ec82764bef
RTL (GS rasterizer, EE core stub, platform bridge, LPDDR4B path), sim regression (272 TBs), docs, and tooling. Copyrighted PS2 content (BIOS, game code, GS dumps, and all dump-derived textures/traces) is excluded via .gitignore and stays local. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
1.3 KiB
1.3 KiB
Decision 0003: Golden Reference Strategy
Status: Locked
Context
The project needs software references for:
- early boot and subsystem trace comparison,
- broader behavior cross-checking,
- dispute resolution when implementations differ.
The main candidates were DobieStation, PCSX2, Play!, or a custom-purpose reference.
Options considered
- DobieStation as sole primary reference.
- PCSX2 as sole primary reference.
- Multiple references with role separation.
- Play! as primary reference.
- Purpose-built minimal reference.
Decision
Adopt multiple references with role separation.
Role split:
- DobieStation: early boot and subsystem-oriented trace comparison.
- PCSX2: breadth and behavior cross-checking.
- Sony documentation and authoritative hardware references: tiebreak when available.
This project does not treat PCSX2 as a mere fallback; it is a peer reference used for a different purpose.
Consequences
- Validation infrastructure must be able to normalize traces from more than one reference source.
- Some disagreements will require manual triage rather than simple "reference wins" logic.
- The project gets a smaller, more coherent early trace oracle while retaining access to broader real-world emulator behavior.
- The validation contract and stub-module plan should name which reference is used for each milestone.