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.
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).
- 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
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)
Root cause: LOGIN_VERIFY_WORLD path did not set areaTriggerCheckTimer_ or
areaTriggerSuppressFirst_, so the Stockades exit portal (AT 503) fired
immediately on login, teleporting the player back to Stormwind and crashing
the GPU during the unexpected map transition.
Fixes:
- Set 5s area trigger cooldown + suppress-first in handleLoginVerifyWorld
(same as SMSG_NEW_WORLD handler already did for teleports)
- Add deviceLost_ flag to VkContext so beginFrame returns immediately once
VK_ERROR_DEVICE_LOST is detected, preventing infinite retry loops
- Track device lost from both fence wait and queue submit paths
- Fix shutdown hang: skip vmaDestroyAllocator (walked thousands of allocations),
replace unsafe pthread_timedjoin_np with plain join + early-exit checks in workers
- Bank window: full icon rendering, click-and-hold pickup (0.10s), drag-drop for
all bank slots including bank bag equip slots, same-slot drop detection
- Loading screen: process one tile per frame for live progress updates
- Camera reset: trust server position in online mode to avoid spawning under WMOs
- Fix PLAYER_BYTES/PLAYER_BYTES_2 field indices, preserve purchasedBankBagSlots
across inventory rebuilds, fix bank slot purchase result codes
Replace all glGenTextures/glTexImage2D calls in UI code with Vulkan texture
uploads via new VkContext::uploadImGuiTexture() helper. This fixes segfaults
from calling OpenGL functions without a GL context (null GLEW function pointers).
- Add uploadImGuiTexture() to VkContext with staging buffer upload pattern
- Convert game_screen, inventory_screen, spellbook_screen, talent_screen
from GLuint/GL calls to VkDescriptorSet/Vulkan uploads
- Fix loading_screen clearValueCount (was 1, needs 2 or 3 for MSAA)
- 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)
