Glossary

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On the disc · In the code · On screen · In the game · In the project

On the disc

PROT.DAT

The game's main archive: 1233 numbered entries holding nearly every asset and every code overlay. Pages cite an entry as PROT 0898. More

CDNAME

CDNAME.TXT, the developers' name map for PROT entries. Its numbers are in-RAM table indices, so the named content sits two entries earlier in an extraction; a CDNAME label is a hint, not a verdict. More

LZS

Legaia's compression, a 4 KB ring-buffer scheme. Almost any bytes decompress without error, so decoded output is always checked for a known signature. More

DATA_FIELD

The streaming container most entries use: a run of chunks, each led by a one-word header of type and length. More

Pack

The one pack format: a count, then a table of word offsets. Texture packs and model packs are this format behind a DATA_FIELD chunk header. More

Scene

One loadable place (a town, a dungeon floor, a stretch of world map) and the block of PROT entries that makes it up, named by a short id such as town01. More

MAN

A scene's script-and-placement file: actors, walk-on triggers, the field scripts and the scene's banner name. More

TIM

The PlayStation's texture file: pixel indices plus, optionally, a palette, with the VRAM position each is uploaded to. More

CLUT

Colour look-up table: a 16- or 256-entry palette. At draw time it is read from VRAM, not from the texture's file, which is why one texture can wear many palettes. More

TMD

The model format. Legaia's is a custom variant with its own primitive grouping. More

ANM

The animation container for field actors and the party. More

VAB / SEQ

A sound bank of instrument samples, and a sequenced music track that plays through one. Legaia's SEQ differs from the stock format in its header and its meta events. More

XA

Streamed CD audio interleaved on the disc: voice lines and movie soundtracks. More

STR / MDEC

The movie files and the PlayStation's video decoder. Legaia's movies use the Iki bitstream. More

MES

A dialog text container. More

In the code

SCUS_942.54

The game's executable on the USA disc. It holds the engine core and the static tables; most game logic is elsewhere, in overlays. More

Overlay

A block of code streamed from PROT.DAT into RAM when a mode needs it (the field, a battle, the menu) and replaced when it does not. A routine with no caller in the executable is usually called from one. More

Cast module

One of 64 small overlays, each the program for a summon or special attack, paged in for the length of the cast. More

FUN_80xxxxxx

Ghidra's name for a routine: the address of its first instruction. Addresses from 0x801C0000 up are in an overlay, so the same address can mean different routines in different modes. More

Field VM

The interpreter for scene scripts: dialogue, doors, cutscenes, story flags. More

Move VM

The interpreter for effect and ambient-animation programs, shared by the field and battle. More

Story flag

One bit of the save's flag bank. Scripts set and test them; they are what the game remembers of the story. More

Battle context (ctx)

The block of memory a battle allocates for itself. Pages write a field as ctx[+0x07], an offset into it. More

Command flow

The battle state machine that asks the player what to do: the round prompt, the command ring, the target cursor. More

Action state machine

The battle state machine that plays a chosen action out: the walk-in, the swings or the cast, the damage, the walk back. More

On screen

VRAM

The PlayStation's video memory, one 1024x512 sheet holding the framebuffer, every texture page and every palette. More

GTE

The PlayStation's geometry coprocessor: rotates, projects and depth-averages vertices in fixed point. More

Ordering table

The array of depth buckets every drawn packet is linked into; the GPU walks it far to near. It is the console's substitute for a depth buffer. More

Depth cue

The blend of a primitive's colour toward a far colour with distance; the game's fog. More

Dither

The 4x4 pattern added before colours are cut to 15 bits; the fine cross-hatch on a retail gradient. More

Vsync, pass, frame step

A vsync is one screen refresh. A pass is one run of the game's per-frame logic. The frame step is how many vsyncs the game decided a pass should span, from one to four, according to how costly recent frames were. More

PSX mode

The port's opt-in retail rasterisation: vertices snapped to the 320x240 grid, the console's sort order and its dither. Off, the port draws clean at the window's resolution. More

In the game

Seru

The creatures the party absorbs to learn magic. A Ra-Seru is one of the three bonded to Vahn, Noa and Gala. More

Tactical Arts

Combo attacks entered as a string of directions. A Miracle Art or Super Art is a longer string that triggers a special finisher. More

AP gauge

The per-turn pool of action points the Arts command spends: each direction pressed costs some, so the pool sets how many fit in one turn. More

In the project

Retail

The original game as shipped, and its measured behaviour. The reference every claim is held to. More

Port

The from-scratch Rust engine that plays the game from a disc image the user supplies. It contains none of the original code. More

Host

A program the engine runs inside: the native window, the browser play page, the minigames page. More

Faithful mode, enhancement

Faithful mode reproduces retail and is what the checks measure. An enhancement (lighting, see-through walls) is a toggle layered on top that changes nothing when off. More

Save state

An emulator's snapshot of the whole console. The project reads retail's memory and video memory out of them. More

Oracle

A check that compares the port with something retail produced, as opposed to with the port's own earlier output. More

Still, film

A still compares one instant against a save state. A film compares a stretch of time, frame by frame, against an emulator recording. More

Kernel differential

Running one of retail's own routines off the disc in an interpreter beside the Rust function that claims to port it, on the same inputs. More

Ratchet, baseline

A check that fails when a measured number gets worse than the committed one (the baseline). More

Full-game ladder

The automated run from New Game to the credits, cut into segments anchored on retail saves. More

Evidence grade

What a claim rests on: disassembly (the strongest), capture, decompiled-C or inference. More

Disc-gated test

A test that needs the user's disc image and skips without it, so the public build runs with no game data. More

Patcher, PPF

The tool that edits a user's own disc image (randomizer, mods, translations), and the small patch file it can emit in place of a whole image. More

Expansion pack

New content for the port (maps, quests, fights) as a folder of text files that point at the user's disc and carry none of it. More