../PS5_Proton found that a title can have Sony's service start a fresh
executable as a child of its application (sceSystemServiceAddLocalProcess
with the libc-only preload mask, a socket at the child's descriptor 3,
sceSystemServiceKillLocalProcess). This probe asks what that is worth
here.
- frontends/child-probe: a frontend program (SDL2, PS5_OpenGL) that the
title hands over to with LoadExec, as it does ES-DE. It holds the
display while running a headless child, keeps a child alive across
its own LoadExec, then releases the display and starts a graphics
child. "nogpu" mode starts one without ever opening the display.
- frontends/child-probe-helper: the headless child, freestanding C with
only libkernel, reporting its PID and the memory it sees.
- tooling/native: --preload-prx-flags writes the preload mask into the
process parameters (0x50), as PS5_Proton's patch to the same tool
does. Without it the output is unchanged.
Result on the base PS5 (13.40): a headless child starts in 0.12 s and
closes cleanly (kill 0, gone from the list). It reads the same flexible
memory figure as the parent (one budget), and it does not survive the
parent's LoadExec. A graphics child fails before its code runs
(gbase_gvmsw_open 6978, PRX_PROCESS_STARTUP_FAILURE), whether or not
the parent ever opened the display, and Sony then kills the whole
application.
Evidence: evidence/child-processes/ (capture.json, expectation.json,
probe-run-1.jsonl, probe-run-2-nogpu.jsonl). Command:
PS5_FRONTENDS='es-de picker child-probe' tools/build-title.sh
tools/run-title.sh --no-build --relaunch-test=1 \
--relaunch-image=es-de/child-probe.bin --watch 120
Gates: tools/verify.sh PASS (format unit build integration evidence).
EmulationStation is to be its own executable in the title, drawing with
../PS5_OpenGL (mihawk-99's fork of blackbearreloaded/ps5-opengl), whose Mesa
cannot share an image with RADV's. tools/build-frontend.sh builds a program in
frontends/ the way PS5_OpenGL builds its SDL2 consumers: its runtime shims,
heap and linker script over this project's base layout and C runtime, SDL2
from its bridge (built against this project's payload SDK from
ps5-payload-dev/SDL 8c56053), its OpenGL SDK and AGC import stubs, and a
256 MiB libc heap (the native tool's link takes --libc-heap-size; eboot.bin
keeps the largest). The result is es-de/<program>.bin, built by
tools/build-title.sh before the manifest for each program PS5_FRONTENDS names
(none by default). frontends/common supplies __memset_chk, which this host's
clang 23 builtins (emutls) call.
tools/deploy-title.py verifies a signed executable other than eboot.bin by its
stored bytes, on a connection with ftpsrv's SELF transfer mode off; it used to
compare the decoded download and upload twice. tools/run-title.sh's
--relaunch-image uses a built image at that path rather than a copy.
frontends/sdl-probe opens an SDL window with an OpenGL 3.3 core context,
shows red, green and blue for two seconds each, reads the centre back, counts
controller events, records /app0/es-de/sdl-probe.json and restarts eboot.bin
with the argument it was given.
Verified:
TMPDIR=build/tmp bash tools/verify.sh -> PASS (format unit build
integration evidence), default title unchanged
PS5_FRONTENDS=sdl-probe tools/build-title.sh -> es-de/sdl-probe.bin
(23,401,527 bytes) in the manifest, check-manifest PASS, build c1383963
tools/run-title.sh --no-build --relaunch-test=1
--relaunch-image=es-de/sdl-probe.bin --watch 45 on the base PS5: kernel
log EXEC eboot.bin, es-de/sdl-probe.bin, eboot.bin; GL "4.6 (Core
Profile) Mesa 26.2.0" on "PS5 AGC", 1920x1080, 121/120/120 frames in two
seconds each with every centre pixel right, a joystick and a button
press; relaunch PASS; the owner saw red, green, blue, then RetroArch
deploy of the probe alone after the fix: one upload, verified as stored
Evidence: evidence/sdl-probe/ (python3 tools/evidence.py compare)
Sets up this project as the native pipeline's scaffolding plus RetroArch's
sources, so RetroArch is compiled for the title pipeline rather than converted
into it.
- tools/scaffold-native.sh builds the scaffold from
../ps5-native-app-boilerplate-main: tooling, runtime (digest verified),
Makefile and its tools, merged into this repository's tools/ rather than
replacing them. An earlier version replaced tools/ wholesale and deleted this
project's own scripts; the copy is now additive and the reason is in the file.
- tools/fetch-retroarch.sh clones the pinned upstream tag into vendor/ and
records the revision, so "built from RetroArch 1.22.2" is checkable.
- src/display.{hpp,cpp} owns the console's display: VideoOut, direct memory, two
registered buffers, present-and-wait. The sequence and its two load-bearing
details come from the sibling application that proved it on hardware.
- src/main.cpp draws a moving bar: the cheapest thing that proves build, title
format, launcher, VideoOut and the direct-memory path together.
- sce_sys/param.json is this project's identity, PPSA99169.
Evidence: src/display.cpp compiles through the pipeline's compiler
(tooling/prospero-clang18 with PS5_CLANG=/usr/bin/clang, -std=c++20), and a
RetroArch source file compiles the same way with its include paths.
Mihawk