- Animation stutter: skip playAnimation(Run) for the local player in the
server movement callback — the player renderer state machine already manages
it; resetting animTime on every movement packet caused visible stutter
- Resolution crash: reorder swapchain recreation so old swapchain is only
destroyed after confirming the new build succeeded; add null-swapchain
guard in beginFrame to survive the retry window
- Memory cap: reduce cache budget from 80% uncapped to 50% hard-capped at
16 GB to prevent excessive RAM use on high-memory systems
- Spell tooltip: suppress "Drag to action bar / Double-click to cast" hints
when the tooltip is shown from the action bar (showUsageHints=false)
- M2 collision: add watermelon/melon/squash/gourd to foliage (no-collision);
exclude chair/bench/stool/seat/throne from smallSolidProp so invisible chair
bounding boxes no longer trap the player
- renderer: construct QuestMarkerRenderer via make_unique (was never
instantiated, causing getQuestMarkerRenderer() to always return null
and all quest-marker updates to be silently skipped)
- m2_renderer: add "levelup" to effectByName so LevelUp.m2 is treated
as a spell effect (additive blend, no collision, particle-dominated)
- renderer: auto-cancel non-looping emote animations when they reach
end-of-sequence, transitioning player back to IDLE state
Both SpellGoParser::parse (WotLK) and TbcPacketParsers::parseSpellGo
(TBC) read missCount but did not consume the per-miss (guid + missType)
entries that follow, leaving unread bytes in the packet and silently
corrupting any subsequent parsing of cast-flags–gated spell data.
- Add SpellGoMissEntry{targetGuid, missType} and missTargets vector
to SpellGoData
- WotLK parser now reads packed GUIDs + missType per miss entry
- TBC parser now reads full uint64 GUIDs + missType per miss entry
(9 bytes per entry, bounds-checked)
- handleSpellGo now shows MISS/DODGE/PARRY/BLOCK combat text
for each missed target when the local player cast the spell,
complementing the existing SMSG_SPELLLOGMISS path
- Remove unused foliageLikeModel variable in m2_renderer pass-2 loop
(fix unused-variable warning)
- Update smoke model comment in m2_renderer to reflect current state
Hang/GPU device lost fix:
- M2_INSTANCES and WMO_INSTANCES finalization phases now create instances
incrementally (32 per step / 4 per step) instead of all at once, eliminating
the >1s main-thread stalls that caused GPU fence timeouts and device loss
M2 two-pass transparent rendering:
- Opaque/alpha-test batches render in pass 1, transparent/additive in pass 2
(back-to-front sorted) to fix wing transparency showing terrain instead of
trees — adds hasTransparentBatches flag to skip models with no transparency
Tile streaming improvements:
- Sort new load queue entries nearest-first so critical tiles load before
distant ones during fast taxi flight
- Increase taxi load radius 6→8 tiles, unload 9→12 for better coverage
Water refraction gated on FSR:
- Disable water refraction when FSR is not active (bugged without upscaling)
- Auto-disable refraction if FSR is turned off while refraction was on
The boneDescPool_ had MAX_BONE_SETS=2048 but sets were never freed when
instances were removed (only when clear() reset the whole pool on map load).
As tiles streamed in/out, each new animated instance consumed 2 pool slots
(one per frame index) permanently. After ~1024 animated instances created
total, vkAllocateDescriptorSets began failing silently and returning
VK_NULL_HANDLE. render() skips instances with null boneSet[frameIndex],
making them invisible — appearing as per-frame flicker as the culling pass
included them but the render pass excluded them.
Fix: destroyInstanceBones() now calls vkFreeDescriptorSets() for each
non-null boneSet before destroying the bone SSBO. The pool already had
VK_DESCRIPTOR_POOL_CREATE_FREE_DESCRIPTOR_SET_BIT set for this purpose.
Also increased MAX_BONE_SETS from 2048 to 8192 for extra headroom.
Root cause: bonesDirty was a single bool shared across both
double-buffered frame indices. When bones were copied to frame 0's
SSBO and bonesDirty cleared, frame 1's newly-allocated SSBO would
contain garbage/zeros and never get populated — causing animated
M2 instances to flash invisible on alternating frames.
Fix: Make bonesDirty per-frame-index (bool[2]) so each buffer
independently tracks whether it needs bone data uploaded. When
bones are recomputed, both indices are marked dirty. When uploaded
during render, only the current frame index is cleared. New buffer
allocations in prepareRender force their frame index dirty.
- Re-check for unloaded tiles when workers are idle (no tile boundary needed)
- Increase M2 upload budget 4→16 and WMO 1→4 per frame when not under pressure
- Lower tree collision threshold from 40 to 6 units so large trees block movement
- Overlap M2 and character animation updates via std::async (~2-5ms saved)
- Thread-local collision scratch buffers for concurrent floor queries
- Parallel terrain/WMO/M2 floor queries in camera controller
- Seed new M2 instance bones from existing siblings to eliminate pop-in flash
- Fix shadow flicker: snap center along stable light axes instead of in view space
- Increase shadow distance default to 300 units (slider max 500)
Move CPU-heavy BLP texture decoding from main thread to background worker
threads for all hot paths: terrain M2 models, WMO doodad M2s, WMO textures,
creature models, and gameobject WMOs. Each renderer (M2, WMO, Character) now
accepts a pre-decoded BLP cache that loadTexture() checks before falling back
to synchronous decode.
Defer WMO normal/height map generation (3 per-pixel passes: luminance, box
blur, Sobel) during terrain streaming finalization — this was the dominant
remaining bottleneck after BLP pre-decoding.
Terrain streaming stalls: 1576ms → 124ms worst case.
Every uploadBuffer/VkTexture::upload called immediateSubmit which did a
separate vkQueueSubmit + vkWaitForFences. Loading a single creature model
with textures caused 4-8+ fence waits; terrain chunks caused 80+ per batch.
Added beginUploadBatch/endUploadBatch to VkContext: records all upload
commands into a single command buffer, submits once with one fence wait.
Staging buffers are deferred for cleanup after the batch completes.
Wrapped in batch mode:
- CharacterRenderer::loadModel (creature VB/IB + textures)
- M2Renderer::loadModel (doodad VB/IB + textures)
- TerrainRenderer::loadTerrain/loadTerrainIncremental (chunk geometry + textures)
- TerrainRenderer::uploadPreloadedTextures
- WMORenderer::loadModel (group geometry + textures)
Terrain finalization was uploading all 256 chunks (GPU fence waits) in one
atomic advanceFinalization call that couldn't be interrupted by the 5ms time
budget. Now split into incremental batches of 16 chunks per call, allowing
the time budget to yield between batches.
M2 instance creation had O(N) dedup scans iterating ALL instances to check
for duplicates. In cities with 5000+ doodads, this caused O(N²) total work
during tile loading. Replaced with hash-based DedupKey map for O(1) lookups.
Changes:
- TerrainRenderer::loadTerrainIncremental: uploads N chunks per call
- FinalizingTile tracks terrainChunkNext for cross-frame progress
- TERRAIN phase yields after preload and after each chunk batch
- M2Renderer::DedupKey hash map replaces linear scan in createInstance
and createInstanceWithMatrix
- Dedup map maintained through rebuildSpatialIndex and clear paths
- Add magma/slime rendering path to water shader (fbm noise, crust/molten/core coloring)
- Fix WMO liquid height filter rejecting high-altitude zones like Ironforge (Z>300)
- Allow interior WMO magma/slime MLIQ groups to load (skip only water/ocean)
- Mark LAVASTEAM.m2 as spell effect for proper additive blend, hide emission mesh
- Add isLavaModel flag for M2 ForgeLava/LavaPots UV scroll fallback
- Add isLava material detection in WMO renderer for lava texture UV animation
- Fix WMO material UBO colors for magma (was blue, now orange-red)
Classify light shafts, portals, spotlights, bubbles, and similar M2
doodads as spell effects so they render with additive blending instead
of as solid opaque objects.
Set camera yaw from server orientation on world load so teleports face
the correct direction.
Reduce area trigger minimum radius (3.0 sphere, 4.0 box) to prevent
premature portal firing near tram entrances.
WMO interior doodads (gears, decorations) were blocking player movement
via M2 collision. Skip collision for all WMO doodad M2 instances since
the WMO itself handles wall collision.
Also filter WMO wall collision using MOPY per-triangle flags: only
rendered+collidable triangles block the player, skipping invisible
collision hulls.
Revert tram portal extended range (no longer needed with collision fix).
- NPC hair/skin textures now use per-instance overrides instead of shared
model-level textures, so each NPC shows its own hair color/style
- Hair/skin DBC lookup runs for every NPC instance (including cached models)
rather than only on first load
- Fix keyframe binary search to use float comparison matching original
linear scan semantics
- Replace O(n) linear keyframe search with O(log n) binary search in both
M2 and Character renderers (runs thousands of times per frame)
- Smoke particle removal: swap-and-pop instead of O(n²) vector erase
- Character render backface cull: eliminate sqrt via squared comparison
- Quaternion validation: use length² instead of sqrt-based length check
Use cached model flags (isValid, isSmoke, isInvisibleTrap, isGroundDetail,
disableAnimation, boundRadius) on M2Instance instead of models.find() in
the hot culling paths. Also complete cached flag initialization in
createInstanceWithMatrix().
- Glow sprites now use dedicated vertex buffer (glowVB_) separate from
M2 particle buffer to prevent data race when renderM2Particles()
overwrites glow data mid-flight
- Move fadeAlpha from shared material UBO to per-draw push constants,
eliminating cross-instance alpha race on non-double-buffered UBOs
- Smooth adaptive render distance transitions to prevent pop-in/out
at instance count thresholds (1000/2000)
- Distance-tiered character bone throttling: near (<30u) every frame,
mid (30-60u) every 3rd, far (60-120u) every 6th frame
- Skip weapon instance animation updates (transforms set by parent bones)
- Split M2 instances into fast-path index lists (animated, particle-only,
particle-all, smoke) to avoid iterating all 46K instances per frame
- Cache model flags (hasAnimation, disableAnimation, isSmoke, etc.) on
M2Instance struct to eliminate per-frame hash lookups
- Replace full rebuildSpatialIndex on position/transform updates with
incremental grid cell remove+add, preventing 8.5ms/frame rebuild cost
- Advance animTime for all instances (texture UV animation) but only
compute bones and particles for the ~3K that need it
M2_UPDATE: 10.7ms → 2.0ms, FPS: 35 → 55-59
Reset descriptor pools in CharacterRenderer/M2Renderer/WMORenderer on map
change to prevent VK_ERROR_DEVICE_LOST from pool exhaustion. Defer re-entrant
SMSG_NEW_WORLD during active world load to avoid recursive cleanup crashes.
Gate swim bubbles on swimming state, skip redundant shadow pipeline re-init,
add WOWEE_SKIP_* env vars for render isolation debugging.
StormLib's bundled libtomcrypt uses x86 inline assembly (bswapl/movl)
gated by __MINGW32__, which is defined on CLANGARM64 too. Pass
-DLTC_NO_BSWAP to force portable C byte-swap fallback.
Replace monolithic finalizeTile() with a phased state machine that spreads
GPU upload work across multiple frames (TERRAIN→M2→WMO→WATER→AMBIENT→DONE).
Each advanceFinalization() call does one bounded unit of work within the
per-frame time budget, eliminating 50-300ms frame hitches when entering cities.
Additional performance improvements:
- Pre-allocate bone SSBOs at M2 instance creation instead of lazily during
first render frame, preventing hitches when many skinned characters appear
- Enable WMO distance culling (800 units) with active-group exemption so
the player's current floor/neighbors are never culled
- Add 4-tier adaptive M2 render distance (250/400/600/1000 based on count)
- Remove dead PendingM2Upload queue code superseded by incremental system
Fix tile re-enqueueing bug: keep tiles in pendingTiles until committed to
loadedTiles (not when moved to finalizingTiles_) so streamTiles() doesn't
re-enqueue tiles mid-finalization. Also handle unloadTile() for tiles in
the finalizingTiles_ deque to prevent orphaned water/M2/WMO resources.
When M2Renderer's descriptor pool was exhausted, batch.materialSet
would be VK_NULL_HANDLE and the bind was skipped, but the draw call
still executed using the previously bound descriptor set from
CharacterRenderer — causing game objects to render with the player's
skin/armor textures. Skip the entire batch instead.
Fireflies, dragonflies, butterflies, and moths no longer get
disableAnimation/foliage classification so their bone animation
and particles run normally.
- Spawn dark point-sprite insects buzzing around cattails/reeds/kelp/seaweed
- Fix firefly M2 particles: exempt from alpha dampening and forced gravity
- Make water shoreline/crest foam more irregular with UV warping and bluer tint
Remove negative cache for transient load failures in M2, terrain, and
character renderers. Failed textures return white and will be retried
on next model/tile load when assets may have finished streaming.
- Cache material UBO mapped pointers at creation time, eliminating
per-batch vmaGetAllocationInfo() calls in the hot render path
- Precompute foliage/elven/lantern/kobold model name classifications
at load time instead of per-instance string operations every frame
- Remove redundant descriptor set and push constant rebinds on WMO
pipeline switches (preserved across compatible layouts)
- Pre-allocate glow sprite descriptor set once at init instead of
allocating from the pool every frame
Shadow casting: foliage batches now bind their actual texture in the shadow
pass with alpha testing, producing leaf-shaped shadows instead of solid cards.
Uses a per-frame resettable descriptor pool for texture sets.
Shadow receiving: foliage fragments now sample the shadow map with PCF
instead of using a flat constant darkening.
Gameobject M2 instances (books, crates, chests) were continuously
cycling their animations because M2Renderer unconditionally loops
all sequences. Added setInstanceAnimationFrozen() and freeze all
gameobject instances at creation time so they stay in their bind pose.
removeInstance() and removeInstances() were erasing M2Instances without
calling destroyInstanceBones(), leaking VMA bone buffers permanently.
This caused framerate to drop and never recover after NPC encounters.
All three shadow renderers (WMO, M2, Character) were iterating every
loaded instance with zero culling. Now skip instances outside the
180-unit shadow frustum radius via squared-distance check.
Raise all texture cache defaults from 1GB to 4GB to reduce rejections.
Cap cache-full warnings (texture + model) to 3 messages per renderer,
and cap update block parse errors to 5 messages.
Strip per-frame/periodic logging from CharacterRenderer (batch dump,
instance count) and M2Renderer (frame timing profiler) to avoid
unnecessary string formatting and I/O in render loops.
- Add error handling: revert to 1x if recreateSwapchain fails
- Clamp requested MSAA to device maximum before applying
- Retry MSAA color image allocation without TRANSIENT on failure
- Remove redundant vkDeviceWaitIdle from WMO/M2/Character recreatePipelines
(caller already waits once, was causing ~13 stalls instead of 1)
