Beetle PSX HW, Mupen64Plus-Next, Beetle Saturn, VICE x64sc, MAME 0.289,
DeSmuME and Azahar, each built from my fork of it at a pinned revision
(tools/core-fork.sh, tools/build-<core>.sh), with the PS5 defaults at the
most each offers that holds full speed.
The loader grew to fit them. A core's file and image come from direct memory,
up to 1 GiB (MAME's image is 413 MB), and each image is zeroed when it is
reserved: direct memory is not, and a reloaded core's .bss held its
predecessor's bytes, which faulted every core on a reload. Each image's
.eh_frame is registered with the title's unwinder, for the cores that throw.
Initializers are capped at 65,536 (Azahar has 2,476). A load that misses imports
lists all of them. Aligned operator new comes from the core heap, a core's
atexit belongs to the core, and the imports the new cores need are bound to the
platform layer's getcwd, tmpfile, mkstemp and the rest (SDK fork ebd0fe2).
Build pinned libretro Snes9x 1.63 with this project's SDK and official metadata.
Convert final RGB565 frames to independent XRGB8888 storage for the existing
Vulkan upload path. Integrate staging, native imports and loader diagnostics.
Keep C++ destructor registration inside the unloadable core. Validate bounded
fini arrays before constructors and execute cleanup at last-reference close.
Test all 65536 colours through GPU upload, pitches/bounds/cached frames and
C++ destruction/reload/malformed finalizers. Existing core bytes are unchanged.
Verification: bash tools/verify.sh passed format/unit/build/integration/evidence
with 60 tests. bash tools/run-title.sh --no-build --core-test=snes9x --watch 180
passed loader/recovery and remained running until runner close. Owner: Works
flawlessly, answering colours/audio/input and menu/content-transition checks.
Zero Vulkan refusals, GPU API failures or kernel fatal-signal reports.
Evidence: evidence/snes9x-native/{capture,expectation,iterations,abi,build}.json,
loader/recovery reports and exact linked-driver hashes. Replay with
bash tools/verify.sh evidence. Frontend identity:
64bef2e7826e5a63a6644a933e24ef5403d28c754230c0038eb8a76b4baa1c53.
PS5_Vulkan was not modified; special-mode/save-state/performance coverage is
not implied by this ordinary-game acceptance.
Mihawk