Replaces the single scope-global distance-sorted RetailAlphaQueue with
retail's own two independent FIFO lists (CLIP/ALPHA, capacity 3000 each,
D3DPolyRender::AddMeshToAlphaList's exact append-only/capacity-drop
behavior — Ghidra-verified 2026-09-04), routed by a new
RetailAlphaMeshRouter porting DrawMesh's five-row immediate/delayed
branch table and ConstructMesh's subset-mask formula as pure functions,
and drained at retail's four normal-world FlushAlphaList sites
(DrawBuilding/DrawBlock/PView::DrawCells/RenderNormalMode) under the
exact Ghidra-verified no-op predicate (both counts strictly below
threshold*3000). A new WalkFrameEventKind.SortCellExit /
IWalkEventSink.OnSortCellExit / IWalkFrameLeafRenderer.FlushSortCellExit
fires once per admitted land-block cell for DrawBlock's 0.75f valve,
pinned by a dedicated far/near ordering test in RetailFrameWalkTests.cs.
WbDrawDispatcher's two submit sites and ParticleRenderer's one route
through the router; since none of the three ever draws during the Sky
leaf, installs a detail surface, or sets MultiPassAlpha, rows 1/2/4/5
are provably unreachable there and the call sites assert loudly rather
than building unexercisable immediate-draw plumbing. FlushFartherThan,
RetailAlphaOrdering.ComputeViewerDistance, and every viewerDistance
argument on the submit path are deleted.
Scope note (packet s4-depth-alpha-packet.md §10): C4 (routing EnvCell's
transparent shell batches through the shared queue) was not attempted —
EnvCell draws one per-cell MultiDrawIndexedIndirect call with no
per-subset deferred-replay abstraction, and building one without visual
verification (no graphical client in this worktree) was judged out of
this bounded chunk's scope. AP-34 is therefore retired and replaced by
two narrower rows rather than deleted outright: AP-236 (the carried-
forward EnvCell-immediate residual) and AP-237 (a newly identified gap:
TranslucencyKind.AlphaBlend can arise from either retail's Alpha/
Translucent bits, mask 0x02/ALPHA, or the Translucent+ClipMap "cloud"
override, mask 0x08/CLIP — GroupKey doesn't retain the raw bit to tell
them apart, so the router always picks ALPHA; only known example is
cloud GfxObj 0x01004C35). Both are compositing-order-only divergences,
never blend/visual ones.
Mutation checks (each applied, confirmed failing, then reverted):
- FIFO drain order reversed -> 5 RetailAlphaQueueTests fail (order).
- FlushAlphaList `<` -> `<=` -> boundary/scratch tests fail (2250 case
reads drained=0 instead of 2250).
- Capacity check loosened (3000 -> 6000) -> overflow-drop test fails
(TryAppend returns true, PendingCount reads 3001).
- IsFirstForList forced true -> flag test fails once inspected on the
pre-flush two-entry snapshot (the post-flush single-survivor version
of this test was vacuous and rewritten).
- Router row 3 condition inverted -> both the hand-traced Theory (6
cases) and the 160-cell independent-truth-table brute force fail (20
mismatches).
- SortCellExit emitted before OnLandscapeCellTurn instead of after ->
RetailFrameWalkTests ordering pin fails ("SCX must immediately follow
its own cell's SC").
- Prepare-per-list instead of prepare-once-combined -> the CLIP/ALPHA
boundary batching test throws (index out of range).
Gates: Release build 0 warnings/0 errors. Hermetic lane (Lane!=Installed
Dat&...&Status!=KnownFailure) 6855/6855 passed. InstalledDat lane 249
passed / 10 failed — exactly the 4 pre-existing failures (#383 x2
LayoutImporter, TowerAscent KnownFailure, #458 Oh_doorway_still
KnownFailure) plus 6 NEW KnownFailure Facts
(AlphaFlushTranscript_*_MatchesRetailFrame2, one per capture) extending
this gate from PM/PC to AM/FL: the flush SITE+THRESHOLD sequence matches
the capture exactly for all six poses (including zero SortCellExit
drains in every capture, confirming the 0.75 valve is inert at these
scene complexities in both retail and this replay); the drained-COUNT-
per-list dimension diverges because this hermetic harness (matching the
existing PM/PC gate's own EmptyAlphaDepthWorldData design) carries no
live GfxObj/particle content, so every observed count reads (0,0)
against retail's real per-frame volume — both sequences quoted in full
per pose in the packet's new §10. Shader classes (VulkanShaderDescriptor
ContractTests/VulkanShaderManifestTests/RenderPackSpirvValidatorTests)
32/32 passed.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Retail never clips a particle to a portal view: each emitter's polys
join the ONE alpha list during its owner cell's far-to-near walk turn
(LScape::draw @0x00506330 iterates block_draw_list reversed; DrawBlock
@0x005A17C0 walks cells; ShouldDrawParticles @0x0050FE60 gates by cell
and distance), and occlusion is the depth test at FlushAlphaList
@0x0059D2E0 (its float is a COUNT threshold - 0f = flush all). The
1d2f2f73 architecture instead re-submitted particles once per
OutsideView slice under that slice's hardware clip slot, which cut
effects at aperture boundaries and drew nothing when no outside slice
was in view (the cathedral look-north disappearance).
Now: unattached emitters submit once per frame by owner-cell kind
(outdoor landcells in the landscape stage, interior EnvCells in the
final world scope - new UnattachedEmitterCellScope filter); cell,
shell-route, barrier-static, and late-stage owners submit their
per-slice cone-cull UNION once with clipSlot 0; and particles emit in
the stage matching their PARENT CELL - an interior dynamic whose
sphere straddles an exit-portal plane keeps its mesh in both stages
(#118) but its particles move to the final pass, so the interior
stage can no longer repaint over them (the aperture-band star cut).
Also lands the inert Change-2 primitives for the AP-236 retirement
(candle-behind-door): RetailAlphaQueue.FlushFartherThan drains only
the far prefix without resetting sources, plus the executor
passthrough and the conservative look-in threshold helper - nothing
calls them yet.
User-gated 2026-08-29 round 2 at the Sanctuary Cathedral: spell and
recall stars cover the whole room at every camera direction including
north; waterfall containment holds on retail's depth/seal mechanism;
adjacent-room particles/lights, walls, Holtburg, recall unregressed
(paperdoll remains pre-existing intermittent #443). Register: AP-236
filed for the remaining barrier-order divergence.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Complete Slice D3 by replacing the unbounded animation dictionary with a concurrent byte/count LRU and by putting the three retail alpha scratch owners behind one typed aggregate budget. Preserve immediate growth and draw order while reclaiming one-frame density spikes after sustained under-use. Close stale bounds-cache issue evidence without inventing a cache.
Move fallback and PView world drawing, shared alpha, particles, visibility, selection, and diagnostics behind focused frame owners. Make exceptional frames failure-atomic by restoring the shared GL baseline and preserving primary alpha failures through cleanup.
Co-authored-by: Codex <codex@openai.com>
Replace scheduler-quantized software sleeps with a reusable Windows high-resolution deadline timer, expose pacing in the frame profiler, and make shutdown wake every persistent mesh worker without losing the shared signal.
Preserve retail alpha order while using a stable radix, skip duplicate deferred-alpha SSBO packing, pack light sets, cache static selection descriptors, and retire historical material groups at the whole-frame boundary. The fixed dense-Caul sample improved from roughly 9-12 ms CPU to 5.3-6.2 ms without reducing visual quality.
Release build succeeds with zero warnings and all 6,300 tests pass with five intentional skips. Three independent retail, architecture, and adversarial reviews are clean; the post-review connected route remains pending because local ACE is offline.
Co-authored-by: OpenAI Codex <codex@openai.com>
Queue translucent world GfxObj batches and scene particles in one stable far-to-near stream using transformed DAT sort centers, then drain it at retail's landscape and final-world boundaries. Preserve authored blend, cull, lighting, opacity, and adjacent-only batching so particles behind lifestones are composited through the crystal instead of overpainting it.
Release build succeeds and all 5,914 tests pass with five intentional skips.
Co-authored-by: OpenAI Codex <codex@openai.com>
