horizon-airdef/docs/playable-validation.md

First playable release validation

Version 0.2.0 targets Minecraft 26.3 / Fabric 0.19.5 / Java 25. This is an initial playable Java optimization stack, not a completed renderer rewrite. Measurements here establish what was actually checked.

Local checks

• Official client runs through a Wayland virtual screen in built-in limited demo mode, without Microsoft credentials. Normal Mac play uses licensed Prism sign-in.

• Balanced stack (Sodium, Lithium, FerriteCore, ImmediatelyFast, EntityCulling, Distant Horizons, Fabric API, Horizon Lab) reaches the menu, loads the demo world, logs in locally, renders terrain, and saves/quits.

• DH generates and accepts the current configuration schema: 128-chunk LOD radius, two background threads at 0.5 run-time ratio, priority 3. No old-version guessed config keys.

• A missing desktop AWT component in the local headless JRE initially caused a DH cloud-texture error. Installing the complete Java 25 runtime resolved it; this was an environment issue, not a packaged mod change.

• Native libraries are chosen by OS and architecture, including ARM64 selection when the official manifest has OS-only rules. Builds use portable / ZIP paths on Windows too.

• The official Prism 11.1.1 macOS ZIP was downloaded, SHA-256 verified, and its actual app layout checked. Its launcher executable is a universal Mach-O containing x86_64 and arm64. The starter does not redistribute it or disable macOS security checks.

• Dedicated-server optimized dependencies and original mod initialize with the real server game JAR; EULA-false startup exits as expected. No license acceptance is made on the user's behalf. Integrated-server gameplay is a separate client check.

• The original recorder loads with the vanilla renderer and F8 starts/stops it during actual demo gameplay. A persistent virtual keyboard is needed on this headless compositor: removing the last temporary keyboard otherwise removes window focus and auto-pauses the game. This is a test harness detail, not a change to pause behavior or focus exclusions.

• That runtime check wrote both raw CSV/JSON pairs, containing 69 actual frame intervals and 744 actual integrated-server tick durations. GPU/backend/driver and render settings were captured. The comparison tool successfully reads these real report files. This short, cold, software-rendered run validates capture/output only; it is not a performance baseline to compare with a real Mac.

• Build/metrics/pack tests pass on actual hosted Apple Silicon macOS 26, Windows x64 and Linux x64 runners. The Windows run exposed an existing decompilation-coverage path separator mismatch; paths are now normalized to match JAR SourceFile metadata.

• 17 offline Python tests cover corrupt/cached artifacts, server extraction/traversal rejection, decompilation inventory, publication exclusions, dependency closure, safe download paths, pack format, OS/ARM native selection, and comparison mismatches.

• Original Java metrics tests cover percentiles, the average of the slowest 1% (not the reciprocal of p99), stall boundaries, bounded samples/overflow, filename sanitization, exclusions and player counts.

• Existing three Rust differential tests, formatting and Clippy checks pass. Rust kernels remain unintegrated.

• The exact published balanced pack was then re-run through real demo world rendering, with its published original mod binary checked byte-for-byte against the runtime. F8 produced nonempty frame/tick JSON and matching raw CSV; each reported sample count and mean duration were checked against the CSV.

Interpretation limits

The local Linux host uses Mesa llvmpipe software rendering. It is useful for mod/mixin/startup/report validation, not for predicting M2 Pro, Windows GPU or Linux discrete-GPU performance. Warm-up/world loading on this host is slow. Demo credentials produce expected unavailable account-properties/Realms logs, and chat availability can be restricted; the independent F8 measurement shortcut avoids relying on chat.

CI compiles/builds on Linux, Windows and Apple Silicon macOS. Successful compilation is not graphics, authentication, UI or Mac-driver runtime validation. macOS 27 and the user's actual M2 Pro have not been tested here. Optional cinematic shaders and Vulkan are experiments; the OpenGL balanced pack is the first manual test.

No numerical game speedup, least-memory claim, exhaustive vanilla equivalence, universal GPU support, or 50-active-player result is claimed. Worlds need copies, repeated matched routes and real hardware measurements before decisions about deeper replacements. New terrain generation and steady-state rendering are separate workloads.

Release content

Packs embed only the original MIT Horizon Lab JAR and config. Mod/game/library downloads retain upstream licenses and are checked against pinned hashes. No game JAR, class, decompiled source, asset, world or credential is committed or uploaded in a starter. The narrow publication allowance is for original Java under dev/horizonlab, and the built JAR checks its emitted class namespace.