Other players previously appeared partially naked — only chest, legs, feet,
hands, cape, and tabard rendered. Now renders full equipment:
- Helmet M2 model: loads from ItemDisplayInfo.dbc with race/gender suffix,
attaches at head bone (point 0/11), hides hair geoset under helm
- Weapons: mainhand (attachment 1) and offhand (attachment 2) M2 models
loaded from ItemDisplayInfo, with Weapon/Shield path fallback
- Wrist/bracer geoset (group 8): applies when no chest sleeve overrides
- Belt/waist geoset (group 18): reads GeosetGroup1 from ItemDisplayInfo
- Shoulder M2 attachments deferred (separate bone attachment system)
Also applied same wrist/waist geosets to NPC and character preview paths.
Minimap: batch 9 individual vkUpdateDescriptorSets into single call.
Mail: change money/COD fields from uint32 to uint64 in CMSG_SEND_MAIL and
SMSG_MAIL_LIST_RESULT for WotLK 3.3.5a. Classic keeps uint32 on the wire.
Fixes money truncation and packet misalignment causing mail failures.
Other-player capes: add cape texture loading to setOnlinePlayerEquipment().
The cape geoset was enabled but no texture was loaded, leaving capes blank.
Now mirrors the local-player path: looks up ItemDisplayInfo.dbc, finds cape
texture candidates, applies via setGroupTextureOverride/setTextureSlotOverride.
Zone toasts: suppress duplicate zone toast when the zone text overlay is
already showing the same zone name. Fixes double "Entering: Stormwind City".
Network: enable TCP_NODELAY on both auth and world sockets after connect(),
disabling Nagle's algorithm to eliminate up to 200ms buffering delay on
small packets (movement, spell casts, chat).
Rendering: track material and bone descriptor sets in M2 renderer to skip
redundant vkCmdBindDescriptorSets calls between batches sharing same textures.
- Replace count()+operator[] double lookups with find() or try_emplace()
in gameObjectInstances_, playerTextureSlotsByModelId_, onlinePlayerAppearance_
- Add Entity::isUnit() helper; replace 5 dynamic_cast<Unit*> in per-frame
UI rendering (nameplates, combat text, pet frame) with isUnit()+static_cast
- Add constexpr kInv255 reciprocal for per-pixel normal map generation loops
in character_renderer and wmo_renderer
Spline parsing: remove Classic format fallback from the WotLK parser. The
PacketParsers hierarchy already dispatches to expansion-specific parsers
(Classic/TBC/WotLK/Turtle), so the WotLK parseMovementBlock should only
attempt WotLK spline format. The Classic fallback could false-positive when
durationMod bytes resembled a valid point count, corrupting downstream parsing.
Preload DBC caches: call loadSpellNameCache() and 5 other lazy DBC caches
during handleLoginVerifyWorld() on initial world entry. This moves the ~170ms
Spell.csv load from the first SMSG_SPELL_GO handler to the loading screen,
eliminating the mid-gameplay stall.
WMO portal culling: move per-instance portalVisibleGroups vector and
portalVisibleGroupSet to reusable member variables, eliminating heap
allocations per WMO instance per frame.
Spline auto-detection: try WotLK format before Classic to prevent false-positive
matches where durationMod float bytes resemble a valid Classic pointCount. This
caused the movement block to consume wrong byte count, corrupting the update mask
read (maskBlockCount=57/129/203 instead of ~5) and silently dropping NPC spawns.
Terrain latency: bound WMO liquid group loading to 4 groups per advanceFinalization
call. Large WMOs (e.g., Stormwind canals with 40+ liquid groups) previously loaded
all groups in one unbounded loop, blowing past the 8ms frame budget and causing
stalls up to 1300ms. Now yields back to processReadyTiles() after 4 groups so the
time budget check can break out.
- Hoist DBC field index lookups before loops in game_handler (7 DBC iteration loops)
- Cache getSkybox()/getPosition() calls instead of redundant per-frame queries
- Merge textureHasAlphaByPtr_ + textureColorKeyBlackByPtr_ into single map
- Add constexpr for DEG_TO_RAD, reciprocal constants, physics delta
- Add reserve() for WMO/M2 collision grid queries and portal BFS
- Frustum plane normalize: inversesqrt instead of length+divide
- M2 particle emission: inversesqrt for direction normalization
- Parse creature display IDs from query response
- UI: show spell names/IDs as fallback instead of "Unknown"
Squared distance optimizations across 30 files:
- Convert glm::length() comparisons to glm::dot() (no sqrt)
- Use glm::inversesqrt() for check-then-normalize patterns (1 rsqrt vs 2 sqrt)
- Defer sqrt to after early-out checks in collision/movement code
- Hottest paths: camera_controller (21), weather particles, WMO collision,
transport movement, creature interpolation, nameplate culling
Container and algorithm improvements:
- std::map<string> → std::unordered_map for asset/DBC/MPQ/warden caches
- std::mutex → std::shared_mutex for asset_manager and mpq_manager caches
- std::sort → std::partial_sort in lighting_manager (top-2 of N volumes)
- Double-lookup find()+operator[] → insert_or_assign in game_handler
- Add reserve() for per-frame vectors: weather, swim_effects, WMO/M2 collision
Threading and synchronization:
- Replace 1ms busy-wait polling with condition_variable in character_renderer
- Move timestamp capture before mutex in logger
- Use memory_order_acquire/release for normal map completion signaling
API additions:
- DBC getStringView()/getStringViewByOffset() for zero-copy string access
- Parse creature display IDs from SMSG_CREATURE_QUERY_SINGLE_RESPONSE
Add [[nodiscard]] to VkShaderModule::loadFromFile, Shader::loadFromFile/
loadFromSource, AssetManifest::load, DbcLoader::load — all return bool
indicating success/failure that callers should check.
Suppress with (void) at 17 call sites where validity is checked via
isValid() after loading rather than the return value (m2_renderer
recreatePipelines, swim_effects recreatePipelines).
terrain_manager: replace bare 4096/2048/0x80/0x7F with named constants
ALPHA_MAP_SIZE, ALPHA_MAP_PACKED, ALPHA_FILL_FLAG, ALPHA_COUNT_MASK
— documents the WoW alpha map RLE format.
character_renderer: replace bare 256/512 texture sizes with
kBaseTexSize/kUpscaleTexSize for NPC skin upscaling logic.
The findMemType/findMemoryType helper in auth_screen, loading_screen,
and vk_context returned 0 on failure — a valid memory type index.
Changed to return UINT32_MAX and log an error, so vkAllocateMemory
receives an invalid index and fails cleanly rather than silently
using the wrong memory type.
Add [[nodiscard]] to VkBuffer::uploadToGPU/createMapped and
VkContext::initialize/recreateSwapchain so callers that ignore
failure are flagged at compile time. Suppress with (void) cast at
3 call sites where failure is non-actionable (resize best-effort).
Add kDarkRed, kSoftRed, kHostileRed, kMediumGray to ui_colors.hpp and
replace 31 inline ImVec4 literals across game_screen, character_screen,
inventory_screen, and performance_hud. Also replace local color aliases
in performance_hud with shared constants.
Wrap string-to-number conversions in try-catch where input comes from
external sources (realm address port, last_world.cfg, keybinding config,
ADT tile filenames) to prevent crashes on malformed data.
- Add kBrightGold, kPaleRed, kBrightRed, kLightBlue, kManaBlue, kCyan to ui_colors.hpp
- Replace 61 inline ImVec4 color literals across game_screen, inventory_screen,
talent_screen, and world_map with named constants
- Remove const_cast in character_renderer render loop by using non-const iteration
Fix toLowerInPlace() which was accidentally self-recursive (would stack
overflow on any Lua string lowering). Remove 30 redundant
if(addonEventCallback_) wrappers around pure fireAddonEvent blocks.
Extract color constants in performance_hud.cpp (24 inline literals).
Replace ~37 remaining C-style casts with static_cast across 16 files.
Extract named color constants (kColorRed/Green/Yellow/Gray) and dialog
window flags (kDialogFlags) in game_screen.cpp, replacing 72 inline
literals. Normalize keybinding_manager.hpp to #pragma once.
- Extract guidToUnitId(), getQuestTitle(), findQuestLogEntry() helpers
to replace 14 duplicated GUID-to-unitId patterns and 7 quest log
search patterns in game_handler.cpp
- Remove duplicate #include in renderer.cpp
- Remove commented-out model cleanup code in terrain_manager.cpp
- Replace C-style casts with static_cast in auth and transport code
Request 2 queues from the graphics family when available (NVIDIA
exposes 16, AMD 2+). Upload batches now submit to queue[1] while
rendering uses queue[0], enabling parallel GPU transfers without
queue-family ownership transfer barriers (same family).
Falls back to single-queue path on GPUs with only 1 queue in the
graphics family. Transfer command pool is separate to avoid contention.
processReadyTiles was calling advanceFinalization with a step limit of 1
but a single step (texture upload or M2 model load) could take 1060ms.
Replace the step counter with an 8ms wall-clock time budget (16ms during
taxi) so finalization yields to the render loop before causing a visible
stall. Heavy tiles spread across multiple frames instead of blocking.
When parallel recording is active, the scene pass uses
VK_SUBPASS_CONTENTS_SECONDARY_COMMAND_BUFFERS. Post-processing paths
(FSR/FXAA) end the scene pass and begin a new INLINE render pass for
the swapchain output. ImGui rendering must use the correct mode —
secondary buffers for SECONDARY passes, direct calls for INLINE.
Previously the check used a static condition based on enabled features
(!fsr && !fsr2 && !fxaa && parallel), which could mismatch if a
feature was enabled but initialization failed. Replace with
endFrameInlineMode_ flag that tracks the actual current render pass
mode at runtime, eliminating the validation error
VUID-vkCmdDrawIndexed-commandBuffer-recording that caused intermittent
NVIDIA driver crashes.
Validation layers revealed 9965 VkSamplers allocated against a device
limit of 4000 — every VkTexture created its own sampler even when
configurations were identical. This exhausted NVIDIA's sampler pool
and caused intermittent SIGSEGV in vkCmdBeginRenderPass.
Add a thread-safe sampler cache in VkContext that deduplicates samplers
by FNV-1a hash of all 14 VkSamplerCreateInfo fields. All texture,
render target, renderer, water, and loading screen sampler creation
now goes through getOrCreateSampler(). Textures set ownsSampler_=false
so shared samplers aren't double-freed.
Also auto-disable anisotropy in the cache when the physical device
doesn't support the samplerAnisotropy feature, fixing the validation
error VUID-VkSamplerCreateInfo-anisotropyEnable-01070.
VkPipelineCache causes vkCmdBeginRenderPass to SIGSEGV inside
libnvidia-glcore.so on NVIDIA 590.x drivers. Skip pipeline cache
creation on NVIDIA GPUs — NVIDIA drivers already provide built-in
shader disk caching, so the Vulkan-level cache is redundant.
Pipeline cache still works on AMD and other vendors.
The AMD FidelityFX FSR3 runtime corrupts Vulkan driver state when
context creation fails on NVIDIA GPUs, causing vkCmdBeginRenderPass
to SIGSEGV inside libnvidia-glcore. Gate FSR3 frame gen initialization
behind isAmdGpu() check — FSR2 upscaling still works on all GPUs.
When ffxCreateContext for the upscaler fails (e.g. on NVIDIA with the
AMD FidelityFX runtime), the shutdown() path called dlclose() on the
runtime library which could hang — the library's global destructors may
block waiting for GPU operations that never completed.
Skip dlclose() on context creation failure: just clean up function
pointers and mark as failed. The library stays loaded (harmless) and
the game continues with FSR2 fallback instead of hanging.
Log GPU name and vendor ID during VkContext initialization for easier
debugging of GPU-specific issues (FSR3, driver compat, etc.). Add
isAmdGpu()/isNvidiaGpu() accessors.
Temporarily log SMSG_PLAY_SOUND and SMSG_PLAY_OBJECT_SOUND at WARN
level (sound ID, name, file path) to diagnose unidentified ambient
NPC sounds reported by the user.
Create a VkPipelineCache at device init, loaded from disk if available.
All 65 pipeline creation calls across 19 renderer files now use the
shared cache. On shutdown, the cache is serialized to disk so subsequent
launches skip redundant shader compilation.
Cache path: ~/.local/share/wowee/pipeline_cache.bin (Linux),
~/Library/Caches/wowee/ (macOS), %APPDATA%\wowee\ (Windows).
Stale/corrupt caches are handled gracefully (fallback to empty cache).
Inventory sort: clicking "Sort Bags" now generates CMSG_SWAP_ITEM packets
to move items server-side (one swap per frame to avoid race conditions).
Client-side sort runs immediately for visual preview; server swaps follow.
New Inventory::computeSortSwaps() computes minimal swap sequence using
selection-sort permutation on quality→itemId→stackCount comparator.
World map: fix continent bounds derivation that used intersection (max/min)
instead of union (min/max) of child zone bounds, causing continent views
to display zoomed-in/clipped.
Update README.md and docs/status.md with current features, release info,
and known gaps (v1.8.2-preview, 664 opcode handlers, NPC voices, bag
independence, CharSections auto-detect, quest GO server limitation).
The wall/floor classification threshold was lowered from 0.65 to 0.35
in a prior optimization commit, causing surfaces at 35-65° from
horizontal (steep walls, angled building geometry) to be classified as
floors and skipped during wall collision. This allowed the player to
clip through angled WMO walls.
Restore the threshold to 0.65 (cos 50°) in both the collision grid
builder and the runtime checkWallCollision skip, matching the
MAX_WALK_SLOPE limit used for slope-slide physics.
CharSections.dbc has different field layouts between stock WotLK (textures
at field 4-6) and Classic/TBC/Turtle/HD-textured WotLK (VariationIndex at
field 4). Add detectCharSectionsFields() that probes field-4 values at
runtime to determine the correct layout, so both stock and modded clients
work without JSON changes.
Also add BLOODELF_MALE/FEMALE and DRAENEI_MALE/FEMALE voice types to the
NPC voice system — previously all Blood Elf and Draenei NPCs fell through
to GENERIC (random dwarf/gnome/night elf/orc mix).
Lava M2 models used independent static-local start times in pass 1
and pass 2 for UV scroll animation. Since static locals initialize
on first call, the two timers started at slightly different times
(microseconds to frames apart), causing a permanent UV offset mismatch
between passes — visible as texture flicker/jumping on lava surfaces.
Replace both function-scoped statics with a single file-scoped
kLavaAnimStart constant, ensuring both passes compute identical UV
offsets from the same epoch.
PR #19 (572bb4ef) swapped CharSections.dbc field indices, placing
Texture1-3 at fields 4-6 and VariationIndex/ColorIndex at 8-9. Binary
analysis of the actual DBC files (Classic, TBC, Turtle — all identical
layout, no WotLK-specific override) confirms the correct order is:
Field 4 = VariationIndex
Field 5 = ColorIndex
Field 6 = Texture1 (string)
Field 7 = Texture2 (string)
Field 8 = Texture3 (string)
Field 9 = Flags
With the wrong indices, VariationIndex/ColorIndex reads returned string
offsets (garbage values that never matched), so all CharSections lookups
failed silently — producing white untextured character models at the
login screen and in-world.
Fixes all 4 expansion JSON layouts, hardcoded fallbacks in
character_preview.cpp, application.cpp, and character_create_screen.cpp.
Also handles the single-layer edge case (body skin only, no face/underwear)
by loading the texture directly instead of skipping compositing.
Apply at-rest values from M2 color alpha and transparency animation
tracks to batch rendering opacity. This fixes models that should render
as semi-transparent (ghosts, ethereal effects, fading doodads) but were
previously rendering at full opacity.
The fix multiplies colorAlphas[batch.colorIndex] and
textureWeights[batch.transparencyIndex] into batchOpacity during model
setup. Zero values are skipped to avoid the edge case where animated
tracks start at 0 (invisible) and animate up — baking that first
keyframe would make the entire batch permanently invisible.
Add setZoneName() to LoadingScreen and display the map name from Map.dbc
as large gold text with drop shadow above the progress bar. Shown in both
render() and renderOverlay() paths. Zone name is resolved from gameHandler's
getMapName(mapId) during world load. Improves feedback during zone transitions.
Cloud renderer's density was hardcoded at 0.35 and never updated from the
DBC-driven cloudDensity parameter. Now setDensity() is called each frame
with the lighting manager's cloud coverage value. Active weather (rain/
snow/storm) additionally boosts cloud density by up to 0.4 so clouds
visibly thicken during storms.
Reduce flare intensity when sun is near the horizon via smoothstep on
sunDir.z (0→0.25 range). Apply amber/orange color shift to flare elements
at sunrise/sunset for a warm golden glow. Prevents overly bright flares
at low sun angles while enhancing atmospheric mood.
Add Weather::Type::STORM enum value and wire it from SMSG_WEATHER type 3.
Storm particles are faster (70 units/s vs rain's 50), wind-angled at 15+
units lateral velocity with gusty turbulence, darker blue-grey tint, and
shorter lifetime. Previously storms rendered identically to rain.
Add QuestPoi struct and setQuestPois() to WorldMap, render quest objective
markers as cyan circles with golden outlines and quest title labels. Wire
gossipPois_ (from SMSG_QUEST_POI_QUERY_RESPONSE) through GameScreen to the
world map so quest objectives are visible alongside party dots and taxi nodes.
The spell visual failed-model cache was never cleared across world
changes, so models that failed to load during initial asset loading
(before MPQ/CASC data was fully indexed) would never retry. Now clears
spellVisualFailedModels_ in resetCombatVisualState() alongside the
active spell visual cleanup, giving failed models a fresh attempt on
each world entry.
Active spell visual M2 instances were never cleaned up when the player
teleported to a different map or re-entered the world. Orphaned effects
could linger visually from the previous combat session. Now properly
removes all active spell visual instances in resetCombatVisualState(),
which is called on every world entry.
Add indoor/outdoor state macro conditionals using the renderer's WMO
interior detection. Essential for mount macros that need to select
ground mounts indoors vs flying mounts outdoors. The Renderer now
caches the insideWmo state in playerIndoors_ and exposes it via
isPlayerIndoors(). Updated /macrohelp to list the new conditionals.
Spell visual M2 models that fail to load (missing file, empty model,
or GPU upload failure) were re-attempted on every subsequent spell cast,
causing repeated file I/O during combat. Now caches failed model IDs in
spellVisualFailedModels_ so they are skipped on subsequent attempts.
Spell visual effects previously used a fixed 3.5s duration for all
effects, causing some to linger too long and overlap during combat.
Now queries the M2 model's default animation duration via the new
getInstanceAnimDuration() method and clamps it to 0.5-5s. Effects
without animations fall back to a 2s default. This makes spell impacts
feel more responsive and reduces visual clutter.
