# Handoff — what the menu port needs, and where it stands The single page the **port agent** reads. Everything here is produced by the container agent's reverse engineering; nothing here is a design decision about the port itself. Keep it current. It is a summary with links into `docs/re/`, not a second copy of the findings — but an answer that is not reachable from this page has not been delivered. ## How to read an answer Every row below is one of exactly three things, and the distinction is the point: | | meaning | what the port should do | |---|---|---| | **decoded** | a field on the disc, with a disc-wide check | read it from the data | | **measured** | not on the disc in any form we found, but the running game does *this* | hardcode it, and cite this page | | **undecodable** | we looked in these places, it is not there, here is the reach of the negative | author it by hand, knowingly | There is no fourth kind. If a row says *measured* or *undecodable*, the port is **authoring** that value, not transcribing it — and it should be kept somewhere a human can see it is a human decision, so that when it is later decoded the authored version can be deleted. ## Status | | Question | State | Answer / link | |---|---|---|---| | Q1 | keyframe time unit + ramp shape | ✅ answered | ramp is **linear**; **2 units per rendered frame**; **`1 unit = 1/60 s` — settled**, the idle title presents at 28.5 fps so the game is 30 Hz — [`ui-keyframe-time-unit.md`](../re/ui-keyframe-time-unit.md) | | Q2 | which build is which screen state | ✅ answered | `GP_TITLE` is **8 screens shipped twice, EN/JP**: 4/7 title art, 2/3 the `PRESS Ⓐ` plate, 5/8 main menu, 6/9 `EXTRAS`, 0/1 and 10/11 two unidentified `DELTASABER` plates — [`ui-title-build-map.md`](../re/ui-title-build-map.md) | | Q3 | paint order for the six screens | ✅ answered | **decoded**: a `u16` layer key at `+0x0A` of each `T8aD` sprite header, stable-sorted with declaration index; unkeyed elements get an implied key. Confirmed on 5 measured orders + `EXTRAS` vs a capture. One residual: the **tie-break** is unknown and bites on one element of the title — [`structures/ui-paint-order-key.md`](../re/structures/ui-paint-order-key.md) | | Q4 | button → GamePart | ✅ answered | **measured** which screen all **5** buttons open — `NEW GAME` → `DIFFICULTY` → `SELECT DATA`, not a hang. The **GamePart id is still a name match**, not a measurement — [`menu-navigation-semantics.md`](../re/menu-navigation-semantics.md) | | Q5 | navigation semantics | ✅ answered | **measured**: initial focus varies boot to boot (2× `TUTORIAL`, 2× `NEW GAME`); ⬆⬇ one step, **wraps both ends**; ⬅➡ do nothing; Ⓑ returns to the parent **with focus restored**; Ⓑ on the main menu → title; Ⓑ on the title → nothing — [`menu-navigation-semantics.md`](../re/menu-navigation-semantics.md) | | Q6 | boot sequence + what drives it | ✅ answered | sequence **measured** end to end; the driver is **code, not data** — four search spaces closed, so the port **authors** the sequence — [`boot-config-and-gamepart-registry.md`](../re/boot-config-and-gamepart-registry.md) | | Q7 | transitions | ✅ answered | a **fade through black**, drawn by the screen's own last-painting `.prm` quad. Fade-in ramp is **decoded** from its keyframes; the ~0.4 s fade-out is **measured** (not in the file) — [`screen-transitions.md`](../re/screen-transitions.md) | | Q8 | menu audio bindings | ✅ answered | cue vocabulary + bank **decoded**; event binding is a **name match** (the authors' own event names); SE audio is **undecodable from the disc** — no XACT container exists anywhere — [`menu-audio-cues.md`](../re/menu-audio-cues.md) | | Q9 | video binding + playback rules | ✅ answered | **decoded** from the movie manifest: `ADVERTISE_MOVIE`→`ADV.wmv` (boot intro *and* attract are one asset), `MS00A`→`S00A.wmv` is the new-game intro, `STAFF_ROLL`→the credits reel. ✅ **one Ⓐ skips a movie** (title at 57 s vs a 193 s baseline) — [`movie-binding.md`](../re/movie-binding.md) | | Q10 | music-bank sub-wave roles (intro+loop?) | ✅ answered | **two stems of one performance, played together** — sample-synchronous, equal duration, 32/32 banks. **Concatenating is wrong.** Not a seamless loop either — [`structures/bgm-two-stems.md`](../re/structures/bgm-two-stems.md) | | S1 | Ready Room go/no-go | ✅ **no-go** | it is 2D and enumerates fine (60 builds), but `GP_READY_ROOM.pak` holds **briefing/tactical-map** content, not the six-button Ready Room menu — [`ready-room-probe.md`](../re/ready-room-probe.md) | ## Already settled — the port can rely on these today * **`GP_TITLE.pak` is eight screens, each shipped twice — English and Japanese.** Build 4 is the English title art and 7 its Japanese twin; **2/3 are the `PRESS Ⓐ BUTTON` plate, a build of their own** composited over the title and faded in a beat later; 5/8 are the five-button main menu; 6/9 are the `EXTRAS` submenu — the **only** submenu inside this archive. Builds 0/1 and 10/11 are a `DELTASABER / SYLPHEED A.I.` plate that was **never seen running**, in the boot path, any title-side screen, or the attract loop. ✅ measured against live captures for the four English screens the boot path shows; [`ui-title-build-map.md`](../re/ui-title-build-map.md). **Withdrawn:** the earlier "builds 6/8/9 are submenus" — 8 is the Japanese main menu. The other four main-menu buttons leave the archive, and where each one goes is **measured** — see the button-destination bullet below. * **Buttons are identifiable as data.** Element kind `0x3002` = button, `0x0` = decoration, `0x10` = primitive. ✅ decoded **for the title-side screens**. ⚠️ `0x3002` is one member of a `0x3000` family with sub-bits, and it is not the only button kind on the disc: `GP_READY_ROOM`'s 902 bundles contain **zero** `0x3002` and use `0x3000` / `0x3004` / `0x300c` / `0x3008` instead. Nothing in this milestone changes — every screen in scope is `GP_TITLE` — but do not ship `kind == 0x3002` as a general button test. (The kind is the 4th `u32` of the 60-byte declaration entry, at `+40`.) * **Menu order is geometric.** Buttons sorted top-to-bottom by resting Y. This is ✅ correct for a vertical menu and is **not** a decoded neighbour graph — the disc's real navigation structure is unknown, and `opt ` is *not* a focus link (measured and refuted, see [`ui-focus-and-effect-elements.md`](../re/structures/ui-focus-and-effect-elements.md)). * **Highlighted states pair by name** — `ptbtn01.rat` ↔ `ptbtn01f.rat`. 🟡 a naming convention that holds for all 54 real pairs, not a decoded field. * **The resting pose is the hold**, not the first, last or longest-dwell keyframe; a keyframe is the **start of a ramp**. [`ui-resting-pose.md`](../re/structures/ui-resting-pose.md). ✅ * **That ramp is linear, and it runs at 2 keyframe time units per rendered frame.** Measured frame-by-frame off the running game's own draw stream: a declared 15-unit fade lands on `round(255·k/15)` for all seven of its samples, with `k` stepping 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14 on seven consecutive submitted frames. **measured**, not decoded — the disc says `t=30`, it does not say what a `t` is. ✅ **The seconds conversion is settled: `1 unit = 1/60 s`, a 30 Hz title.** The re-test this page used to name has been run — 300 submitted frames timed on the **idle** title (nothing loading) came out at **28.8 and 28.3 fps**, the same rate as the 27.6 fps measured during the loading splash. The competing 60 Hz reading is excluded: it needs the emulator at 47 % of real time while idling on a screen that costs ~5 draws per frame. A second, independent line agrees — the transition quad is declared black for 12 units (0.20 s under this conversion) and a capture measured the pure-black plateau at 0.17–0.23 s ([`screen-transitions.md`](../re/screen-transitions.md)). ⚠️ Still **measured, not decoded**: no field on the disc says "sixtieths of a second". * **The paint order is derivable from the file.** Each `T8aD` sprite header carries a **`u16` layer key at `+0x0A`** (the upper half of the 32-bit word at `+0x08` is zero in all 21 184 sprites on the disc). Paint order is that key, **stable-sorted** so equal keys keep declaration order; elements with no sprite (`.prm` primitives, `.tbm`) have no key and take an implied one — the backdrop and dim quads sort early, the screen-transition fade (`pteff00.prm`, `pfeff00.prm`) sorts **last**. ✅ decoded. Checked against five paint orders read off the running game, one of them (`GP_SAVE_LOAD`'s slot-list header, 6 instances) **exact and independent of the screens the rule was fitted to**, and against a fresh `EXTRAS` capture. It reorders 341 of the disc's 965 builds, so it is not a no-op dressed as a rule. 🟡 **The one residual: ties.** Where two elements share a key the game sometimes paints them in an order nothing predicts — eight candidates refuted, including declaration order, RATC child order, keyframe times, resting X/Y and `kind`. Measured cost: on the three screens with ground truth it changes the blend of **one element on one screen** (a title glow). Take the stable sort and accept that. * **Menu movement, measured off the running game.** ⬆⬇ move one item per press and **wrap at both ends** (5-item main menu and 3-item `EXTRAS` both). ⬅➡ do nothing. Ⓑ goes up one level **and restores focus to the item you came from**; Ⓑ on the main menu returns to the title; Ⓑ on the title does nothing. **Initial focus is not stable**: four boots of the same script gave `TUTORIAL`, `TUTORIAL`, `NEW GAME`, `NEW GAME`. Do not hardcode it; pick one and say you picked it. All **measured**, none of it on the disc. * **Each button's destination is measured; its GamePart id is not.** **`NEW GAME` → `DIFFICULTY`** (`EASY`/`NORMAL`/`HARD`/`BACK`, opening on `NORMAL`) **→ `SELECT DATA`** — it does *not* hang; the run then hits the already-documented `sub_823070B0` cache crash, which is not a menu problem. `LOAD GAME` → the save-slot list, `TUTORIAL` → the lesson list, `OPTIONS` → the settings menu, `EXTRAS` → `GP_TITLE` build 6, `EXTRAS ▸ MISSION SELECT` → the stage list. The GamePart ids (`3`, `25`, `8`, `5`, `7`) are the entries of the decoded id table whose **names match the screens seen**; that binding is authored, not measured. * **A screen change is a fade through black.** Each screen carries a full-screen black `.prm` quad that paints last (`pteff00.prm` / `pfeff00.prm`) whose keyframe group *is* the transition: black at `T0`, clear by `T1`, clear until `T2`, then back to black on exit. ✅ decoded, with a disc-wide check — and in `GP_TITLE` exactly the six **screen** builds carry it while the six overlays do not. The fade-in length is `T1 − T0` and is read from the file (0.87 s for `EXTRAS`, 0.97 s main menu, 4.08 s title). ❔ **The fade-OUT length is not on the disc** — the last keyframe has no time slot; **measured ~0.4 s**, twice. The black hold measures 0.17–0.23 s. ⚠️ Do not time the fade-in off a capture's brightness: the incoming screen's own element animations dominate it and run much longer than the quad. * **The movie manifest names every boot-side video by role.** `dat/tables.pak` entry `0x5b983a08`: `LOGO1`–`LOGO4` → `logo1.wmv`–`logo4.wmv` (**not on the disc** — this is why the splash is a screen), **`ADVERTISE_MOVIE` → `ADV.wmv`**, `STAFF_ROLL` → `SYLPH_HD720p_8M-CBR_2ch.wmv`, **`MS00A` → `S00A.wmv`** (the new-game intro, 93.9 s, with subtitle + `VOICE_S00A` + a text overlay), `MS01A` → `S01A.wmv`. ✅ decoded — and **`S00A.wmv` is now also measured**: matched off the running game at 0.96–1.000 with a strictly monotone playhead over 25 consecutive 0.5 s samples. It starts ~4.5 s after Ⓐ on the save slot. **The boot intro and the attract movie are the SAME asset** — there is no separate boot slot, and 15 of 19 captured attract frames match `ADV.wmv` with a monotonically advancing playhead ending at its full 137 s. One video, not two. ✅ The attract movie **plays to its end**; nothing cuts it short. ✅ **A movie is skippable with a single Ⓐ.** Measured: one tap ~45 s into the boot brought the title at ~57 s against a ~193 s no-input baseline over three boots, with Canary's own keystroke counter proving exactly one press was delivered — and the skipped-to title is **fully functional** (`PRESS Ⓐ` plate present, Ⓐ opens the main menu). What breaks the boot is *hammering*: 88 presses left a permanent black screen. One press is fine. * **The menu's sound events are named on the disc.** `tables.pak`'s `SOUNDS` record carries 322 `SE_*` cues, and the low block is the UI vocabulary — named after the *event*: `SE_UI_CURSOR` (2), `SE_UI_DECIDE` (3), `SE_UI_CANSEL` (4), `SE_UI_IMPOSI` (5, the error), `SE_UI_SUB_WIN_OPN`/`_CLS` (8/9), `SE_UI_SPLASH_IN`/`_OUT` (12/13). ✅ decoded, full list in [`data/se-ui-cues.txt`](../re/data/se-ui-cues.txt). They all live in **one** bank — `BANK_SE` is a single field naming `Static.slb`, and 0 of the 322 has its own `FILES` entry. 🟡 **Which event fires which cue is a name match**, not a measurement — strong, because these are the authors' own event names, but nobody has watched the game emit cue 2 on a d-pad press. The port is authoring it. ✅ **The SE audio IS extractable — by playing it.** (This corrects an earlier "cannot be extracted" on this page.) The disc carries no index: `Static.slb` has **0 `RIFF`/`seek`/`WAVE`** and there is **no XACT container anywhere** (0 × `XGSF`/`SDBK`/`WBND` in 1.08 GB of `sound.pak`; no `XACT` string in the executable — those extensions are the authoring tool's). But Canary's `--xma_param_probe=true` logs every stream's head bytes, and searching them in `Static.slb` locates the wave exactly: **d-pad move → `0x1ec0` (4 pkts / 8 192 B, 0.533 s); Ⓐ confirm → `0x5d6c0` (6 pkts / 12 288 B, 1.016 s); Ⓑ back → `0x0ec0` (2 pkts / 4 096 B, 0.344 s)** — every cue the five screens need. Move and back reproduce with identical head bytes across **two independent boots**. Each matched at one offset only, and the first two are contiguous (`0x0ec0 + 4096 = 0x1ec0`) — the bank is a packed run of whole 2 048-byte packets with no delimiters, which is why nothing could be scanned for. ❔ **⬅ and ➡ play nothing distinct** — no new stream on either, so leave them silent (the probe dedups, so this excludes a *distinct* invalid cue, not a quiet replay of an already-heard one). 🟡 The Ⓐ press both confirms and opens a screen, so whether its wave is the cue named `SE_UI_DECIDE` or `SE_UI_SUB_WIN_OPN` is not separated. ⚠️ The order is **not** cue-id order, so the index must be observed per cue, not counted. ✅ **The slices decode**: 0.533 s, 0.344 s and 1.016 s of mono 48 kHz audio with the attack-and-decay shape of UI blips, via `tools/re-capture/slb_extract_wave.py` — whose wrapper reproduces a known-good `BGM_001` decode to the same 173.808875 s, so it is verified, not assumed. * **The boot sequence is not data-driven — the port authors it.** ❔ Four places were checked and the order is in none: `config.ini`'s `[SYSTEM]` is empty, the movie manifest carries assets not transitions, the requested GamePart id lives **only as a stack argument in flight** (no persistent field, no literal store), and the string `GP_ADVERTISE_DEMO` has **zero xrefs**. A transition is a call with an id argument, chosen by code. 🟡 **But the states have names, and the transition uses them.** `sub_821C6458`, the title part's state function, calls **`sub_821CC860(…, "", 0)`** with `TITLE_SCREEN`, `TITLE_MENU` and `LOADING` — the three states measured off the game, in the game's own words — and installs the result. So a transition is a call with a **name** argument, which is also why `GP_ADVERTISE_DEMO` has no xrefs: at this level the screen graph is name-keyed, not id-keyed. ✅ The argument is now **decoded** at 46 of that function's 48 call sites (28 distinct names). ⚠️ It is a **generic name-keyed lookup**, not a screen factory — its arguments include `BG`, `BLACK`, `FADE`, `FILE`, `KEY`, `PAD`, `SOUND`, `GAMMA_RGB`. An earlier version of this page claimed `DIFFICULTY` and `EXTRA_MENU` as corroborated screen names; **neither is ever the argument**, and only `TUTORIAL_MENU` survives. ✅ **And the state machine itself is decoded**: `state = this+136`, ten states dispatched through a jump table at `0x821C6498`, with **18 transitions** each a literal `li`/`stw`. States **0, 2, 8** install `TITLE_SCREEN`, `TITLE_MENU`, `LOADING`. `4 → 0` is the only edge back to the title, reached from `2 → 4` — which matches Ⓑ-returns-to-title as measured. Full graph in [`data/title-state-machine.txt`](../re/data/title-state-machine.txt). ⚠️ **All of that is ONE PHASE.** `GamePart_Title` dispatches on an outer phase field at `this+132` (five values) before reaching any of it: phase 0 is the **developer splash** (`sub_821C5690`, the same function the corpus fingered independently), phase 4 is the title/menu machine. The ten states and eighteen edges above live inside phase 4 alone. ✅ **State 4's edge conditions are an event code** — `sub_821C6458`'s third argument. State 4 is the input-waiting state (reached straight after the menu is installed) and handles 6 of 26 events: **`0` → title**, **`3`, `5`, `8`, `25` → `LOADING`**, `10` → state 5. 🟡 What the event *numbers* mean is not decoded — button id, menu row, or message id — so the port still takes the button→destination map from measurement. The one-to-title / four-to-loading shape matches the five-item menu with Ⓑ, but that is a **count-match, not a mapping**. The sequence itself is fully measured: splash → `ADV.wmv` → title + `PRESS Ⓐ` → (idle ~8–10 s → `ADV.wmv` in full → title) → Ⓐ → main menu, with Ⓑ from the main menu returning to the title. * **`config.ini` picks the language, and that is what picks the EN/JP build.** The disc's **only** config file (400 bytes, at the root; one `find` over the whole extract). Its `[LANGUAGE]` section maps the console's `XC_LANGUAGE_*` value to `eng`/`jpn`/`deu`/`fra`/`esp`/`ita`, defaulting to `eng` — that code selects `GP_TITLE`'s English or Japanese build and the `.pak` families. ✅ decoded. ❔ Its `[SYSTEM]` section — which the file's own comment says holds what the game and every game part share — is **empty**, so the boot *order* is not in disc-side configuration at all. * **Five GameParts are named but never registered.** Pulling every `RegisterToFactory` diagnostic string binds **24 of the 29 ids to a C++ class** ([`data/gamepart-class-ids.txt`](../re/data/gamepart-class-ids.txt)). Ids `1`, `2`, `16`, `18`, `28` have no registration site — including **`GP_ADVERTISE_DEMO` (1)**, which agrees with the measurement that the attract loop is the *title* replaying `ADV.wmv` rather than a separate part. 🟡 an argument from a diagnostic string, not from the code. Also: **`3` and `4` are both `GamePart_SaveLoad`** — one part, two ids. * **The GamePart id table** — 29 entries at `.rdata 0x820A1630`, confirmed by the executable's own registration strings. ✅ This is the screen vocabulary; which button reaches which entry is Q4 and is *not* part of it. * **The logo splash is a screen, not a video.** `logo1`–`logo4` are manifest-bound with no `.wmv` on the disc. ✅ * **Sprites carry their own labels.** No font rendering or localisation is needed for this milestone. ✅ — and the localisation is *already baked in*: the Japanese screens are separate builds in the same pak, not a text swap. ## Facts the port will trip over * **`ADV.wmv` is WMV3 video + WMA Pro audio**, 1280×720 at 30 fps, 137 s. Godot 4 plays only Ogg Theora natively. How to handle that is the port's decision, not ours — but it is not optional. * **The disc holds 3.3 GB of video, and exactly two files are in scope:** `dat/movie/ADV.wmv` (the boot intro *and* the attract loop — one asset) and `dat/movie/S00A.wmv` (the new-game intro, 93.9 s). Named from the movie manifest, ✅ decoded. * **`Static.slb` over-declares its size** by 616 768 bytes — it is the highest-offset entry in `sound.pak` and its size field is an allocation size. A reader must allow a short read there and only there. * **Voice downmixes to mono, music does not.** The left-channel downmix is correct for spoken lines and discards half a music mix. * **A music bank is TWO STEMS THAT PLAY TOGETHER — do not concatenate.** ✅ The "10 KB + 4.47 MB + 4.67 MB" reading was wrong: the 10 KB is the bank header, and a bank is exactly **two waves of identical duration** (32/32 banks on the disc). `BGM_001`'s two are **sample-synchronous** — transient correlation peaks at lag 0.00 s over ±5 s, and both stop at the same millisecond, 167.663 s. Wave 1 is quieter, far more L/R-decorrelated and has almost no bass, so it reads as a surround-rear pair or a second intensity layer — 🟡 which of those is unsettled, and `ChannelMask` is `0x0002` on both, so the file will not say. Today's 347 s concatenation plays the piece twice, the second time as a bass-less stem. ❔ **And it is not a seamless loop**: `BGM_001` fades out at 167.663 s and is followed by 6.15 s of silence, with no loop-point field identified. A menu loop is authored. ✅ **The menu's music is `BGM_103`.** The cue *table* cannot say — its BGM entries are numeric — but `GamePart_Title`'s `sub_821C5580` plays **cue 1103**, and `BGM_103.slb`'s two declared waves (3 876 864 / 3 930 112 B) are byte-for-byte the two streams the XMA probe saw decoding at the main menu. Static code, disc census and runtime all agree. The port does **not** have to choose a track. * **`JNGL_001.slb` does not decode.** One bank in 9 519; its payload is not a whole number of XMA1 packets from any known data offset. ## What is still open Every question above is answered, so this is the honest residue rather than a work queue. **None of it blocks the five screens.** (Q1's seconds conversion was here until 2026-08-28 and is now settled.) | | what | why it is stuck | |---|---|---| | 🟡 | **cue NAME → event binding** (Q8) | event→**wave** is measured for move/confirm/back; that the cursor's wave is the cue *named* `SE_UI_CURSOR` is still read off the authors' identifiers | | ❔ | **the other ~319 SE cues** (Q8) | located one at a time by triggering them; only the three the menu needs have been done | | 🟡 | **the paint-order tie-break** (Q3) | eight candidates refuted; costs one element's blend on one screen | | 🟡 | **GamePart ids behind the buttons** (Q4) | the *screens* are measured; the ids are a name match onto the executable's class names | | 🟡 | **the boot transitions in code** (Q6) | `GamePart_Title` has **two nested state fields** — a 5-way phase at `this+132` and a 10-way state at `this+136` inside phase 4. Phase 0 = splash (`LOGO`), phase 2 = title + `PRESS Ⓐ` plate, phase 4 = the menu machine. Unknown: what the event *numbers* mean, and phase 1/3 | | ❔ | **builds 0/1 and 10/11**, the `DELTASABER` plates (Q2) | never seen anywhere in the boot path, the title-side screens or the attract loop. A mission load is the remaining candidate and this container kills runs before one completes | (An earlier version of this table called the audio items blocked on "an emulator whose audio path can be observed". That was wrong — this build already has `--xma_param_probe`, and using it settled both.) ⚠️ **A container caveat that bounds all of the above:** the emulator has twice been killed mid-run with no crash line in its own log (at ~50 s and ~145 s), on a box sitting at ~1 GB free with swap exhausted. Dynamic experiments here have to fit in roughly two minutes of guest time, which is why several of these residuals are unfinished rather than unattempted. ## Reference data Committed alongside the findings, so the port can be built without a disc in the loop during development: * `sylpheed-cli screen info --build GP_TITLE.pak` — the element table, per build, with pivots, kinds, focus links, keyframes and resting poses. * `sylpheed-cli screen render` — the reference composite. When the port draws a screen, this is what it should be diffed against; where they disagree, one of them is wrong and the disagreement is worth reporting back. * `docs/re/captures/` — framebuffer captures of the real screens, for anything that has to be checked against the game rather than against our renderer.