Stefan Reinalter

Most likely the last update of the year.
I have some great things in store for you for 2026 :).

Hot-Reloading Doom on a pregnancy test next.

Baby steps :)

Please don't push my buttons :D

Surprise!
Live++ hot-reload running on SteamDeck Proton.

This is a debug build with the SteamDeck connected over Wifi. Final performance will be <1s reloads.

Curious what the response will be.
I'm usually reluctant to blame stuff on a toolchain bug, but it really looks like one in this case.

A few, yes. And motivation to write blog posts about them!

MSVC linker bug reported here:
developercommunity.visualstudio.com/t/VS-linker-...

Oh no no no...

Investigating a customer's bug report.
The PDB just came in, and after a day of looking at RVAs, symbol names, .objs, relocations, I finally saw this (note the addresses).

And how's your day going?

Planned, but no ETA yet.
Likely SteamDeck Wine/Proton first, Linux next, followed by SteamDeck Linux.

Tried my new SteamDeck today. Impressed by how easy it is to set up and run Windows executables via Proton.
Of course, Live++ uses esoteric internal Win32 APIs that apparently don't work, so I can't hot-reload on the deck (yet).

Ever wondered how to store millions of call stacks efficiently? So did we. Many times.

Check out this new article by Jelle about designing a data structure to efficiently compress and store large amounts of call stack data!

superluminal.eu/compressing-...

And I much prefer writing to videos, but that's just personal preference.

Showing how it's used feels more like marketing and less like sharing to me.
I think more people want to know about what goes on on the inside.

I've been asked quite a few times lately how certain things in Live++ work underneath, e.g. PDB loading, string lookups, performance, testing, hookikg, etc. that I think it would maybe be a good idea to start blogging again.
What do you think?

I would say it's uncountably infinite.

What's new for MSVC Build Tools The new features and fixes in the Microsoft C/C++ compiler and tools (MSVC).

learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/ov...

/DEBUG:FASTLINK is gone.
Rejoice!

"I think my pig whistles"

lol!
Wonder what the non-german speaking people make of this :D

10x creates environment that makes it impossible to run vcvars64.bat from a child process · Issue #3542 · slynch8/10x Here's an interesting issue I've been debugging all day. Background: Live++ needs to capture the environment of whatever compiler a user uses, and it does so by spawning a cmd.exe process, from wit...

This is not how I envisioned my day today:
github.com/slynch8/10x/...

What a rabbit hole. First time I've ever wanted a real-time .bat debugger in my life.

If you're a 10x subscriber, you can find some details on the Discord server.

I think on-the-fly translation of Windows code into underlying SteamOS via Proton takes quite a hit, especially compared to having access to lower-level APIs on PS5.
So I don't think it's going to be on par with a PS5. Still think it's very interesting though!

I *think* it's a C49RG something from Samsung. 49", 120Hz, HDR. It was the predecessor to the Odyssey back then.

Then I'd have to redact all the devkits, which I was too lazy to do :p

Haha, no, this is where the Live++ source lives!

Not pictured:
The rack to the right of my desk, with 6 devkits, a bunch of controllers, a monitor, an HDMI switch, a 16-port switch, and a SteamDeck.

Office desk upgrade.

If it requires several other tools, like git-bash (why?), Java (why?), chocolatey, and maybe others, I won't bother at that point. You really need to go the extra mile and give people the 'It Just Works' experience as far as possible.

Hot take: building your software for a certain OS should require *nothing* that isn't already there out of the box, and/or work with the most popular tools/IDEs.
If I want to build your software for e.g. Windows, ideally it has .bat scripts and/or a VS .sln.

Hey @code-disaster.bsky.social, can you DM me? I've been trying to reach you today, but mails keep bouncing :(.

Developer Community Developer Community

There is some traction currently on a proposal I made for the Visual Studio debugger: developercommunity.visualstudio.com/t/Consider-add…

If you're a user of Live++ and/or .natvis in general, please consider commenting and upvoting.
Thank you!

Why is *every* company on this damn planet shoving down AI our throats?

I cannot tell you how mad stuff like this makes me.