game closed.

Files: SHA256SUMS.txt (332 bytes), TriAevum-v0.8.0-beta.1.1-Linux-x86_64.AppImage (228.1 MB), TriAevum-v0.8.0-beta.1.1-Linux-x86_64.flatpak (150.3 MB), TriAevum-v0.8.0-beta.1.1-Windows-x64.zip (320.5 MB). Full notes on GitHub

TriAevum v0.8.0-beta.1c

Save States Found a Place to Live

A Linux hotfix for beta.1b. Windows players can stay on beta.1b: on Windows this version changes nothing.

• Save states work in the AppImage and the Flatpak (#61). Pressing F5 (or F1 → Game → Save states → Save state) failed with "Save state failed: cannot create the folder (Read-only file system)": the default folder sat next to the game's executable, inside the read-only package. On Linux, save states now go beside your save data:
• AppImage: ~/.local/share/TriAevum/data/savestates
• Flatpak: ~/.var/app/io.github.coccofresco.TriAevum/data/TriAevum/data/savestates

A folder you chose with Browse... in that tab is still used as before. On Windows, save states stay in the savestates folder next to TriAevum.exe.

Updating: back up your saves first; it is still a beta.

• Linux: replace the AppImage, or install the new Flatpak bundle with the same flatpak install --user command; saves stay where they are.
• Windows: nothing to do. If you install it anyway, extract the ZIP to a new folder, run TriAevumForge.exe and copy the data\savedata folder of your previous folder into the new one before starting the game.

Everything else is beta.1b: release notes. Use your own decrypted EUR/USA .3ds or .cci dump (original or Rev 1); Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese releases are not supported yet.

Files: SHA256SUMS.txt (329 bytes), TriAevum-v0.8.0-beta.1c-Linux-x86_64.AppImage (224.0 MB), TriAevum-v0.8.0-beta.1c-Linux-x86_64.flatpak (148.6 MB), TriAevum-v0.8.0-beta.1c-Windows-x64.zip (316.2 MB). Full notes on GitHub

TriAevum v0.8.0-beta.1b

The Upscaler Has Left the Building (and Came Back Properly Dressed)

A hotfix for beta.1. Same game, same data, fewer ways to leave it.

• DLSS actually ships now. In beta.1, choosing *NRI Upscaler* on an NVIDIA GPU picked DLSS, which had nothing to run with, and the game closed; since the choice was saved, it closed at every launch after that. DLSS now comes with NVIDIA's own runtime in a separate module, and it works. Your saved DLSS setting from beta.1 simply starts working.
• No upscaler can close the game any more. F1 offers only the upscalers your machine can really run, and greys out the rest with the reason. If one still fails mid-game, you get the picture unscaled and the option is withdrawn, instead of a goodbye.
• FSR works on Windows (its runtime was missing too). On Linux FSR is not offered: AMD's runtime for it exists for Windows only.
• Too-old graphics drivers get a straight answer. A GPU whose driver stops before Vulkan 1.2 is no longer picked, and the message names the GPU, its Vulkan version and the fix (update the driver from the GPU maker's site), instead of vkCreateRenderPass2.
• Better crash reports. Errors that close the game now reach the log file, and a crash on Windows lists each frame's module and offset instead of the same wrong name.
• The item description no longer stays on screen after closing the Items menu with START at the wrong moment (#60). Closing it while the game was still preparing the description now closes both; closing it a moment earlier, while the item's icon was loading, could also crash the game, and no longer does. That crash is also the one behind pressing START over and over (#67).
• The START menu opens without the wait. The first START of a session froze the game for one to two seconds, and every later open or close stuttered: the scene drawn behind the page made the grass rebuild itself each time. Now nothing is rebuilt, and START opens the page directly, the way TopScreen 2.1.1 does, about a tenth of a second sooner than before.
• TopScreen catches up with 2.1.1. On an open Items or Gear page, SELECT shows the item's description over the page, like the 3DS mod; START reopens the page you left (Items, Gear or Map); L and R hints sit beside the page tabs; the Navi prompt sits in its 2.1.1 place and also shows with View unmapped or the D-pad icons hidden; the horse-stamina row and the dungeon key counter follow 2.1.1.
• Dungeon maps show their markers again with TopScreen. The boss skull and the chests (with the compass) were missing from the dungeon map page, because the minimap layout of the HUD also moved them; it now leaves them alone while a pause page is open, as TopScreen 2.1.1 does.
• The TopScreen FOV setting works. It never changed the view: it watched the wrong camera value. Release builds also skipped the TopScreen steps that sit in the middle of the game's code, such as the FOV, the scene guards behind the pause pages and the touch-button rule. The title module now starts a block at each of them, and the game refuses a title module that does not.
• The Items page uses the full width of the upper screen, as in TopScreen 2.1.1: the grid and the ZR/X/Y/ZL column move outward and the right stone edge gives way to the column. Dungeon maps widen the same way, with the map, compass and key icons on the left and the floors on the right.
• The Save page shows the game behind it, as in TopScreen 2.1.1, instead of the brown pause background and stone edges.
• No more thin lines across empty Gear slots. The Gear page samples its textures the way 2.1.1 does.
• Link no longer flattens when he turns round at 60 or 90 FPS. Between two game frames, a model turning to face the other way was squashed for a frame; it is now shown turned part of the way.
• No more freezes on scene changes with Extended draw distance (#69,

#74). With the option on, the game drew more characters and objects than

its per-frame lighting space holds. The overflow spilled into the queue that loads scenes and writes saves, so a door, a scene change or a save could hang or crash the game. Extended draw distance now adds only as many extra actors as that space has room for. Savestates made after an overflow may already be damaged: load an in-game save instead.

• New default grass, for everyone. The default grass profile now has 25 maps that decide where grass grows, up from 6; Lon Lon Ranch gets its grass back. A configuration from beta.1 takes the new maps once, at the first start of this version, and keeps every other grass setting (density, draw distance, performance and the rest).
• One lighting standard for outdoor areas whose time is set on entry. Lon Lon Ranch no longer ships a lighting profile of its own, so it follows that group's standard, which has a new sun direction. Kokiri Forest keeps its own daytime profile.
• Smoother motion at 60 or 90 FPS. The frames drawn between game frames move each character as one piece (Link's hand stays on his arm, the Iron Knuckles stop trembling), and scrolling textures such as the clouds no longer jump for a frame. Motion vectors follow each actor by its own identity, so a repeated model no longer borrows another one's motion.
• DLSS with frame interpolation no longer loses the GPU after a scene change (the game closed with VK_ERROR_DEVICE_LOST).
• A resolution or display mode that crashes no longer locks you out (#65). If a launch ends within its first minute, the next one starts with the default resolution, window mode, anti-aliasing and upscaler, says so in the log, and keeps everything else.
• The AppImage starts more than once (#66). It used to remember where it was mounted the first time and could not find its own files afterwards ("OTR file not found"); an installation from beta.1 repairs itself on the first start of this version.

Files: SHA256SUMS.txt (329 bytes), TriAevum-v0.8.0-beta.1b-Linux-x86_64.AppImage (224.0 MB), TriAevum-v0.8.0-beta.1b-Linux-x86_64.flatpak (148.6 MB), TriAevum-v0.8.0-beta.1b-Windows-x64.zip (316.2 MB). Full notes on GitHub

TriAevum v0.8.0-beta.1

Hyrule Gets Its Lights Back On

The first beta. Hyrule now has weather in its lighting, fire that actually lights things, and water that knows it is water. The grass is still there. We checked.

• Two lighting models. *Native* keeps the 3DS look. *Modern* lights every pixel: a key light that follows the scene's own sun, a rim light, ambient occlusion, and shadows. Fresh installs start on the tuned Enhanced preset.
• Scenes come with their own light. Day and night environment profiles, per scene or per group of scenes, blend on the game's own clock. This release ships the profiles authored so far (Temple of Time included) as read-only defaults. Edit any of them in F1 and save your own; *Use group standard* brings back the default.
• Fire lights things. Torches while lit, the Poe sisters' torches, fire Keese, flame traps, fire walls and other flames light the Modern scene. Interior lamps and doorway daylight become real lights, prepared by Forge from your own RomFS. Place your own sun, spot, point, surface and omni lights from F1; surface lights have a spread to aim them.
• Shadows everywhere they should be. Point lights cast cube-map shadows, contact shadows add the small ones, smooth surfaces stop shadowing their own facets, and the sun reaches into interiors through their openings.
• Water. Reflections from the game's own water bodies, flow from the texture scrolling, ripples, white water where rivers step down.
• MXAO. iMMERSE MXAO by Pascal Gilcher joins GTAO and CACAO, with face normals and temporal accumulation. It is a separately licensed module (triaevum_immerse), used with the author's permission; TriAevum runs without it if it is removed.
• DLSS reconstructs the frame upright, with the transformer model on Enhanced. OptiScaler users can try DLSS 5 neural rendering on their own; see docs/TRIAEVUM_OPTISCALER_DLSS5.md. Nothing from OptiScaler is shipped.
• F1 reorganized into seven tabs, with your own graphics presets and a save-state tab. Save states hold the game moment, not your graphics settings, and are compressed.
• Faster where it counts. The precompiled title is profile-guided, shader programs are prepared ahead from recorded game sessions, and the title intro runs above 60 fps at 2160p on the development PC. Results vary by hardware; this is not a promise of zero stutter.

First setup: after reading your ROM, Forge prepares this GPU's pipelines once; the rooms' interior sunlight and light sources come precomputed with the release and are matched to your own ROM's rooms. On the development PC (12 threads) this part takes about 3 minutes; slower PCs take longer. Later launches reuse the work. The first frames show a short preparation screen.

Before updating: back up saves and settings. Prefer normal in-game saves. Global illumination is still experimental and not offered by this build. The game's simulation remains 30 Hz; 60/90 FPS modes interpolate visuals. Android and macOS are not included in this release.

Windows: extract the portable ZIP and run TriAevumForge.exe. Linux: make the AppImage executable and open it; use --forge to return to setup. Or install the Flatpak with flatpak install --user TriAevum-v0.8.0-beta.1-Linux-x86_64.flatpak (the Freedesktop 25.08 runtime comes from Flathub) and start it from the menu or with flatpak run io.github.coccofresco.TriAevum; it updates an alpha.2 Flatpak in place, keeping its saves. Use your own decrypted EUR/USA .3ds or .cci dump (original or Rev 1). Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese releases are not supported yet: Forge declines them.

Special thanks to Pascal Gilcher (Marty's Mods) for MXAO and the permission to use it, to rlgcarrot, whose TopScreen mod is reimplemented here (please consider supporting their work), and to Sion (999sian) for the Linux foundation; see the contribution record. And thank you to Ship of Harkinian, Azahar, NRI, Godot, FidelityFX, and the other donor projects. The lights did not place themselves; well, some of them did.

Files: SHA256SUMS.txt (326 bytes), TriAevum-v0.8.0-beta.1-Linux-x86_64.AppImage (176.9 MB), TriAevum-v0.8.0-beta.1-Linux-x86_64.flatpak (117.0 MB), TriAevum-v0.8.0-beta.1-Windows-x64.zip (262.3 MB). Full notes on GitHub

999sian for their PR contributions, and Ship of Harkinian, Azahar, NRI** and the other donor projects.

Files: no files. Full notes on GitHub

TriAevum v0.6.0-alpha.3

BROKEN - WITHDRAWN. Do not use this release. Downloadable packages have been removed pending further verification. The original notes below are retained for historical reference, not as a current reliability claim.

Sheik Can Finish a Sentence

More game, fewer arguments with the window. Still an unreasonable amount of grass.

• Linux travels lighter. One AppImage replaces Flatpak, with Forge included. Prepare in Desktop Mode, then add the AppImage to Steam for Gaming Mode. Steam Deck is a compatibility target, not a hardware-tested certification.
• TopScreen gets its bearings. Centered, proportion-preserving HUD, minimap and contextual-menu fixes, and Game Over choices that actually show up. The game may defeat you; the menu should not.
• Sharper words. TopScreen HD fonts are prepared by Forge and used automatically at 480p and above. No magnifying glass DLC required.
• Controllers cooperate more. Unified SDL routing, improved mouse/stick aiming and automatic motion aiming on supported controllers. Gyro affects aiming, not free camera. Virtual/third-party sensor support still varies.
• Cutscenes can finish their business. Sheikah Stone Visions playback and the Temple of Time revelation now progress through their previously blocked paths. The latter returns to gameplay on Windows and Linux.
• Renderer housekeeping. Improved frame pacing, grass visibility work and native shader infrastructure, plus the black-background/toon correction. This is not a promise of zero stutter or a universal FPS increase.

Before updating: back up saves and settings. Prefer normal in-game saves; restoring a savestate made during the revelation's flashback remains unreliable. F1 keeps the established settings menu. 60/90 FPS modes interpolate visuals; game simulation remains 30 Hz. Android/macOS are not included in this release.

Windows: extract the portable ZIP and run TriAevumForge.exe. Linux: make the AppImage executable and open it; use --forge to return to setup. Use your own decrypted EUR/USA .3ds or .cci dump. Existing Flatpak data is not migrated automatically: keep it backed up and separate from the new AppImage installation.

Special thanks to rlgcarrot, whose TopScreen mod is reimplemented here: please consider supporting their work. Thanks to Sion (999sian) for the Linux foundation and PR contributions informing display, shader preparation and TopScreen support; see the contribution record for individual PRs and integration scope. And thank you to Ship of Harkinian, Azahar, NRI, and the other donor projects. The grass did not write itself.

Files: no files. Full notes on GitHub

Alpha 2c: Fullscreen, Not Full Stop

A small maintenance update for Windows and Linux. Same game, fewer window dramas.

• Fixes a reproduced crash when minimizing or restoring the game around fullscreen transitions: the runtime now waits for a valid graphics frame instead of submitting to an unavailable window surface.
• Keeps window events responsive while the display surface is being recreated, without advancing game time during the pause.
• Adds repeatable checks for fullscreen/windowed transitions, resolution changes and automatic rollback of unconfirmed settings.

USA/EUR ROM support, Forge's bundled shader preparation, TopScreen and save formats are unchanged. No title recompilation or SDK is needed.

Back up your saves and settings before updating. Windows users should extract the ZIP into a fresh folder and keep their previous installation until the new one is working. Linux users can install the Flatpak over the previous version; application data remains outside the package.

This fixes a concrete reproduced failure, not every possible driver or fullscreen issue. Physical Steam Deck testing and unrelated Windows loader investigations remain outstanding.

Thanks to Sion (@999sian) for the Linux, compatibility, cache and TopScreen contributions retained from alpha.2; individual PR credits. And to rlgcarrot for the TopScreen design reimplemented here, plus Azahar, Ship of Harkinian, libultraship and NRI for the foundations.

Files: SHA256SUMS.txt (219 bytes), TriAevum-v0.6.0-alpha.2c-Linux-x86_64.flatpak (86.8 MB), TriAevum-v0.6.0-alpha.2c-Windows-x64.zip (108.4 MB). Full notes on GitHub

Alpha 2b: USA Is Back on the Guest List

Small packaging fix, same excessive grass.

• Restores USA ROM import and equivalent EUR/USA dump recognition accidentally omitted from alpha.2, on both Windows and Linux.
• Adds a release audit that rejects packages missing these qualified input contracts. A matching Program ID alone is still not enough: Forge checks the actual decrypted content.
• Keeps the tested alpha.2 game, Forge, renderer and bundled shader preparation unchanged. No compiler or SDK is needed, and no new Flatseal permissions are required to fix this particular rejection.

Use your own decrypted EUR/USA .3ds or .cci dump. If alpha.2 rejected it, update and run Forge again. Windows users should extract into a fresh folder; keep the previous installation and back up saves/settings before moving data. Linux users can install this Flatpak over the previous version; application data remains outside the package.

Verified with real frozen Forge installations and 300-presentation intro runs on Windows and Linux, including a logically equivalent repacked USA input on Linux. This is not a full-game compatibility claim; physical Steam Deck testing is still outstanding. Unrelated Windows loader failures remain under investigation.

The packages retain the exact corresponding source for their unchanged alpha.2 binaries (source freeze 72e4c37). The input-coverage correction is b1702ea, with verification recorded in fb8161c and this release's tagged source.

Thanks again to Sion (@999sian) for the Linux, compatibility, cache and TopScreen contributions incorporated into alpha.2; see the contribution record for individual PR attribution. And to rlgcarrot for TopScreen, whose single-screen design is reimplemented here, and Azahar, Ship of Harkinian, libultraship and NRI for the foundations.

Files: SHA256SUMS.txt (221 bytes), TriAevum-v0.6.0-alpha.2b-Linux-x86_64.flatpak (71.0 MB), TriAevum-v0.6.0-alpha.2b-Windows-x64.zip (106.7 MB). Full notes on GitHub

TriAevum v0.6.0-alpha.2

More Hyrule, less housekeeping

The renderer obsession continues. This time, a little more attention went to the part where you actually play the game.

Special thanks to Sion (999sian) for the Linux foundation (#6), display feedback (#14), and contributions informing shader preparation (#11) and TopScreen fixes (#13, #18). These were selectively integrated or adapted, not blindly merged. Thanks also to Pablo Souza for the capture work from #16.

• Linux joins the party. One Flatpak for Linux desktops and the Steam Deck target, with Forge included. Windows stays portable: unzip, prepare, play.
• Forge does more homework. The bundled shader corpus is prepared automatically for your GPU during setup. No extra files to choose; missing variants are still learned and cached while playing.
• Grass has learned some restraint. Adaptive clusters, better distant coverage, and closer matching to the terrain's color and lighting. Still grass. Just less determined to occupy your entire GPU.
• TopScreen gets a tune-up. Fixes for item slots, ocarina guidance, HUD flickering, mounted layouts, minimap markers and ammunition placement.
• Fewer arguments with the controls. A clearer F1 binding interface, press-to-bind controls, and fixes for mouse aiming and camera recapture.
• Less window wrestling. Resolution/fullscreen fixes, clearer display-error feedback, ROM-aware language selection in Forge and F1, and Linux presentation and shutdown fixes.

Still an alpha, not a full-playthrough certification. Steam Deck hardware and Gaming Mode have not been tested directly. Android is not part of this release. Shader coverage is not complete, and first encounters can still compile shaders. 60/90 FPS modes interpolate presentation; game simulation remains at 30 Hz.

Use your own decrypted EUR or USA dump in .cci or .3ds format. On Windows, extract the entire ZIP to a writable folder and run TriAevumForge.exe. On Linux, install the Flatpak and open TriAevum; Forge handles the first setup. For the Steam Deck target, prepare in Desktop Mode before adding it to Steam. Back up saves and settings before updating. F1 configures the renderer; F2 temporarily disables the main graphical additions without discarding settings.

In pictures

Actual alpha.2 framebuffer captures, using the default graphics profile.

Windows: Kokiri Forest outside Link's house

Windows: Link and Epona in the title intro

Linux Flatpak: mounted gameplay with TopScreen

TriAevum would not exist in its current form without rlgcarrot's TopScreen mod, whose behavior is reimplemented here. Please consider supporting their work. Thank you to Ship of Harkinian, Azahar, NRI, and all the other donor projects and contributors. See the contribution record for the exact integration scope and attribution.

Files: SHA256SUMS.txt (217 bytes), TriAevum-v0.6.0-alpha.2-Linux-x86_64.flatpak (71.0 MB), TriAevum-v0.6.0-alpha.2-Windows-x64.zip (106.6 MB). Full notes on GitHub

Should work with any personal EUR or USA ROM dump, provided it is decrypted and in .cci or .3ds format.

Files: SHA256SUMS.txt (211 bytes), TriAevum-v0.6.0-alpha.1c-source.zip (12.0 MB), TriAevum-v0.6.0-alpha.1c-Windows-x64.zip (94.4 MB). Full notes on GitHub

TriAevum v0.6.0-alpha.1b

Windows x64 experimental update: controller initialization is fixed, required input/runtime files are included, and Forge accepts the exact tested decrypted USA input through an offline adapter. No new game compilation is required.

Changes

• Initialize SDL controller input in the native game, independently of the unused legacy N64 startup path. Preserve controller handles across hotplug.
• Enable controller, keyboard and mouse together on fresh installations. Existing saved control preferences remain unchanged. The fix was confirmed by the maintainer with a connected physical controller.
• Bundle the additional SDL controller mappings and shaderc's Visual C++ runtime DLLs. SDL2 itself is statically linked; no separate SDL2 DLL is needed.
• Add the audited USA ROM input to Forge. Adaptation happens during setup, using that ROM's assets with the existing canonical EUR logic; no runtime asset replacement and no second USA port.
• Update the README with the project's entirely AI-assisted development approach, renderer focus and limited gameplay-test coverage.

Install or update

Download TriAevum-v0.6.0-alpha.1b-Windows-x64.zip and extract all files into a writable folder. Run TriAevumForge.exe, select your supported decrypted .3ds or .cci ROM, then choose Launch game. TopScreen's official texture archive is downloaded during setup unless provided locally. No SDK or compiler is needed. Use TriAevum.exe for subsequent launches.

Before updating an existing installation, back up its entire data/ folder. Do not discard your saves or settings. To keep using them in a newly extracted installation, copy data/ into it before running Forge with the same ROM. If you previously saved a keyboard-only control profile, enable the controller in F1 > Controls; updates do not silently overwrite your bindings.

Supported inputs and limits

The original supported EUR input remains supported. New USA support is bound to exact extracted hashes in ROM identification, not a filename or a claim that every USA Rev 1 dump works. The tested USA file does not exactly match either referenced No-Intro full-image hash.

USA installation, title intro and file selection have been exercised. A full playthrough, all regional hint/language paths and cross-region saves are not qualified. Only English/French/Spanish dialogue is supplied by the USA input. Do not treat its EUR-compatible execution as preservation of every USA behavior.

General gameplay testing remains limited to the early game. Graphics, audio, input and advanced effects are experimental; use F1 to configure and F2 to compare with the main enhancements disabled. Interpolation smooths visual presentation to 60/90 FPS while retaining 30 Hz logic and normal game speed.

The ZIP is unsigned. SHA-256 sums verify transfer integrity, not publisher identity. A clean Windows installation and modest-PC performance have not yet been qualified. Current Vulkan drivers are required.

The package includes corresponding runtime/Forge and translated title sources, licenses and donor notices, but no ROM, extracted assets, save data or mod ZIP. Please report reproducible issues and, where useful, ordinary in-game save files. Do not upload ROMs, extracted assets or memory savestates with game code.

Package checks

188 Forge/release tests passed, along with native input and SDL controller-lifecycle tests. Both EUR and the exact supported USA input were installed in fresh folders using the frozen Forge executable with zero compiled objects, then booted with NRI/Vulkan and the default TopScreen/x2 profile. Intro framebuffers were inspected for both; USA also reached file selection. These are checks on the development PC, not a clean-Windows or full-playthrough certification.

Files: SHA256SUMS.txt (108 bytes), TriAevum-v0.6.0-alpha.1b-Windows-x64.zip (94.6 MB). Full notes on GitHub

Ship of Harkinian, libultraship, Azahar, NRI and the independent TopScreen mod/reverse-engineering work. See THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md and LICENSE_SCOPE.md.

No ROM, keys, extracted game assets, save data, mod archive, proprietary graphics SDK or development cache is included. TopScreen textures are obtained separately by Forge from the official archive.

Report issues with the release version, GPU/driver, relevant settings and steps to reproduce. Review logs before attaching them: remove personal paths and never upload ROMs, extracted assets or private save states. This project has no official Discord support server.

Files: SHA256SUMS.txt (107 bytes), TriAevum-v0.6.0-alpha.1-Windows-x64.zip (92.4 MB). Full notes on GitHub