totk-pc-recomp/docs/installer.md

Installer

A public release that turns the player's own game files into a playable TotK folder. The release carries no game data and no code derived from the game: the installer builds the game on the player's machine. The installed folder holds only the game; the installer and its tools stay outside it.

What the player does

1. Downloads TotK-Setup-<version>-windows.zip from GitHub Releases (none is published yet), unpacks it anywhere and starts TotK-Setup.exe.
2. Picks:
   • the base game (XCI or NSP) and the 1.1.0, 1.2.1 or 1.4.3 update (NSP); an NSZ or XCZ (compressed by the nsz tool) works as it is, the setup unpacks it itself;
   • their prod.keys;
   • optionally the firmware folder (system/Contents/registered of an unpacked firmware or an emulator's install), needed for Chinese, Korean and Traditional Chinese text;
   • the game language and the install folder.
3. Waits for the setup, one time. The window shows each step and its progress.
4. Plays totk.exe from the install folder. The installer and the source NSP or XCI (or NSZ, XCZ) can be deleted.

The install folder (main.c portable_paths() reads this layout; it stays portable):

<install folder>/
  totk.exe, SDL3.dll, libopus-0.dll, totk_xlate.exe
  nvngx_dlss.dll                 NVIDIA DLSS, downloaded by the setup's DLSS step when the player keeps it ticked
  totk.ini                       language; the other keys as commented defaults (totk.ini.example)
  exefs/, romfs/                 extracted from the player's files
  shared-fonts/                  the Switch system fonts, with Chinese, Korean or Traditional Chinese text
  profile/                       saves
  mods/                          the player's mods, one folder per mod (created by the menu's "Open mods folder")
  logs/                          totk.log of the last run, totk.1.log to totk.4.log of the runs before it
  shader and pipeline caches     prepared by the setup; shader-cache/shader-cache.pack holds the translations
  totk-install.json              what built this folder: release version, input hashes, finished steps

Updating the port

The player runs a newer installer on the same folder. It reads totk-install.json, keeps romfs/, exefs/, shared-fonts/, profile/ and totk.ini after checking their hashes, rebuilds totk.exe and re-prepares the shaders. A newer release that changes nothing game-derived skips the rebuild. The window starts with the last install folder and the base, update, keys and firmware paths it ran with (paths only, never the keys file's contents), kept in %LOCALAPPDATA%\TotK Recomp\setup.json ($XDG_STATE_HOME/totk-recomp/setup.json elsewhere). Entries that no longer exist stay empty. A reinstall or a switch to another game version starts filled in.

Given an update file other than the recorded one (1.1.0, then 1.2.1, then 1.4.3), the installer extracts and builds again from it and keeps profile/. Saves carry over both ways between 1.2.1 and 1.4.3: 1.4.3 converts a 1.2.1 save on load, and 1.2.1 loads the saves 1.4.3 wrote.

Setup steps

1. Check before writing anything: an NSZ or XCZ input is unpacked first (below), the files open with the keys, the update is 1.1.0, 1.2.1 or 1.4.3 (by hash, as tools/extract.py), the keys are new enough for the update, enough space is free on the target disk (about 36 GiB at the peak of a first install, 20 GiB after it), the CPU is at least x86-64-v2 (SSE4.2; with AVX2/FMA the faster v3 build is used, otherwise the v2 one), a Vulkan 1.3 GPU exists. Each failure is one clear message.
2. Fonts with Chinese, Korean or Traditional Chinese text and a firmware folder: extract the Switch system fonts from the firmware into shared-fonts/ (MacNativeGames' extract_shared_fonts.py, which verifies every NCA layer and BFTTF header). Without a firmware folder the setup warns and goes on; the game then lacks those glyphs.
3. Extract ExeFS and RomFS into the install folder and verify the hashes.
4. Lift the ExeFS to C (recomp/gen.py, recomp/patches-v121.txt or patches-v143.txt) into a temp folder next to the installer. The code cheats of the mods' cheat files and the mods' ExeFS patch files become patch sets first (tools/cheats.py, tools/exefs_patches.py, status in build-cache/cheats.status and exefs.status); a file the tools refuse costs those cheats or patches, not the install. The patch files' writes into main's data go to build-cache/exefs.data, which the game stores into main at start; after the lift they are checked against the bytes the lifted code read as constants (<gen>/main/folded.txt, its jump tables).
5. Compile the generated C, modules.c, romfs.c, patches.c and ov_zstd.c (they bake the per-install layout, RomFS hashes and the game version's patch page) and link them with the prebuilt runtime library for the host's level (libtotkrt.a or libtotkrt-v2.a) into totk.exe (build_game.py --runtime-lib; about 3 min on 24 cores).
6. Prepare (only when the runtime, the translator or the game version changed, not for a new lift) the RomFS patches and the shaders (tools/make_romfs_patches.py, tools/prepare_shaders.py, totk.exe --prepare-shaders) in the install folder, then fold the shader cache's loose files (four per shader, about 117,000) into shader-cache/shader-cache.pack (tools/pack_shader_cache.py). totk.exe reads the pack first and writes the translations it makes in play as loose files; running the tool again with the game closed folds those in. The patches are written four times: romfs-patches, romfs-patches-xbox and romfs-patches-xbox-label (--prompts: Xbox button prompts for prompts = xbox, the first for pad_layout = nintendo, the second for xbox and auto), and romfs-patches-pc (keyboard and mouse prompts for prompts = pc). Each of the three prompt folders is then laid out once more for each game resolution of another shape, romfs-patches-<style>-<w>x<h> (--prompts <style> --aspect). Those differ from romfs-patches-<style> in the UI archive only, and --reuse hard-links the other files from it, so the forty-five folders take seconds and a few MiB each. The prompt folders are optional: when one cannot be made, the setup warns and finishes. When the graphics driver crashes while building the shaders, prepare_shaders.py runs that part again without the variants it was building (building.md, step 6), and the setup finishes with a warning that names how many were left out.
7. DLSS (the window's tick box, on by default, or --dlss; Windows with an NVIDIA RTX GPU): download nvngx_dlss.dll from NVIDIA's own DLSS SDK repository (github.com/NVIDIA/DLSS, a pinned tag, NVIDIA RTX SDK license) into the install folder and check its size and SHA-256 (steps.py, Dlss). The release does not ship the library; NGX loads it from the folder of totk.exe for dlaa and the DLSS modes. A DLSS library already in the folder (a newer one the player put there) is kept. Without an RTX GPU the step only logs and does nothing; a failed download warns, the game runs without DLSS, and the next run of the setup tries again.
8. Clean up the temp folder, except the generated C and the objects (about 1.3 GB), and write build-cache/rebuild.txt in the install folder.

A cancelled or failed setup resumes from the last finished step (totk-install.json).

Rebuilding for the mods

The generated C and the objects stay in the temp folder, so the next lift rewrites only the chunks whose C changed and Ninja recompiles only those: a new or edited code cheat costs the lift (under a minute on 24 cores, a few minutes on 4) and a few dozen chunks, not a full compile, and the shaders stay prepared.

build-cache/rebuild.txt holds the command that opens the setup window in its rebuild mode on the install folder (installer/gui.py --rebuild <install folder>, started through python -c so the release folder is on sys.path whatever the working folder), one argument per line. When an enabled mod has code cheats or ExeFS patch files the build lacks, totk.exe runs it at start and exits (runtime/cheats.c rebuild_if_needed); the window runs the setup on the folder at once and starts the game again when it succeeds. A failed or cancelled rebuild offers to start the game with the code it has; build-cache/rebuild.skip then keeps the same files from starting it again, until "Rebuild the game now" on the Cheats or Mods tab. [mods] mods_rebuild = off turns it off. The rebuild needs the release folder the setup ran from: a moved or deleted release folder means running a setup again.

Command line

installer/ (stdlib only; installer/layout.py maps the release folder and, in a repository, the dev toolchain):

python -m installer --base FILE --update FILE --keys FILE --lang CODE --dest DIR [--firmware DIR] [--root DIR] [--temp DIR] [--verify]

• On a folder with totk-install.json only --dest is needed; the game files only when the extraction must run again.
• --firmware DIR is the folder holding the firmware NCAs: an unpacked firmware, or the emulators' installed Contents/registered (the parent Contents folder works too). It is read only with Chinese, Korean or Traditional Chinese text, and only when shared-fonts/ is not already in the install folder.
• stdout: one JSON event per line, types start, plan, step (started, done, skipped), progress (step, phase, done/total/unit), space (bytes needed and free on the install disk and the temp disk), warning, error, end (installer/events.py). Messages are ids with parameters; installer/text/en.json holds their English text. The human-readable log goes to <temp>/logs/.
• Exit codes: 0 done, 1 failed, 2 bad command line, 3 cancelled. The window cancels with Ctrl+Break to the installer's process group.
• Each step records a key over its inputs (runner.py). A step with the recorded key and intact output is skipped, so resume and update are one rule; output kept from another release is re-hashed first.
• Peak space on the install disk is about 36 GiB, not 22: the extraction copies both Program NCAs (16.3 GiB) next to the merged RomFS (15.9 GiB) before it deletes them. The check computes the exact figure.
• Window (python -m installer.gui, installer/gui.py draws, installer/guilogic.py decides): form, step list with progress, space line, collapsible log, Cancel (Ctrl+Break to the CLI's process group, then it waits for the exit), finish screen with Open folder. English, Russian, Brazilian Portuguese or Simplified Chinese, chosen from the Windows display language (zh-CN and zh-SG give Chinese; the Traditional Chinese regions give English), switchable in the window; every sentence is an id in installer/text/<en|ru|pt-BR|zh-Hans>.json. A Chinese window still starts with English as the game language, because Chinese game text needs the Switch shared fonts, which the setup extracts only from a firmware folder. A folder with totk-install.json needs only the folder. --selftest [--shots DIR] builds every screen in every language and closes itself. The window is not stretched on a display whose scale is the system DPI: installer/dpi.py makes the process system DPI aware before Tk starts, Tk then draws the fonts at the display's scale and dpi.px sizes the paddings and wrap widths with it; the launcher does the same for its error box.
• tests/installer_gui_test.py: event model, form, catalogs, cancel, the display scale, the self-closing window and one end-to-end run of the CLI in --verify mode (needs build/install-test and build/extracted/v121; see its docstring).
• tests/installer_test.py: bookkeeping with fake steps. tests/installer_e2e.py: a dev-mode run with the files of config.local.toml.

Release layout

The unpacked release; tools/make_release.py assembles it and --zip packs it:

TotK-Setup.exe        starts python/pythonw.exe -m installer.gui (installer/launcher/launcher.c, no console)
installer/            the installer: steps, CLI, window, en/ru/zh-Hans text catalog
python/               Python 3.14.9 embeddable + numpy, lz4, cryptography, cffi, pycparser (+ tkinter for the window)
recomp/, tools/       the lifter and the build, extraction and shader scripts the steps run (copied from the repo)
llvm/                 llvm-mingw, x86_64-only subset (Apache-2.0 with LLVM exception; mingw-w64 parts permissive)
runtime/              libtotkrt.a, libtotkrt-v2.a and the headers the generated code and modules.c/romfs.c/patches.c
                      include
bin/                  totk_xlate.exe, hactool.exe, SDL3.dll, libopus-0.dll, ninja.exe
data/                 shader_list.tsv (MacNativeGames, MIT); pgo-<ver>.profdata + .json, the execution profile an
                      update's code and the runtime libraries compile with (pgo.md)
THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md
totk.ini.example, VERSION  the default ini; the release string (the repository's VERSION plus the commit)

• SDL3 comes from the upstream release, not MSYS2: MSYS2's DLL imports the LGPL libiconv.
• Every bundled third-party piece gets a row in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.
• The release contains no code, data, text or assets of the game; make_release.py runs tools/check_content.py over the folder before it finishes. The execution profiles name lifted functions by address (f_<address>) and hold branch counts and control-flow hashes of the generated C.

Switch system fonts

Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese and Korean text needs the Switch system fonts (0-standard.bfttf and the other nn::pl shared fonts). The game does not ship them. Without them it exits before its first frame in those languages (rt_fatal in runtime/ov_system.c). Supply them from your own console, in either way:

• Give the setup the firmware folder (--firmware DIR, or the window's firmware field); the Fonts step extracts them to shared-fonts/ in the install folder.
• Run python tools/extract_fonts.py --firmware <dir> with .venv-py314 and the keys from config.local.toml, or point TOTK_SHARED_FONTS at a folder that holds the extracted fonts.

Linux release

tools/make_release_linux.py builds the same setup for Linux and packs it as TotK-Setup-x86_64.AppImage (the static type-2 runtime: no libfuse2 needed on the host). The player makes it executable and starts it; on a Steam Deck, from Desktop Mode. The command-line setup needs the desktop session's display (DISPLAY or WAYLAND_DISPLAY) because preparing the shaders opens a window; the check step fails at once without it. Building the release also needs make and pkg-config. The bundled Tcl/Tk 9.0.4 is rebuilt with Xft against the sniper sysroot so Russian text uses system TrueType fonts. The setup builds the game into the folder they pick, as on Windows, and the game is totk there with libSDL3.so.0 beside it. The folder inside the AppImage:

AppRun                starts python/bin/python3 -m installer.gui (no bytecode written into the read-only mount)
totk-setup.desktop, totk-setup.png
installer/, recomp/, tools/, data/, licenses/, THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md, totk.ini.example, VERSION   as on Windows
python/               python-build-standalone 3.14 (with tkinter) + the installer's packages; a .pth puts the folder,
                      tools/ and recomp/ on sys.path
llvm/                 LLVM 23 (clang, lld, llvm-ar) and llvm/sysroot: the files of the Steam Runtime 3 "sniper" SDK the
                      game's compile and link read (about 130 files)
runtime/              libtotkrt.a, libtotkrt-v2.a, headers, the install-side sources, totk.png; deps/ with the Vulkan
                      headers, VMA and a static zstd
bin/                  totk_xlate, hactool, ninja, libSDL3.so.0

• What we compile is built against the sniper sysroot (glibc 2.31): the game, hostcheck, hactool and the translator need no newer glibc. The game links Opus, libvpx, zstd and libstdc++ statically and needs only glibc, the system's Vulkan loader and the SDL3 beside it. The setup itself needs glibc 2.34 (Ubuntu 22.04, Debian 12, Fedora 35, SteamOS 3): the official LLVM binaries and the cryptography wheel are built against it. make_release_linux.py checks every ELF file in the folder against that floor (check_glibc), and the setup's check step stops with one message on an older system.
• The setup's temp folder is .setup-temp inside the install folder (--temp changes it): the AppImage is mounted read-only, and a Steam Deck's /home is often too full for the generated C while the game goes to the SD card.
• The game keeps Mesa's shader cache in mesa-cache beside totk unless MESA_SHADER_CACHE_DIR is set, for the same reason: RADV fills its default folder in ~/.cache up to 1 GB.
• The window follows LANG for English or Russian, cancels through SIGTERM to the CLI's process group (the CLI handles it as Ctrl+Break on Windows) and opens the finished folder with xdg-open.
• Requirements beyond Windows': Linux 6.7 or later (the write watch, docs/building.md) and glibc 2.34.
• Building the release needs one game version extracted and lifted (tools/extract.py, recomp/gen.py, either version): the runtime library includes the generated layout.h, whose shared part (MOD_COUNT, MOD_MAIN_BASE) is the same for both. tools/make_release.py takes generated/v121, else generated/v143.

Constraints

• The installer steps contain no Win32 calls; only the window's DPI awareness (installer/dpi.py) is Windows-only, and it does nothing elsewhere. Linux runs the same steps with its own compiler ("Linux release").
• The keys file path is passed to the tools; key values never appear in the UI, logs or files.
• The window is a front end over the CLI (python -m installer --base ... --update ... --keys ... --lang ... --dest ...), which prints one JSON progress event per line. Tests and CI use the CLI.
• Paths may hold any Unicode characters (a Cyrillic user name puts the temp and install folders under it). Every exe the setup runs or builds reads its arguments and paths as UTF-8 through an activeCodePage manifest: hactool (our patch, building.md), totk.exe (runtime/totk.rc), ninja (upstream). The Python steps write their files and logs as UTF-8, and build_game.py quotes paths with spaces on its Ninja command lines.
• A game file whose data fails its hash checks or ends early stops the setup with check.input_damaged, which names the file and asks to copy it again (extract.DamagedFile). A failed merge checks the base Program NCA alone to tell which file is damaged.
• Unsigned exe: SmartScreen warns on first start.
• NSZ and XCZ input (game files compressed by the nsz tool: NCAs stored as NCZ, their sections decrypted and compressed with zstd): the check step tells them by their content, not their name (an NSP or XCI holding NCZ files), so the file dialog has one filter for all four. It unpacks each into <temp>/unpacked/<base|update>.nsp (tools/ncz.py), an NSP of the NSZ's files or of the XCZ's secure partition, and the extraction reads that. Unpacking encrypts the sections again, so every NCA comes back byte for byte, and checks each against the hash its name carries; a mismatch is check.input_damaged. It needs the unpacked size free in the temp folder (checked first), runs at about 500 MB/s, and an interrupted setup reuses a finished NSP of the same file. The extract step deletes the folder when it is done. An XCZ update is refused like an XCI one.

Later

• Re-warm the driver cache on start after a move, GPU or driver change.
• Per-monitor DPI in the setup window: Tk 9 has none, so a display whose scale differs from the primary one still gets the window stretched.