WeirdUtils/RELEASE_NOTES.md

Unreleased Changes

Track notable changes here between releases. Clear this file when cutting a new release (move contents into the release notes on Codeberg).

What's New

• World Markers - place up to 5 animated Cataclysm-style markers at any position in the world. Slash commands (/wm 1, /cwm), keybindings, full Lua API, and automatic group sync between WeirdUtils users. Requires party/raid leader or raid assist.

• DPSLog (COMBAT_LOG_EVENT) - WotLK 3.3.5 CLEU parity for vanilla 1.12.1. 37 subevents across 24 hooks with full structured data: source/dest names via name cache, spell names via SpellRec, overkill/overheal from unit descriptors, WotLK-standard field ordering (blocked before absorbed, separate glancing/crushing booleans). Drain Life reclassified as SPELL_PERIODIC_LEECH. SPELL_ENERGIZE with actual amount/powerType via dedicated SMSG_SPELLENERGIZELOG hook. Periodic energize divides by power display factor (rage/10). Includes GetSpellInfo(spellId) Lua API (name, rank, icon, castTime, minRange, maxRange) with verified SpellRec/SpellIcon/SpellRange/SpellCastTimes DBC offsets. Embedded tracker addon (/dpslog). Full event reference in wiki.

• Interact - smart interaction helpers: "Interact Nearest" right-clicks the closest interactable NPC or object within 5 yards, "Loot All Corpses" bulk loots nearby corpses. Keybindings and Lua API. Already documented in DLL_README but not yet released.

• Crash Fix (framecrash) - prevents crashes from stale UI frame anchor pointers. Already documented in DLL_README but not yet released.

• Outlines - renders glowing colored outlines around units. Already documented in DLL_README but not yet released.

• Addon Profiling Stub (addonperf) - TBC+ addon CPU profiling API stub (GetScriptCPUUsage). Internal/experimental, not in DLL_README.

• Minimap Quest Tracking - shows nearby NPCs with available quests (yellow !) on the minimap. Reads the per-player quest status cached on unit objects by the client's SMSG_QUESTGIVER_STATUS handler. Enabled by default in the tracking dropdown, togglable like other NPC tracking categories.

Enhancements

• Clickthrough: Lootable corpses now click-through over players. Previously only interactable NPCs (vendors, quest givers) and game objects would win over a blocking player. Now dead units with the lootable flag are also prioritized, so you can loot corpses through the player crowd without having to reposition.

• World Markers: Disabled in battlegrounds via Map.dbc mapType check. Markers cannot be placed while in a battleground instance.

• Clickthrough: Reduced log noise -- logging changed from file to console-only. Also ignores assets_backup directories in custom asset scanning.

Bug Fixes

• World Markers: Fixed marker placement over game objects -- re-raycast now uses terrain-only flags to find the ground position beneath a GO, instead of placing the marker at the GO's collision point.

• DPSLog: Fixed dynamic event slot search and environmental damage parameter ordering.

• Addon System: Fixed addon files not loading -- switched from @hasField to @hasDecl for compile-time module introspection.

Internal / Performance

• Transform44 Profiling - render pipeline profiling module with 39 hotspot hooks, A/B testing framework for comparing baseline vs optimized code paths, SSE replacements for ClipPolygonToSinglePlane (4x), BuildTrianglePlanes (10x), rotateMatrixByAxisAngle (4.3x), RayTriangleIntersection (1.3x), multiplyMatrix4x4 (4.3x).

• VanillaFixes Math Polyfill - 17 UnitXP x87 FPU replacement hooks verified via Ghidra prologue/epilogue disassembly and benchmarked against original WoW.exe bytes. Hooks install in lateInit() to clobber UnitXP's hooks with correct calling conventions (thiscall vs fastcall verified from assembly). A/B tested via bitmask toggle.

  Micro-benchmark results (x86 Linux harness, original x87 bytes mmap'd executable):

  Winners (SSE faster):          Neutral (~1.0x):            Losers (x87 faster):
  rotMat3x3:       2.1x (158->72)   matMulVec3:  1.0x         dotProduct:       0.4x (5->11)
  rotMat4x4:       2.1x (162->76)   multiply3x3: 1.0x         evaluatePolynomial: 0.6x (11->16)
  planeNormal:     1.7x (58->33)    crossProduct: 1.0x        squaredMagnitude:  0.7x (7->9)
  transformAABox:  1.2x (89->69)    applyTranslation: 0.9x    vec3MulScalar:     0.8x
  vecMulMat4:      1.1x             scaleByVec:  0.9x         vec3MulAssign:     0.8x
  scaleByScalar:   1.1x (some runs)                            quatMulMat4:       0.8x
  

  Losers are at function call overhead floor (original x87 is 5-11 cycles, close to bare CALL/RET cost). Future direction: patch original bytes in-place at load time to eliminate call overhead entirely.

  Also includes CriticalSection SpinCount=4000 optimization (from UnitXP) and blit_hub memcpy fast paths for matching pixel formats.

• Math SSE Benchmark Harness (zig build bench / zig build run-bench) - standalone x86 Linux micro-benchmark that extracts original x87 function bytes from WoW.exe via Ghidra, mmaps them executable, and profiles against our SSE replacements. Fresh data each iteration to avoid overflow/denormal artifacts. Correctness validation included.

• Glyph Shadow Cache - direct-mapped O(1) bypass for the game's 4-bucket hash table in GetOrCreateCharacterGlyph. Reduces glyph lookup from ~3.65% frame time.

• MPQ File Cache (filecache) - 2-way set-associative cache for File_FindInArchive (0x6549a0). Skips the MPQ chain walk and per-archive hash table probe on repeat file opens. Cache hits cost ~1000 cycles vs ~30000 cycles for full search. 60-90% hit rate during gameplay, saving 6-160ms per 15s reporting period depending on scene load. Validated via game's own FindAndIncrementResourceReference to handle archive lifecycle.

• Timer Fix (VanillaFixes port) - TSC calibration, OS timer resolution (0.5ms via NtSetTimerResolution), and Windows 11 power throttling disable. Ported from hannesmann/vanillafixes. Primarily benefits native Windows; no measurable impact on Wine/Linux but applied unconditionally.

• MPQ File Cache - hooks File_FindInArchive (0x6549a0) to cache archive lookup results. First open does full MPQ chain walk (~60K cycles), subsequent opens hit direct-mapped cache with filename verification (~300 cycles). 80% hit rate in testing. Moved from standalone file_perf module to transform44 sub-module (file_cache.zig).

• Logging Module - centralized logging with auto-prefix, file and/or console routing. All modules now route output through the shared Logger.

• Addon System Refactor - module list now derived from build.zig, inactive addon prefixes pruned at runtime. Fully data-driven.

• Shared Offsets - consolidated shared game offsets and accessor functions into offsets.zig and wow.zig, eliminating per-module duplication.

• Build System - default optimize changed from Debug to ReleaseFast (works around Zig fastcall inreg LLVM bug). Logging available in all modes except ReleaseSmall.

To Explore

• Driver env vars on load - set environment variables like RADV_TEX_ANISO=16 from the DLL at load time, allowing driver-level anisotropic filtering while setting the in-game option to off/low. Avoids the double-filtering performance hit of game AF stacked on top of driver AF. Same approach could apply to other Mesa/RADV/DXVK knobs.

DLL_README Gaps

Features documented in DLL_README but never included in a release:

• World Markers
• Outlines
• Interact
• Crash Fix (framecrash)

Features implemented but not yet documented in DLL_README:

• Clickthrough lootable corpse priority
• World Markers battleground restriction