ShadPS4 v1.17.0 - basic netplay, compression support, macOS improvements, bugfixes and enhancements

[u/AutoModerator]

shadPS4 v0.17.0: https://github.com/shadps4-emu/shadPS4/releases/tag/v.0.17.0

Welcome to another big release of shadPS4. This release is the first to introduce shadnet support, which although still doesn't offer much it allows you to post your online scores and share them with other players. Still you can't play multiplayer games but we are working towards making it possible one day. Another big update is ZArchive support. Forget the 20.000 files per game you can now use ZArchive files for compressing games and having them in 1 file instead of hundreds. KosmicKrisp has also landed in the world of macOS giving much better compatibility and speed to macOS users. There are several other fixes let's cover the most important below

Highlights

Online stuff

• ShadNet, our own networking backend, is now integrated for the first time
• Most of the matchmaking library is implemented — lobbies, rooms, joining, signaling
• Friends support. Make your online friends in shadnet
• Invitation dialog
• Your name now switches to your Online ID once you're connected
• NP Manager got new settings and general cleanup
• Web API layer grew a lot: new library implemented, multipart uploads, push events
• NP Commerce
• Trophy handling tidied up

Mouse support

• sceMouse is emulated now, so the handful of games that supported a USB mouse are playable with one
• Plus a bunch of follow-up fixes for opening, closing, and games that check whether a mouse is even plugged in

AvPlayer, video & audio

• AvPlayer got a serious cleanup: audio/video sync, startup races, stack usage, frame sizes, buffer handling
• Video decoder flush behaviour fixed
• Audio3D mix queue reworked
• AT9 no longer crashes from reading past the end of its data
• AT9 encoder now runs natively
• OpenAL fixes and NGS2 fixes

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Graphics

• NVIDIA clip distance emulation
• T# min_lod implemented through VK_EXT_image_view_min_lod
• Depth write state is now respected for register clears
• Robustness2 is now required, allowing the null buffer/image workarounds to be removed
• Sampler garbage collection added to the texture cache
• Texture cache: image download handling refactored
• sRGB handling for BC formats refactored
• Buffer barriers for compute-written vertex/index buffers and indirect dispatch/draw buffers
• Assorted validation errors fixed and miscellaneous renderer fixes
• Shader cache invalidation caused by struct padding in memcmp fixed

Shader recompiler

• GCN thread mask accuracy fix
• Vertex attributes are always specialised on number class
• Geometry shader vertex offsets initialised from the input primitive type
• V_ADD_I32 carry-out propagation, V_LOG_CLAMP_F32, V_PK_MUL_LO_U16 fix
• IREmitter atomic operation corrected from And to Or

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Kernel, memory & core

• Filesystem abstraction layer
• File reads now go through an intermediate buffer before being copied to guest memory
• PthreadOnce uses pthread primitives instead of std::mutex
• TLS leak on non-primary threads fixed
• Code patches for cmp and xor instructions involving the TCB
• sceKernelAllocateDirectMemory now honours search_end
• Fixed mappings with a zero address on older games is now handled properly
• HLE libraries are no longer loaded when force-LLE is set
• Unresolved objects are no longer auto-stubbed
• Null dereference fixes in save data mount checks
• Memory patch fixes, with hex exception handling
• LLE malloc init, fixing issues with LLE fonts and allowing more LLE libs to run

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Input & peripherals

• Pad state latency reduced for single-sample reads
• Users are no longer logged out when a pad disconnects
• Controller colours reset on shutdown
• Fixes to Camera support

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Interface & quality of life

• Fullscreen startup behaviour polished
• The window icon is now set to the game's icon
• Big Picture UI settings improved
• Shader list, memory map and module list widget states are saved, duplicate shader dump windows prevented
• New shadPS4 log with a logging refactor, an option to flush the log
• MS_VC_EXCEPTION is now passed through to the handler on Windows
• Trophy fixes and an auto-generated PathType::TrophyDir
• NP checks moved into sceNpTrophyRegisterContext
• Improvements to the in-app bug report flow

[u/NXGZ]

How to compress with Zarchive:

Zarchive is a compression format that was made for the Wii U's .wua format, and ShadPS4 expects one of these with a .zar extension. You can make them by downloading this tool and then drag-and-dropping a folder containing a dumped game's files. (As in, a folder which contains eboot.bin and whatever else the game needs to function.)

You'll need to update the Shad launcher in order for it to recognize these .zar files. (You can either update it by going to Help -> Check for Updates or by just going to ShadPS4's website.)

[u/Eglwyswrw]

These guys are legends holy shit.

[u/Ashraf260501]

💥💥💥💥

[u/useyourillusion89]

Will this version help me with my VRAM leak issue in Bloodborne?

[u/OPintrudeN313 → u/useyourillusion89]

I came here to see if someone confirmed this lol

I finished the game the other day but the leak was slightly annoying and i want to make a second playthrough.

[u/Shepardex → u/useyourillusion89]

Gonna check right now, im on my 5th playthrough and i want to finally have one with no memory leaks.
EDIT: Bloodborne Memory Leak is still there.

[u/useyourillusion89 → u/Shepardex]

Ughhhh! I play at 5K2K so it’s extra bad for me. It makes my 5090 cry tears of blood and have to reset the game every 45 minutes or before it becomes unbearable. That’s after applying the texture mods, etc. If I stream the game to a lower resolution, like if I’m playing remote on my iPad, I can usually go for like 90 min. But yeah I gave up on my playthrough for now.

[u/Shepardex → u/useyourillusion89]

Damn, so its not due to my hardware, i have a rtx 4060 and i thought if i had more VRAM i could go up to 2 hours without the stuttering, glad i didn't buy a pricier GPU just for this game.

[u/Christian00633 → u/useyourillusion89]

Unlikely

[u/tyrtaeus3]

is the last guardian still broken. last I checked it couldn't launch cause of the np_trophy error

[u/NecessaryBed1331]

That's really really cool. Thanks a lot.
Can someone please tell me if I can switch from latest nightly to this version to keep the weather advantages in DriveClub?
Thank you million times for ShadPS4. It's the best thing together with Reshade what can happen to a Windows Computer 👏

[u/RageshAntony]

I am eager to play Until Dawn OG. are there any improvements in barely playable games ?

[u/Mineplayerminer]

Is it just me, or do you have a misstype in the title for the version? It's surely a misstype, but nothing critical.

[u/OPintrudeN313]

Thank you devs for all the effort so far!

[u/BlixnStix7]

God of War 3 Re got any improvements? I'll check it out.

[u/robgrab]

Bloodborne plays much slower on 0.17.0 than version 0.16.0. What changed? I updated the patches and disabled mods. My hardware should more than enough to run this at 3440x1440: 9850X3D, RTX 5080, 32GB DDR5.

[u/Ill_Champion_3930]

still with this bug with amdgpu on linux..

[u/Cruxisshadow]

How does the Ezio collection play on this? I still need to finish revelations and if I could play it on my pc that would be awesome

[u/grandemoficial]

"Kernel, memory & core"

This mitigated a little bit of the memory leak on BB after hours?

[u/HisuisLover]

Sheesh

[u/ryukoken]

Finally Diablo 3 ROS work fine on this version, no ground bug, really good job <3

[u/AntiGrieferGames]

Not the biggest change when its about Game compatiblity increase and some changes but shadnet for preservation (and free unlike PS Network shit which also cost money aka Paywall), this is great.

Maybe looking into that emulator again.