acdream/docs
Erik e42b99482e feat(audio): Campaign A slice A2 — retail's 2D pan+gain mixer replaces AL 3D
Retail is not a 3D audio engine. Every gameplay buffer is created with
m_3D = 0 and the DirectSound 3D listener the client sets up is dead code;
spatialization is two CPU scalars per voice, frozen at emission. This
slice ports that math and demotes OpenAL to a voice bank.

RetailSoundMixer (new, Core) carries the byte-decoded curve from
SoundManager::GetAttenuation @0x00550020: g = dist < 5 ? vol : 25*vol/d2,
clamped to 1 BEFORE the single master multiply, db = ceil(20*log10 g),
with a hard -50 dB floor at which retail does not start the voice at all
(audible radius ~94.2 m at unity). Pan is PlaySoundInternal @0x00550170's
(int)(-15*sin(delta-bearing)) in whole decibels, truncating toward zero,
forced to dead centre when (int)distance < 5, with no front/back and no
elevation cue. Every AL source is now source-relative with rolloff 0 and
the global distance model is None: AL's InverseDistanceClamped was
first-power (2/d), quieter than retail up close and far louder at range
with no cutoff whatsoever. That was the largest audible divergence in the
subsystem (AP-28, retired here).

RetailVoicePool (new, Core) ports the allocator at 0x0054FEC0: ring scan
for a free or finished slot, then evict the first slot whose DAT priority
is strictly lower, else drop. Eviction compared GAIN before, so a loud
unimportant sound could silence a quiet important one. It lives in Core
because the engine's play path talks to native AL handles and could not
be tested; the pool now has 12 conformance tests.

The listener keeps using the camera position, which the decode shows is
retail-faithful (SmartBox::set_viewer @0x00452D36 hands the same collided
camera Position to SoundManager) — only the heading extraction changes,
since retail reads one compass bearing and never a forward/up basis. An
earlier draft of the plan called this a defect; corrected in the plan so
it is not fixed backwards.

Opus review found and this commit fixes: a linear pan-to-azimuth mapping
that saturated to full separation at 30 degrees (OpenAL Soft's own
speaker angle) where retail gives 15 dB — now inverts the constant-power
pan law, so full deflection reaches 0.776 of the arc and both channels
stay live; the stale FUN_00550ad0 / gain-eviction class header, which
contradicted the register row this commit writes; missing discriminating
tests for clamp order and pan truncation; dead PlayingGain state whose
comment invented a retail symbol; and a third in-tree copy of
Position::heading, now delegating to MoveToMath.PositionHeading.

MasterVolume folds into the mixer's one multiply instead of AL listener
gain, so the cutoff, radius and dB quantisation move with the slider.

Register: AP-28 retired; AP-173 (pan law), AP-174 (volume taxonomy),
TS-64 (two unimplemented sound prefs), TS-65 (volume-squared quirk,
applied on the ambient path only) filed. Research note corrected twice
where its summary contradicted its own decode (30 m dB, floor vs trunc).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-08 21:58:50 +02:00
..
architecture feat(audio): Campaign A slice A2 — retail's 2D pan+gain mixer replaces AL 3D 2026-08-08 21:58:50 +02:00
audit docs: update audit — Sprint 1 items verified (sequence counters + scenery LCG) 2026-04-13 13:51:39 +02:00
plans feat(audio): Campaign A slice A2 — retail's 2D pan+gain mixer replaces AL 3D 2026-08-08 21:58:50 +02:00
reference docs(reference): preserve local ACE command catalog 2026-07-27 00:03:58 +02:00
reports docs: the overnight consolidation report, open questions first 2026-07-29 03:54:43 +02:00
research feat(audio): Campaign A slice A2 — retail's 2D pan+gain mixer replaces AL 3D 2026-08-08 21:58:50 +02:00
superpowers fix(world): remove non-retail portal exit fade 2026-07-15 23:20:52 +02:00
bugs.md docs: reconcile project status and navigation 2026-07-20 13:00:41 +02:00
ISSUES.md fix(audio): Campaign A slice A1 — retail's sound probability gate (#355) 2026-08-08 21:28:16 +02:00
README.md docs: reconcile project state and refresh README 2026-07-27 12:53:31 +02:00

acdream documentation map

This page is the entry point for project documentation. It distinguishes current sources of truth from implementation history so an old plan or issue banner cannot silently override the current program state.

Current snapshot — 2026-07-27

  • Milestone state: M3, “Cast a spell,” landed 2026-07-21. M4, “Live in the world,” is active.
  • M4 gameplay program: resume the pre-M4 world-interaction completion program. Favorite-spell overflow, status Use/Assess, and the complete assessment surface are user-accepted. Equipped-child picking and vendor browse/transactions remain Slices 46.
  • Structural/runtime state: all eight GameWindow decomposition slices, Modern Runtime Slices AJ, and the connected visual/lifecycle gates are complete. GameWindow is a 1,622-line composition/callback shell. AcDream.Runtime.GameRuntime owns canonical session, entity/object, gameplay, movement, physics, projectile, environment, and portal state; graphical and no-window hosts borrow the same owner graph.
  • Headless state: Slice K is complete. AcDream.Headless is a presentation-free Windows/Linux host with deterministic commands/events, shared immutable content, multi-session isolation, reconnect, resource telemetry, and 1/5/10/30-session gates. The final two-account native-Linux soak completed ten minutes, logged out through ACE, and converged every ownership ledger.
  • Linux graphical state: Slice L0 and the L1 implementation checkpoint are complete at 66f114b2 and 11501d52. Native Windows passes the active modern-GL/audio/window smoke. WSLg X11/Wayland correctly reject their missing GL_ARB_bindless_texture. Physical-Linux validation and L2L6 are explicitly deferred; resume at the supported AMD/NVIDIA L1 gate.
  • Completed gameplay gates: R6 locomotion/collision/projectile/teleport/ radar, two-client portal-out/materialization, indoor prepared collision, loot ordering, local/remote ground drops, and selection-marker lifetime.
  • Separate visual verification: issue #225, the shared-alpha lifestone/particle result; its connected resource-lifetime and performance routes pass.
  • Carried behaviour debt: issue #153 (far teleport onto an unstreamed edge), #116 (narrowed slide response), #235 (capped/RDP jump cadence), and the active temporary-stopgap rows in the divergence register.
  • Divergence audit: 189 active rows — IA 18, AD 38, AP 91, TS 38, and UN 4 — plus retained struck/retired historical rows such as TS-37.
  • Latest automated baseline: the Release build succeeds with the 17 test-project warnings tracked by issue #228; 8,826 tests pass and five are intentionally skipped. App passes 3,763 / 3 skips. The L1 Windows supported smoke and WSLg X11/Wayland negative-capability reports all end with zero window/GL/input/audio ownership.

Sources of truth

Read these in this order when deciding what to do next:

  1. plans/2026-05-12-milestones.md — the active playable outcome, freeze boundaries, and visual gates.
  2. plans/2026-04-11-roadmap.md — strategic phase ledger: shipped, active, deferred, and future work.
  3. ISSUES.md — tactical defects and small follow-ups. The status inside an issue is authoritative; physical order is not.
  4. architecture/retail-divergence-register.md — every known place runtime behavior can differ from retail.
  5. architecture/acdream-architecture.md and architecture/code-structure.md — ownership, dependency, update-thread, and extraction rules.
  6. architecture/worldbuilder-inventory.md — rendering/DAT code already owned in-tree versus mechanisms still ours to port.

If these disagree, milestones control the current outcome, the roadmap controls work ordering, the issue status controls the individual defect, and the architecture documents control implementation shape. Reconcile the stale document in the same change; do not leave both claims standing.

Research and implementation records

  • research/named-retail/ is the primary retail oracle: named pseudo-C, headers, symbols, and types from the Sept 2013 build.
  • research/decompiled/ is the older Ghidra fallback.
  • research/ contains focused pseudocode, traces, fixtures, and gate reports. A dated research note records evidence; it does not become a new roadmap.
  • superpowers/specs/ and superpowers/plans/ are per-slice design and execution records. Completed plans remain historical.
  • audit/ contains completion and conformance audits.
  • reference/ace-commands.md preserves the local ACE server's complete in-game command catalog and points to the authoritative per-command help surface.

Durable memory

  • ../claude-memory/MEMORY.md indexes the live subsystem memories and the render/physics digests. Read a domain digest before changing that subsystem, especially its DO-NOT-RETRY table.
  • ../memory/ contains stable engineering references such as the modern rendering pipeline, two-tier streaming, and toolchain notes.

Memory accelerates recall; it does not outrank the canonical documents above. When current truth changes, update the relevant canonical document and distill only the durable lesson into memory.

Historical and deprecated documents

  • bugs.md is the April 2026 bug snapshot. It is preserved for archaeology and is not an active ledger.
  • Dated plans and specs describe the decision at that time. Their completion wording is historical unless the current milestone/roadmap explicitly links the item as active.
  • Old R1→R8 architecture sequencing is superseded. Current execution comes from the milestones and strategic roadmap.

Documentation maintenance rules

  • Update milestone, roadmap, issue, divergence, architecture, and memory claims in the same commit when a shipped change affects them.
  • Keep one issue ID per defect. Narrow an issue in place; do not reuse another issue's number as a shorthand.
  • Mark automated, connected, and visual gates separately. An automated pass is not a visual acceptance, and an RDP throughput sample is not a local-display visual comparison.
  • Preserve research history, but remove stale “current/next” claims from living documents once the state advances.