* fix: a read-only file on a USB drive no longer fails to close the first time it is read
On the RedMagic Astra 2, Android's NTFS USB drive returns EIO from close() for a file opened read-only when that first read updates its access time; the update itself succeeds and the descriptor is released. The x86 loader under FEX treats a failed close as fatal, so every Linux game newly installed or updated on such a drive failed to start once (libfreetype.so.6: cannot close file descriptor: Input/output error). The session library's close() now reports success for EIO on read-only descriptors; errors on descriptors opened for writing are still returned.
* Check the read-write close still reports EIO
* fix(audio): DirectAudio no longer crackles where Android refuses low-latency output
On devices where Android won't give the game a low-latency output (AYN Thor,
Android 13), DirectAudio kept Wine's 10 ms period and 12 ms buffer. An
emulated game audio thread can't keep that pace there, so audio crackled.
The session now checks for low-latency output and, only when it is refused,
asks DirectAudio for a 20 ms period and a 60 ms buffer.
DirectAudio's settings are now AUDIO_DIRECT_* everywhere in DroidDeck and are
handed to the driver under the names it reads when DirectAudio is set up.
AUDIO_DIRECT_MS and AUDIO_DIRECT_PERIOD_MS can be set per game.
* fix(audio): game profile DirectAudio settings and the microphone-off setting reach the driver
* fix(desktop): video wallpapers no longer race ahead after DroidDeck returns from the background
* test: give the vrclient loader harness the clock syscall hook
* fix: a session in picture-in-picture draws at 30 fps instead of the full refresh
Since auto picture-in-picture became the default (#1727), pressing Home leaves the session running in a small window that takes no input. A game kept drawing at its full rate there: on a REDMAGIC Astra 2 Among Us in picture-in-picture drew 3.31 W, the same as playing it and about 1.05 W more than a suspended session. While in picture-in-picture the compositor now paces the session at 30 fps (or a lower limit already set). Mirroring to glasses keeps the glasses rate, and the display mode request ignores the picture-in-picture limit so the app in front is not slowed.
* fix: keep the no-argument output limit the glasses pacing tests read
* fix: hold scene renders to the output limit and keep frame generation off in picture-in-picture
A frame limit only paced dmabuf buffer releases, so a shared-memory client was still drawn on every vsync with its frame callbacks sent at the panel's rate. The vsync tick now waits until the limit's interval, less half a refresh, has passed since the last scene. Frame generation is disarmed while picture-in-picture is shown and armed again when it ends; frame generation requests are applied in order.
* Give the commit render harness the frame limit hold
* Hold scene renders to a frame limit deadline, also on the fallback timer, and keep frame generation for glasses mirroring in picture in picture
* fix(xbox): keep the game in its own folder on the short drive instead of at the drive root
* fix(xbox): SD card Xbox games can read their own package files
Xodus mounts a store library on the selected SD card at /mnt/droiddeck-stores/<card> and links the launch view to it, but game sessions only bound that library as /mnt/droiddeck-sd. The links were dangling inside the game, so MicrosoftGame.Config, appxmanifest.xml and XCurl.dll could not be read and GDK games stopped with "Failed to initialize GDK". Game sessions now bind the same store roots Xodus uses.
* fix(xbox): give the SD Steam library its own store path when another store root shares the card
externalRootsForXodus added the selected Steam library's Games folder with the card's guest path even when another store root on the same card already used it, so both bound to one destination. It now takes a path-derived suffix in that case, the same way externalRoots separates its own roots.
* perf(epic): keep the hidden launcher from loading its store and Fab pages, and compress it while games run
The hidden Epic Games Launcher that stays up for sign-in while a game runs pre-warmed its store and Fab pages on a display nobody sees. Under FEX each page used about one core and grew past a gigabyte, crashing and reloading in a loop. The hidden instance now skips the store pre-warm, gets a blank page in place of Fab, and is paged out to zRAM with the Steam client once a game has focus. The visible launcher is unchanged.
* test(zram): keep the scan fixture PIDs above the kernel PID range
* Use the second screen on dual-screen handhelds
Detect built-in second screens such as the Retroid Pocket Duo and AYN Thor.
The sections move to a menu on the bottom screen, L2 and R2 switch sections,
and text fields type on the bottom screen so the top keeps the full view.
Sessions open the bottom-screen trackpad and keyboard when they start.
Setup gains a Dual screen choice (Automatic, On, Off) with toggles for the
bottom menu and the in-game controls. Closing the bottom menu no longer ends
a running session.
* Type into Steam from the bottom screen
While the bottom-screen trackpad and keyboard controls are open in a Steam
session, Steam's own on-screen keyboard no longer covers the top screen.
The agent keeps Steam's text target and asks the app instead, which opens
the Android keyboard on the bottom screen and hands focus back to the game
when it closes. Modal and VR keyboards, and sessions without the bottom
controls, keep Steam's keyboard. The Show keyboard button now follows the
keyboard when it is closed another way.
* Open the bottom controls after the first frame and tidy dual-screen translations
* Move the in-game menu to the bottom screen on dual-screen handhelds
Fix controller input and focus on the second screen: keys and sticks reach the game after touching the bottom controls, closing the bottom controls returns focus to the game, B closes bottom typing, and the typing panel keeps a focusable window until focus has left it.
* Let B close the open layer of the session menu first and focus the selected bottom-screen mode
* Let the Retroid Pocket Duo Home double press open its quick menu during sessions
* Open the keyboard on the bottom screen for Steam text fields and hide it on Enter or when the field loses focus
* Keep controller focus on the top screen when a section is picked on the bottom screen
* Keep LB and RB on the store tabs and let Back return from a store to its tab
* Show the Adreno 722 as supported on the Retroid Pocket Duo
* Label the Steam integration suggestion's close button Close and cover that closing it is permanent
* Close the docked menu with its presentation, keep a focus picked during the stop delay, and ignore panel picks on process-settings pages
* perf(fex): answer raw stat, readlink and statx syscalls through the proot fast path
FEX issues newfstatat, readlinkat and statx as raw syscall() calls, which skipped the libc wrappers the fast path hooks and fell through to ptrace. Route them through libblfastpath the same way raw openat already is, and keep the fast path's own /proc/self/exe lookup off the hooked syscall().
* test(fex): keep the raw lookup test passing on kernels without statx
The session HUD is FusionHUD (Bannerlator's HUD) with every reading taken from
the same source, and worked out the same way, as the MangoHud build that runs
Steam's performance overlay in a DroidDeck session.
- gamescope patch 0125 (gamescope-3.16.29-p19) shares the frame times that
mangoapp reads (one per signalled commit of connector 0) in a ring named by
DROIDDECK_HUD_FRAMES; the app reads it once per display frame and counts the
compositor's frames when gamescope sends none.
- MangoHud's rules: FPS over periods of at least 500 ms, frame time = 1000/FPS,
200-frame graph on a fixed 0-50 ms scale; CPU, GPU, temperatures, RAM, swap,
VRAM and battery from MangoHud's sources. Zones 22/26/28 are typed as GPU and
DDR sensors, so Steam's overlay CPU temperature no longer includes them.
- Five sizes in a panel shaped like the DroidDeck mark, with a centred header,
one left edge, neon outline and FPS; Minimal is the default size. Settings on
a new "Performance HUD" drawer page, with Bannerlator's options.
- The HUD reads sensors and polls frames only while it is drawn (not while
hidden, in picture-in-picture or behind another app), keeps its place after
picture-in-picture, and the diagnostics export has its own reader.
Device-tested on the AYANEO Pocket FIT: same readings as Steam's overlay side
by side in Dead Cells; the HUD updates in a game, hides in picture-in-picture
and comes back in place, no crashes.
* fix: stop stale Android readbacks snapping Steam's brightness slider back during a held stick
* fix: let deploy_fast sign with the release env on macOS and Linux
* fix: honor DROIDDECK_SIGNING_ENV first and cover the env signer in tests
* fix: honor DROIDDECK_SIGNING_ENV first and cover the env signer in tests
* fix: retry held brightness readbacks, use a monotonic hold clock and resolve the signing env path
* fix: resolve the build-tools path before signing changes directory
* fix: pick the newest build-tools numerically and keep the env file from replacing them
* fix: only pick build-tools that have aapt, zipalign and apksigner
Libc-internal file operations bypass the existing preload wrappers and
still stop in PRoot. Patch recognized ARM64 SVC sites in libc and the
runtime loader, reuse the current translator for 20 path syscall
numbers, and return declined calls to PRoot. Enabled by default after
the tracer-key check; `PROOT_FP_PATCH_SVC=0` remains the troubleshooting
opt-out.
The hardened implementation patches 47 sites on Thor's glibc 2.43.
Relays preserve general/SIMD registers, flags, FP state and errno, and
provide unwind metadata back to the original libc frame. Text is patched
through `/proc/self/mem` after relay pages become executable.
Initialization skips multiple live threads and SVE/SME. Alternate signal
stacks and insufficient remaining stack use PRoot; main-stack growth
respects the current limit. No proroot code or binaries are imported.
Robust-list set/get sites deliberately remain with PRoot/the kernel.
Device tests reproduced stale state when the earlier private-TLS
implementation mixed patched and raw callers. Removing that shortcut
fixes coherence and preserves the host's actual return policy; the
earlier thread-creation gain is retired. SDK forwarding still enables
faccessat2 ENOSYS fallback and clone3 ENOSYS only before Android 15.
Successful clone3 is never executed from the C relay. Existing fsync
handling is unchanged. No in-process RET_TRAP filter is added, so
SIGSYS-mask/handler machinery is not applicable.
Version-2 build-ID/API tables cache relative patch sites in `/tmp`.
Every hit revalidates executable bounds, alignment, instructions and
syscall numbers. Invalid/unsafe files rescan; publication uses a private
temporary file and atomic rename. The PRoot dependency fetch also gains
a mirror matching the existing pinned checksum, resolving upstream
availability failures without changing versions.
Five alternating pairs using the final bundled library on Thor/Android
13:
| operation | wrappers only | hardened relays |
|---|---:|---:|
| libc-internal stat | 49.6 us | 6.0 us |
| libc-internal open/close | 50.4 us | 7.8 us |
| libc faccessat | 49.7 us | 22.0 us |
| libc getcwd | 54.9 us | 5.0 us |
| thread create/join | 136 us | 144 us |
| complete tiny exec/wait | 4.44 ms | 5.60 ms |
An earlier five-pair hardened-library run measured stat 50.1 to 5.9 us
and open/close 51.9 to 7.1 us. The metadata gains survive the safety
checks. Neither run shows a thread-creation gain, and tiny execs retain
roughly 0.9-1.2 ms overhead.
Three full Steam startup pairs yielded Home-ready medians of 47.02 s off
/ 45.25 s on, with overlapping 43-50 s ranges. Steam/CEF-only PSS
medians were 1,223.1 / 1,233.9 MiB; the roughly 11 MiB difference is
smaller than observed variation, but does not establish zero memory
cost. Startup/memory used one unchanged signed bundled-library APK
without overrides; the final stack-gap guard only increases distance
reserved above other mappings. No reliable whole-client startup
improvement is claimed.
Earlier fresh Half-Life SD installs took 350/341 s off and 326/327 s on.
These are historical results from the preceding robust-list revision,
not a post-hardening download retest. Network/shader scheduling varied,
allocation did not reliably improve, and the repeat baseline committed
faster. This PR demonstrates metadata acceleration; it does not
demonstrate a reliable fix for Steam's SD allocation/commit bottleneck.
Validation on `2c3c135b` (production code unchanged since `4998b046`):
- Local release build, runtime/native-library checks, release signing
and four focused Android tests pass. [Final-head
CI](https://github.com/Droid-Deck/DroidDeck/actions/runs/40704837477)
passed: 1,431 Python/native tests (49 skips), 2,648 Android tests (zero
failures/skips), and 162 Rust tests. CodeRabbit is green on the same
head. The installed production APK forwards API 33 and patches 47 sites
with an unset enable flag and no override; Steam Home renders.
- Embedded and shared-PIC matrices pass on glibc 2.43; shared-PIC also
passes on separately loaded glibc 2.39. Coverage includes raw
results/errno/registers/FP state, path/flag/error and protected-pointer
cases, exact readlink boundaries, mixed raw/relay robust state,
concurrent threads, fork, thread churn, alternate-stack signals,
deferred/FIFO cancellation, signal siglongjmp recovery, forced unwind
with caller cleanup, and limited remaining stack.
- Four device test-process filters deny the memory patch file, relay
mapping, executable permission, or patch writes. Every case leaves
original syscall execution working. Host injection also verifies partial
installation after an individual site fails.
- Concurrent atomic symlink replacement passes 3,000 internal
stat/readlink iterations at default/zero TTL. Eight focused host tests
pass, covering instruction/branch limits, stack/limit fallback,
untrusted cache files and NDEBUG checks. API selection gives 45/47/46
sites for unknown/33/simulated-35; unset and explicit 1 agree, and 0
leaves sites untouched. This does not replace Android 15 hardware
testing.
- All bench tools compile with -DNDEBUG. Relative/absolute fixture
workloads agree, and thread/ABI/failure checks pass on Thor with those
builds.
- Earlier internal fts/realpath/NSS/dlopen and normalized read-path
equivalence pass. The write suite retains the existing wrapper SD
Unix-socket mismatch against PRoot.
CodeRabbit disposition: fixed relative fixture paths, prevented
benchmark checks disappearing under NDEBUG, corrected the
limited-fallback description, and narrowed memory-file denial so the
thread check still succeeds. The default-off recommendation was
addressed by fixing/testing the underlying guard and unwind issue while
retaining the requested default-on behavior. The readlink count
suggestion is intentionally not adopted: device boundary comparisons
reproduce current PRoot behavior, so changing that inherited policy
belongs in a separate correctness change.
This is not consequence-free instruction patching: constructor time,
private text copies and stack checks have costs. Android 15+ ARM64 and
16 KiB-page hardware, arbitrary asynchronous cancellation/non-local
exits, user-managed stacks, and attributable tracer-counter measurements
remain gaps. Loader calls before the constructor and arbitrary guest ELF
syscall sites remain outside scope.
Thor was restored to its original APK and bundled library, with app data
preserved and test settings, overrides, temporary files and version-2
test caches cleared.
Detailed evidence and revision boundaries: [proroot
analysis](https://github.com/Droid-Deck/DroidDeck/blob/2c3c135b52c3dd949ef5a99a67d8c12eba24406c/docs/development/proroot-analysis.md).
With no frame limit, AIO's Direct3D 7 (DirectDraw) test ran at exactly
144 fps on a 144 Hz panel: every frame waited one refresh (6.94 ms).
Wine asks for a swap interval of 1 on every OpenGL window, and WineD3D's
front-buffer drawing used by DirectDraw and Direct3D 1-7 never lowers
it; it only sets the interval in its present path. Mesa's Zink then
presents in FIFO.
droiddeck-game-env sets vblank_mode=0 for games launched through Proton
before the game's environment edits, so a value set in the launch
options or the editor wins and an editor Remove leaves Mesa's default.
Steam's own runs in compatdata/0 are unchanged. Steam's Frame Limit
still holds a game: gamescope's WSI layer presents every swapchain in
FIFO while its limiter is on.
On the AYANEO Pocket FIT, AIO Direct3D 7 went from 144 to 2,345 and
2,265 fps (1 % low 99 -> 620) with no limit; with the Quick Access
limit at 144 and 72 it held at 143.76 and 71.92.
At every start, Steam's shader pre-caching runs d3ddriverquery64.exe
through each Proton tool (DroidDeck-Proton and the ARM64 Proton) in
compatdata/0. Here the query has never succeeded (948 of 948 runs in
the client's shader log failed, mostly exit code 1), and each run
started Wine in that prefix, where the two Protons upgraded it back and
forth (11.0-100 <-> GE-Proton11-11) with the 32-bit wine.inf install.
When that overlapped a game's start, AIO ran 25-30 % slower for its
first 5-7 seconds.
Both Proton wrappers now exit 1 for Steam's own query, "run
.../d3ddriverquery64.exe" (or the 32-bit name) with STEAM_COMPAT_DATA_PATH
in compatdata/0, before doing anything else, so Steam gets the same
failure without Wine. Every other verb and prefix goes on to Proton.
A new game frame waited for the next screen tick before the compositor
drew it: 1.9-3.5 ms on average at 144 Hz, measured with the pacing
counters. With frames going straight back to the game (no compositor
limit), the compositor now draws as soon as the clients' requests are
handled, at most once per refresh, and presentation times stay on the
tick.
gamescope delivers about one frame per refresh, so the tick leaves a
frame younger than one refresh for the next arrival to draw, unless the
tick itself changed the window, effects or headset pose; a frame no
other frame follows is drawn at the tick after. Once a held frame is
still waiting at the next tick (a client paced by frame callbacks), the
tick draws every frame for a second before holding one again. The
queued draw checks again that drawing on arrival is still on.
Paced output (glasses), streaming and frame generation keep drawing on
the tick. The hidden pref renderOnCommit (default on) turns it off. The
pacing log line counts the scenes drawn on arrival. On the device new
frames wait 0.12 ms instead of ~2 ms.
Wine numbers the Windows CPUs like the host, so Windows CPU 0 was host
core 0, a small core on most Android chips. Games that pin their main
thread to CPU 0 ran it there: GTA IV 32 fps on the AYANEO Pocket FIT,
61 fps once CPU 0 is the fastest core.
droiddeck-game-env hands Wine the game's cores fastest first, from each
core's cpu_capacity (or its top clock). Equal cores keep their order.
Cores picked globally or in a game profile stay the only cores the game
sees, now fastest first; a pick only counts when it narrows the cores.
Games on Proton's own default_cpu_limit list keep their count on the
fastest cores (quoted and unquoted counts); other values such as "P"
are left to Proton. A typed WINE_CPU_TOPOLOGY / PROTON_CPU_TOPOLOGY
still wins, an empty one turns it off for a game, and
DROIDDECK_FASTEST_CORES=0 turns it off. Steam's own Proton runs in
compatdata/0 are left as before.
Builds on maxjivi05's "Windows games see only the cores they are pinned
to" (9d85af75).
The Steam helper checked the Frame Limit only when the offered frame
rates changed. With the limit off during a refresh change, turning it
back on left a value the new rate does not offer, and a failed write was
not tried again. It now checks on every state change and every 5 s, and
waits for Steam's settings write so a rejected write is caught and tried
again on the next check.
gamescope 3.16.29-p16 (0120 changed): gamescope took a new host refresh
only from the presentation feedback of a frame it drew, so with nothing
moving on screen it kept the old rate. It now presents once when the
host's wl_output mode changes and keeps presenting while a new rate is
pending, so the 300 ms check runs on a still screen too.
Found by CodeRabbit in the reviews of #1650 and #1663.
Remove the Performance mode switch. The session always runs the way
Performance mode did: replaced buffers go back to the game at once
(except while mirroring to glasses), gamescope's WSI layer and winex11
reuse their per-present window checks, and games get eight swapchain
images while uncapped. Steam's Frame Limit in the Quick Access menu is
the only limit.
gamescope 3.16.29-p15 (p14 plus two patches):
- 0119: with the Frame Limit on, gamescope forces FIFO while the WSI
layer hands the driver MAILBOX, so a game with eight images could
queue up to seven frames ahead of the screen. While the limiter forces
FIFO the layer uses its default of 3 images; DXVK and VKD3D-Proton
recreate their swapchain when the limiter changes, other apps are asked
to with VK_SUBOPTIMAL_KHR.
- 0120: -r fixed gamescope's pacing and limiter rate for the whole
session. With GAMESCOPE_NESTED_REFRESH_FOLLOWS_HOST=1 a rate the host
has reported for 300 ms replaces it (a switch from 144 to 120 Hz passes
through 72 Hz for a few frames), and Steam gets the display information
again. The session sets it whenever it passes -r.
Steam keeps its Frame Limit as the client setting
gamescope_app_target_framerate and offers the values gamescope's display
state lists. After a refresh change, a limit the new rate does not offer
(72 at 120 Hz) left the slider on its first value while the game kept the
old limit. The Steam helper watches the offered values and, once they
settle, keeps the limit when it is still offered and moves it to the
highest value otherwise, through Steam's own setting so the slider shows
it. Steam's webpack does not expose its module cache, so the gamescope
service is found by the calls its module makes, and the helper retries
the install every 10 s until Steam is ready.
The session window asks for the fastest mode the peak refresh setting
allows and chose again only when the display changed, so after it had
asked for 60 Hz, raising Android's refresh setting left the display,
gamescope and the limit at 60. It now also chooses again when
peak_refresh_rate or min_refresh_rate changes.
A capture format or buffer change now closes the app's decoder so the
next packet reopens it with the new stride and height, and a capture
slot whose remap fails no longer keeps its old mapping.
Steam's arm64 streaming_client only decodes through a V4L2 stateful
decoder and libdrm dumb buffers, neither of which exist on Android, so
streams from a PC never showed a picture. The preload now offers it a
/dev/video-dec0 and a libdrm stand-in backed by dma-heap buffers, and
each frame is decoded by the app's MediaCodec (Qualcomm low-latency
mode) over the encoder socket, falling back to the FFmpeg in Steam's
runtime.
skate. under ReSkate crashed with an access violation in Skate.exe 12 to
60 seconds after it started at the default feature level 12_2; at 12_1
it loads San Vansterdam and plays. The rule matches Skate.exe with
ReSkate.dll beside it, so it covers ReSkate started from skate.'s own
Steam entry and as a non-Steam game, and a game profile can still set
another level.
Proton sets WINE_CPU_TOPOLOGY from its own default_cpu_limit for games
like Prototype (8 cores) unless PROTON_CPU_TOPOLOGY is set, so the
pinned topology never reached the game the issue was about.
Game cores pinned the game with taskset, but Wine counts the online
CPUs, so a game held to two cores still saw eight processors and sized
its thread pools for them. Prototype freezes at its splash screen that
way. When the session or a game profile limits the game cores, Wine now
gets WINE_CPU_TOPOLOGY for exactly those cores unless the profile sets
its own.
The Crew 2 loads D3DGear64.dll from its folder. Its DXGI Present hook
faults over a thousand times within seconds under Wine and the game
never presents again: black screen while the sound keeps playing.
droiddeck-game-env now disables the DLL when it finds it beside the
game, and DLL overrides from several engine fixes are kept together
instead of the last one replacing the others.
MaxsTechReview