Known Issues & TODO

This page tracks current limitations, known issues, and planned improvements for the Simulant engine.

Current Limitations

Rendering

• Maximum Light Count: Platform-dependent light limits (Dreamcast: 2 lights, PSP: 4 lights, Desktop: unlimited)
• Texture Size Limits: Maximum texture size varies by platform (Dreamcast: 1024px, PSP: 512px power-of-two only)
• No Real-time Global Illumination: Lighting is direct only; no baked or real-time GI
• Shadow Maps: Limited shadow map support; no cascaded shadow maps

Physics

• Collision Layers: Simple bit-flag based filtering; no complex collision matrices
• Joint Types: Limited to sphere joints; no hinge, slider, or 6DOF joints yet
• Soft Bodies: No soft body or cloth physics simulation

Audio

• 3D Sound: Basic positional audio with distance attenuation; no HRTF or advanced spatialization
• Streaming: Large audio files are streamed, but seek performance can be improved

Platform-Specific

Dreamcast

• OGG Vorbis decoding not supported; WAV only due to RAM constraints
• Custom shaders not supported (GLdc uses fixed-function pipeline)
• Asset embedding into ELF required; no file system access

PSP

• OGG format not supported; WAV only
• Textures must be power-of-two and max 512px
• Audio subsystem partially implemented

TODO / Planned Features

High Priority

• [ ] Improved shadow system (cascaded shadow maps)
• [ ] Post-processing effects pipeline
• [ ] GPU instancing improvements
• [ ] Better mobile/device support

Medium Priority

• [ ] Additional physics joint types (hinge, slider, 6DOF)
• [ ] Vehicle physics
• [ ] Particle system editor tool
• [ ] Asset pipeline improvements

Low Priority

• [ ] Vulkan renderer backend
• [ ] WebAssembly export
• [ ] Networking/multiplayer support
• [ ] Advanced animation blending

Reporting Issues

If you encounter a bug or limitation not listed here, please report it on the GitLab Issues page.

Contributing

We welcome contributions! See CONTRIBUTING.md for information on how to help implement these features.