re: the game never draws ptlogo_back2eff3 -- reproduced, with three explanations

ruled out

Last iteration I recorded eff3's absence as unexplained after withdrawing a bad
explanation for it. The previous capture survived on disk with 6907 frames, and
the attract loop returns to the title, so it contains a SECOND build-in at
frames 5942..7025. eff3 is absent there too.

Three alternative explanations tested and failed:

  * sampling phase -- eff3 is non-zero for t in (58,64), SIX units, against a
    2.23-unit step. A window wider than the step cannot be missed; frames 133
    (t=60.1) and 134 (t=62.3) sit inside it and draw eff2 and eff4 instead.
  * a draw the log cannot see -- exactly 2 draws per frame carry no geometry,
    on all 932 settled title frames, always the same full-screen-triangle
    shader, and present on frames where no wipe element is active.
  * a bad position guess -- dropping position entirely, ZERO quads anywhere on
    screen in either build-in window have a width within +-30 of 408. The width
    spectrum jumps straight from 262 to 748.

Draw counts across both entries: eff1 4, eff2 3, eff3 0, eff4 6, against ~5
expected each. The four are a right-aligned wipe (938+258, 788+408, 447+749,
64+1133, all ending at x~1196) -- a left-growing reveal in four widths, of
which the game draws three.

Why is NOT established: nothing in eff3's element record differs from its
neighbours. Classified measured, not decoded, and the port is told that
dropping eff3 means authoring a behaviour I cannot derive from the file.

Two further corrections, both to my own earlier claims:

  * "frame 107 is the title composited once" was an over-read. It binds NO
    texture and only 4 of its 27 draws log geometry. The second title entry
    has no such frame.
  * the two build-ins are NOT frame-identical. I had that from a coincidentally
    aligned pair of rows; aligned properly only 4 of 46 frames match. They are
    the same animation at different sampling phases -- which is precisely what
    makes the eff3 result robust.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01QsEPXWVaEpyfudtR6re1Pd

docs/re/INDEX.md

@@ -171,4 +171,4 @@ files, which is how the same ground got covered twice.
 | [`structures/ui-tie-break-cost-at-settle.md`](structures/ui-tie-break-cost-at-settle.md) | What the unknown paint-order tie-break costs, in pixels | ✅ **decoded**, closing the open half of Q3: at the settled instant the tie-break costs **at most 1 px at Δ1**, on the **Japanese title only** (`ptlogo2`×`ptlogo_tm`, 5 px shared ink); **exactly 0 px on all five port screens**. The earlier 24-pair bound was a `rest()` count — and 10 of the title's 11 tied pairs are between `ptlogo_back2eff1`…`eff5`, five transient flashes that are **transparent** on the settled screen ([`ui-settle-time.md`](structures/ui-settle-time.md)). Live pairs at settle: entry 4 → **1**, entry 7 → **2**, the four loading bundles → **0**. ✅ Not a knife-edge — sweeping every keyframe time and midpoint, the count is **flat across the whole settle window**, and the loading bundles' tie is live only at t17–t33. ✅ Controls: an overlapping *different*-key swap moves 25 310 / 268 698 / ~765 000 px on the entries reporting zero; zeros are explained by shared-ink counts (the `ptframe` pairs share **0 px** of ink). ⚠️ Entries 0/1/12/15 have **no live control** — their zeros rest on keyframe data, not a render. 🟡 Refutation attempt on the corpus's "24 pairs": **survives** as a rest-pose bound, 16/16 on entry 7. ❔ *Why* ties order as they do is still unknown — and now worth one pixel |
 | [`structures/ui-record-loop-length.md`](structures/ui-record-loop-length.md) | Where a looping record's cycle restarts — and the `PRESS Ⓐ` plate's real period | ✅ **decoded**: a nested record is itself a RATC bundle and its header **`+0x08` is the loop length**; its keyframes need not fill it, and the slack is a hold at the final pose. Disc-wide over **1 781** timed nested records: 92.3 % declare exactly their last keyframe time, **7.7 % declare more**, and **0 declare less** — the falsifier (a cycle cannot restart before its own last pose) never fires. 🔴 **The plate's `ptbtn00f` is 105 units of ramp inside a 120-unit cycle, so it holds dark for 15 units** — the port was shipping **105**, and the answer is **120**. ✅ Falsification test against the running game, using a pacing factor measured *independently* on the focus ring (declared 120 → **2.177 s**, factor **1.0885**): to reach the corpus's measured 2.12–2.34 s, 105 units needs a factor of **1.211–1.337** (🔴 excludes the ring's) while 120 needs **1.060–1.170** (✅ contains it). Different elements, different bundles, separate runs — tied only by both declaring 120. ⚠️ Says where a cycle *ends*, not which records cycle. ❔ the **top-level** `+0x08` (300 on every `GP_TITLE` entry, elements ending at 244–269) is a different question, untouched |
 | [`structures/ui-focus-record-pulse-census.md`](structures/ui-focus-record-pulse-census.md) | Every focus record whose glow pulses, and where `rest()` puts it | ✅ **decoded**, disc-wide: **1 130** focus records, **2 664** timed elements, **210 with a varying alpha** — of which **202** have `rest()` == the **peak** (burns bright forever) and **8** land **mid-ramp**. By pak: `PILOTLOG` 116, `MOVIE_THEATER` 54, `HANGAR_ARSENAL` 30, `LEADERBOARD` 8, **`GP_TITLE` 2**. 🟡 Bounds rather than refutes the port's "34 in the export, 2 varying, nothing to fix" — correct, and correct *because* `GP_TITLE` has 2; the pathology sits in the screens a wider port needs next. 🔴 The 8 mid-ramp ones are the worse mode: `py_ranking_btn01f` swings 255→127→255 and `rest()` returns **244**, neither extreme, which looks entirely plausible and nothing reports it. ✅ Control: `ptbtn01f` is genuinely constant (255 throughout) and is **not** flagged; two hits verified keyframe by keyframe. ⚠️ A pulsing element has no resting pose — the question is malformed, not mis-answered; `pose_at(t)` inside the record's declared cycle ([`ui-record-loop-length.md`](structures/ui-record-loop-length.md)) is the only well-formed query. ⚠️ 210 is a **floor**: focus records are matched by the `Xf.rat` name rule, and varying scale/rotation/position is not counted |
-| [`structures/ui-title-buildin-measured.md`](structures/ui-title-buildin-measured.md) | The title's build-in and the plate glow, read out of the guest's own draw stream | ✅ **measured** (Canary, `ARM=early` draw capture): the decoded *mechanism* is observed, not just its end state. **The five flashes fire in a six-frame window and are absent from all 155 other sampled frames**; `ptlogo_back2eff1` is drawn in exactly 2 frames at **t = 54.0** against a decoded peak of **t54–56**, and `ptlogo1` first appears at **t = 42.2** against a decoded **t42** — with units/frame taken from the **glow's period alone**, a different element. The two holders (`ptlogo_back2eff`, `ptlogo_back2`) are continuous from frame 134. ✅ The glow's per-vertex colour alpha IS its fade alpha: **observed range 0…80 against a decoded peak of 80**, exact and unfitted; **period 51.158 presented frames** over 20 cycle starts; fitting the decoded ramp gives RMS **13.16** against **38.18 reversed** (2.9×), so the asymmetry is real and correctly directed. Structure: frame **107** is a **27-draw composite**, the settled title is 10–11 draws naming no sprite — which is why arming at the title sees nothing. 🔴 **Two claims here were WITHDRAWN the same day**: `eff3`'s absence is **unexplained**, not a sub-frame phase effect (frames 133/134 sit at t=60.0/62.2, inside its t(58,64) window, with `eff2` and `eff4` drawn alongside); and the advice that a port drawing all five "shows more sweep than the console" had no evidence behind it. ⚠️ What a frame-by-frame build-in comparison *will* show is disagreement about which flash lands in which frame — 2 units/submitted frame against this run's 2.231 units/presented frame — and neither side is wrong. 🔴 **Trap:** matching a bound texture's dimensions to a sprite fails both ways — it missed every flash *and* read the intro movie's 640×360 YUV planes as `ptbase2`. ✅ A regression of five events' observed frames against their declared times (residuals ≤0.9 frames) recovers the intercept at frame **106.1** when the composite spike, not in the fit, is frame **107**. ⚠️ Per-vertex alpha = fade alpha holds for the **glow** and does not generalise — `eff4` reads 255/127/254 on consecutive frames. ❔ Frame rate not recorded, so nothing is in seconds; the glow's period implies a **114**-unit cycle against a declared 120, unexplained; `eff5` vs `ptlogo_back2eff` not separated |
+| [`structures/ui-title-buildin-measured.md`](structures/ui-title-buildin-measured.md) | The title's build-in and the plate glow, read out of the guest's own draw stream | ✅ **measured** (Canary, `ARM=early` draw capture): the decoded *mechanism* is observed, not just its end state. **The five flashes fire in a six-frame window and are absent from all 155 other sampled frames**; `ptlogo_back2eff1` is drawn in exactly 2 frames at **t = 54.0** against a decoded peak of **t54–56**, and `ptlogo1` first appears at **t = 42.2** against a decoded **t42** — with units/frame taken from the **glow's period alone**, a different element. The two holders (`ptlogo_back2eff`, `ptlogo_back2`) are continuous from frame 134. ✅ The glow's per-vertex colour alpha IS its fade alpha: **observed range 0…80 against a decoded peak of 80**, exact and unfitted; **period 51.158 presented frames** over 20 cycle starts; fitting the decoded ramp gives RMS **13.16** against **38.18 reversed** (2.9×), so the asymmetry is real and correctly directed. Structure: the settled title is 10–11 draws naming no sprite — which is why arming at the title sees nothing. ⚠️ Frame **107** is a 27-draw spike between the movie's last frame and the title's first; calling it "the composite" was an **over-read** — it binds **no texture** and only 4 of its 27 draws log geometry. The second title entry has no such frame. ⚠️ The two entries are the same animation at **different sampling phases** (only 4 of 46 aligned frames match), which is what makes the `eff3` result robust. 🔴 **The game does not draw `ptlogo_back2eff3` at all** — reproduced over **two** title entries 5 800 frames apart, and three alternative explanations tested and failed: *phase* (its window is **6 units** against a **2.23-unit** step, so it cannot be missed — frames 133/134 sit at t=60.1/62.3 inside it and draw `eff2` and `eff4` instead), *an unlogged draw* (exactly 2 blind draws/frame, always the same full-screen-triangle shader, present when no wipe is active), and *a bad position guess* (dropping position entirely, **zero** quads anywhere have a width within ±30 of 408; the spectrum jumps 262 → 748). Draw counts across both entries: eff1 **4**, eff2 **3**, eff3 **0**, eff4 **6**. 🔴 **The port draws `eff3` at t=60–62 and the console does not.** ❔ Why is not established — nothing in its element record differs from its neighbours. ⚠️ An earlier "sub-frame phase" explanation and the advice that drawing all five "shows more sweep than the console" are both **withdrawn**. ⚠️ What a frame-by-frame build-in comparison *will* show is disagreement about which flash lands in which frame — 2 units/submitted frame against this run's 2.231 units/presented frame — and neither side is wrong. 🔴 **Trap:** matching a bound texture's dimensions to a sprite fails both ways — it missed every flash *and* read the intro movie's 640×360 YUV planes as `ptbase2`. ✅ A regression of five events' observed frames against their declared times (residuals ≤0.9 frames) recovers the intercept at frame **106.1** when the composite spike, not in the fit, is frame **107**. ⚠️ Per-vertex alpha = fade alpha holds for the **glow** and does not generalise — `eff4` reads 255/127/254 on consecutive frames. ❔ Frame rate not recorded, so nothing is in seconds; the glow's period implies a **114**-unit cycle against a declared 120, unexplained; `eff5` vs `ptlogo_back2eff` not separated |