Roadmap

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Last updated: 2026-06-21 (BETA-13 in progress)

ROADMAP

This is the forward plan. For current runtime state, the canonical Known-Issues list, the Preservation Contracts, the Behavioral Invariants, and the per-case Hardware Status, see STATE.md — those volatile/shared facts live there and are not re-enumerated here.

Status Snapshot

• Public release is still BETA-12 (shipped 2026-06-18; BETA-11 2026-06-15). BETA-13 is the in-progress rolling candidate, not yet cut. The active dev branch is BETA-13-PLAY (created off BETA-12-PLAY @8d1e67a); BETA-12-PLAY is now archival/frozen. rolling-release.yml was repiped to publish from BETA-13-PLAY (tip moves per push; see git log).
• The 2026-06 (BETA-12-era) deliverables: HDD-resident settings save + in-app HDD .hide (boot-partition RW take-over via EnsureBootPartitionWritable), PAL native 640×512 full-screen render + auto-revert display-change confirm, the bdma_mode.txt marker rename (legacy names still read), the POPSTARTER Memory Card Folder toggle + BDMA⟺folder interlock, the launch-args auto-launch consumer, and the live CI luac syntax gate. See STATE.md > Repo-Verified Runtime State for the detail.
• The BETA-13 session added: gated analog-stick→d-pad fold + frame-counted nav auto-repeat + frame-counted description scroll (all hardware-confirmed), the Boot sound On/Off setting (hardware-confirmed), the layered cover_default.png + cover_missing.png cover placeholder (replacing the removed MISSING.png, −62 KB ELF), the OPL-style Overscan (CRT inset) render-inset adjuster, the HDD save-after-scan fix + Proposal A scan-slot steering, a 6-finding Codex audit pass, and POPSTARTER.ELF / SMB-pack release-zip packaging. See STATE.md > Repo-Verified Runtime State.
• Hardware status, preservation contracts, and known issues are tracked in STATE.md — see STATE.md > Reported Hardware Status, > Preservation Contracts, and > Known Issues. In short: D-10/D-14/D-15, DKWDRV-from-MC, and BOOT.ELF-from-USB (L-07) remain hardware-PASS contracts; U-10 (BOOT.ELF from HDD-booted POPSLoader), DKWDRV-from-custom-HDD-path, and the Class-A HOSDmenu / some-wLE start failures are now RESOLVED (no longer known-broken); the 2026-06 HDD/PAL/BDMA features are implemented / boot on PCSX2 / HDD RW confirmed on hardware (provato) / full flow validating on hardware.
• CAUTION — load-order regression risk. A boot brick (PLDR.HDD methods defined before PLDR.HDD existed) made recent HDD-feature rolling builds un-bootable; fixed d4b04be (2026-06-17). Runtime nil-global / type / load-order errors are invisible to luac -p and CI — only the syntax gate is automated. Re-test HDD-feature builds on PCSX2/hardware before trusting a green CI.

Infrastructure landed post-release:
- .github/workflows/rolling-release.yml — automated rolling-release artifact publication on push to BETA-13-PLAY and on PR events.
- docs/archive/DOCUMENTATION_FOLLOWUP_AUDIT.md — handoff plan for the post-BETA-10-5 doc cleanup work (now completed; see "Documentation cleanup" under Secondary Work).

HDD (exFAT), SMB (v1), ILINK remain intentionally unimplemented menu entries.

Immediate Priorities

1) Cut BETA-13

• The BETA-13 input/UX/cover work is in and the headline items are hardware-confirmed: up/down + analog-stick nav land on individual items with smooth continuous scroll (oldman63), boot sound saves and survives reboot (oldman63), and "everything working fantastically" on the latest rolling (Nuno6573). See STATE.md > Reported Hardware Status.
• Remaining BETA-13 eyeballs before the cut (none currently believed broken — all "awaiting a look"): the Overscan (CRT inset) render-inset on a real CRT; the cover_default.png + cover_missing.png overlay registration against the jewel-case window on both NTSC and PAL; the description right-stick scroll feel; and the HDD Proposal A scan-slot steering (deliberate HW test — see #5 below).
• Cutting BETA-13 needs the tree-adopting merge to master (the proven -s ours + read-tree + verify-empty-diff mechanic; master diverges from the dev branch, so a plain merge is wrong). See the release git-mechanics captured for BETA-12.

2) os.clock() timer-unit sweep

• Root-cause fact (also recorded in DECISIONS / ARCHITECTURE / AGENTS): Timer.getTime() returns microseconds on PS2 (it is a raw clock() tick; CLOCKS_PER_SEC is 1e6 on the ee toolchain). The UI historically treated it as milliseconds, so every _ms timing ran ~1000× too fast. Nav auto-repeat and description scroll were already moved to frame-counting (the canonical Enceladus idiom — sibling launchers OSDMenu-Configurator and RETROLauncher frame-count too), which fixed the visible breakage.
• Still on the µs-as-ms footing, masked (not visibly broken) by a per-frame clamp: the MIN_ACTION_MS = 220 action debounce (bin/POPSLDR/ui.lua:622, gated against max_step ≈ 33 ms dt clamps) and the transition / carousel timers. The proposed fix is a sweep to os.clock() (stock Lua, returns seconds, already pre-converted, currently unused anywhere in bin/POPSLDR/*.lua).

3) Settings UI redesign (Berion mockup) — gated

• Blocked on Berion's mockup PNGs landing at C:\Users\natha\Documents\assets\ and being committed to docs/mockups/. Without the visual oracle, the Lua port is hard to start.
• The original launch-path hardware blockers (D-10/D-14/D-15/DKWDRV-MC/BOOT.ELF, and now U-10) are settled. However, the 2026-06 HDD-resident settings save, in-app HDD .hide, and PAL-512 features are still validating on hardware (boot on PCSX2; HDD RW confirmed on hardware by provato; full flows not yet broadly hardware-confirmed). Per the maintainer, don't kick off the redesign until those settle, so the redesign builds on a verified settings/persistence base. See STATE.md > Reported Hardware Status.
• Scope: Context menu, Settings (per-category pages superseding the OPL focused-list), Joypad configuration, On-screen keyboard. Boot/splash and game list are out of scope.
• Full implementation prompt and per-screen pixel specs live in docs/archive/GUI_OVERHAUL_PROMPT.md.

4) Layer C full lazy IRX loading

• Precursor (pre-IRX device classification hint) landed in PR #458.
• mmceman deferral — SHIPPED (PR #471, merged; commit d10ec56). MMCE boots load mmceman eagerly (gate at src/main.cpp:503); USB/MC/MX4SIO/HDD boots defer it and lazy-load on demand via PLDR.EnsureMmceReadyOnce() (bin/POPSLDR/system.lua:1206 — System.ensureMmceman + System.reinitPad). MMCE pad-input behavior hardware-confirmed (FifthFox, commit 9f2d550). The vendored mmceman blob was later dropped in favor of ps2sdk's mmceman (no iop/embed/mmceman.irx in-tree).
• ds34bt deferral (Bluetooth pads) — queued. Needs a settings toggle ("Enable BT Pads", default off) or auto-detect, otherwise it breaks BT-pad-only users.
• usbd deferral — queued, HIGH RISK. ds34usb (USB DS3/4 pads, the most common pad type) depends on usbd. Without usbd, USB pads stop working. Cannot ship without a robust opt-in or careful boot-time decision.
• Expected gain per the audit in docs/archive/LAUNCH_HYGIENE.md: 30-50% pre-Lua startup time reduction once all three deferrals land.

5) Display, HDD, and UX verification

• Overscan (CRT inset) — new OPL-style render-inset shipped but not yet eyeballed on a CRT. Screen.setOverscan(permille) / getOverscan() (src/luaScreen.cpp) drive a graphics.cpp transform that wraps every gsKit_prim_* draw site in OVX()/OVY() (identity at permille 0, so inert by default; math identical to OPL rmSetOverscan). The live adjuster is Settings → "Overscan (CRT inset)" (bin/POPSLDR/ui.lua:3632, ±5 step, live preview, discard restores). Confirm the inset on a real CRT.
• HDD Proposal A — the game scan now steers off the live boot pfs slot (b159a43; the boot/settings partition lives on the boot slot, "NEVER reuse"), and the boot RW mount is re-validated on the save path so settings save after a scan (8d1e67a). Still wants a deliberate HW test (Nuno) that game partitions still mount/list when forced off the boot slot. See STATE.md and memory reference-hdd-pfs-slot-model.
• U-06 targets the PAL native 640×512 full-screen render (the menu fills the screen, no letterbox; NTSC is 640×448). On PAL hardware confirm the full-screen fill and the auto-revert display-change confirm prompt (reverts if the new mode isn't confirmed, like OPL). See STATE.md > Reported Hardware Status (U-06 row).
• Re-run U-08 / U-09 on slower/large libraries to judge whether busy overlays communicate activity clearly enough.

6) Coverage and documentation

• Add concrete run logs for: D-13 device switching without runtime locks, S-09 keyboard layout persistence, U-11 boot-device label display.

Resolved Since BETA-10-5 (no longer blocking)

The items previously parked here as "pragmatically accepted / known-broken" are now resolved — see STATE.md > Known Issues (Recently resolved) and > Reported Hardware Status for the canonical record:

• U-10 BOOT.ELF from HDD-booted POPSLoader — RESOLVED via PR #479 (reboot_iop=0). Investigation archived under docs/archive/U10_INVESTIGATION.md.
• DKWDRV from custom HDD path — RESOLVED via PRs #486/#487 (partition-aware path + live pfs-slot scan).
• Class-A start failures (HOSDmenu / some wLaunchELF builds) — RESOLVED (maintainer-confirmed 2026-06-15).
• HDD read-write — achieved via the EnsureBootPartitionWritable boot-partition remount take-over (the launcher owns its boot pfs slot and remounts it RW), not the old ps2hdd-osd.irx → ps2hdd.irx IRX-swap probe. provato confirmed the HDD is RW-writable on real hardware; the old swap-probe item is dropped. HDD-resident settings save + in-app HDD .hide now ship on this path (still validating the full flow on hardware).

Secondary Work

1) Unimplemented menu paths

• HDD (exFAT), SMB (v1), ILINK — intentionally not implemented; surface "not supported" if entered.

2) Art/asset behavior

• Keep current cover behavior stable: sidecar PNG beside the selected .VCD, plus hdd0:__common/POPS/ART/<title>.png for HDD titles.
• The no-cover / preview-off cover box now draws the layered cover_default.png base (+ cover_missing.png overlay when a game has no cover); MISSING.png was removed and is no longer a fallback anywhere; default.png stays an optional legacy cover override. The canonical detail (asset layering, the embed-mechanism's 3 coordinated edit sites, the ELF-size delta) lives in STATE.md > Cover art — don't re-enumerate it here.

3) Install/build clarity

• Keep CI package layout and docs synchronized.
• ps2dev/ps2dev image is pinned to v2.0.0 in .github/workflows/compilation.yml and .github/workflows/rolling-release.yml (post-release pin at commit ba8f0d0).
• The embedded-Lua syntax gate (luac5.4 -p on bin/POPSLDR/*.lua + etc/boot.lua) is now LIVE — it used to silently skip because the ps2dev image shipped no luac; the workflows now apk add lua5.4 and hard-fail on a syntax error. It catches SYNTAX only — runtime nil-global / type / load-order errors stay invisible to CI (see the d4b04be load-order boot brick). See STATE.md > CI / release.
• Rolling release workflow publishes a single POPSLOADER-rolling-release.zip asset to the canonical rolling-release GitHub Release; both push-to-BETA-13-PLAY and PR events overwrite the same asset (last-write-wins).
• Redistributable launcher in the zips. POPSTARTER.ELF (the redistributable POPStarter homebrew launcher — the POPS engine binaries are not redistributable and are not shipped) now ships in both zips: rolling-release.yml puts it at the zip root next to POPSLOADER.ELF and in POPS/, and also ships a POPSTARTER/ pack folder (BDMA/SMB modules) + POPS/PATCH_5.BIN at the rolling root; compilation.yml (the strict-verified PS1_POPSLOADER/ install zip) ships POPSTARTER.ELF in PS1_POPSLOADER/ (next to POPSLOADER.ELF) and POPS/.

4) Settings UI redesign

• 2026-05-19/20 OPL-style focused-list shipped (Settings page rewrite). Hardware verification deferred per the launch-path retest sequence.
• Berion-mockup-driven GUI overhaul is queued (see #5 below). The OPL focused list is intended to be replaced when that overhaul lands, so further iteration on the focused list is paused unless a specific bug appears.

5) Full GUI overhaul (Berion mockups)

• 2026-05-24: graphics-team mockups by Berion and the matching PNG asset set landed (f8fec64). Full implementation prompt and per-screen pixel specs live in docs/archive/GUI_OVERHAUL_PROMPT.md.
• Scope: Context menu, Settings (per-category pages superseding the OPL focused-list), Joypad configuration, On-screen keyboard. Boot/splash and game list are out of scope.
• Prereq: the launch-path hardware verification (DKWDRV-on-HDD, wLaunchELF, U-10) has now settled — all resolved (see STATE.md > Known Issues). The remaining gate is the 2026-06 HDD-resident settings save + in-app HDD .hide + PAL-512 features, which are still validating on hardware; the category-page Settings model in the prompt replaces the OPL focused-list, so coordinate retest sequencing once those settle.
• Mockup HTML/JSX wrapper from Berion's package is referenced by the prompt but not yet committed; either commit the mockup files or use a screenshot/hosted-mockup oracle before starting the Lua port.

6) Documentation cleanup (per docs/archive/DOCUMENTATION_FOLLOWUP_AUDIT.md) — DONE 2026-06-17

• Completed 2026-06-17. The doc set was consolidated: the volatile status facts were merged into the canonical STATE.md (including the former TRUTHSHEET.md), the obsolete/superseded docs were archived under docs/archive/, and the doc set was de-duplicated so each fact lives in exactly one place. The original three-PR plan (source-of-truth sync, agent/handoff cleanup, architecture/component/release polish) is folded into this consolidation.
• Was out of scope (and stayed so): any change to runtime code or to CI/build/release workflows; this was doc-only.

Deferred Ideas

• Additional themes/skins.
• Broader network/backend support after SMB and ILINK have defined baselines.
• More ambitious artwork cache policy after current launch/runtime issues are stable.