Blur

Cross-platform preservation, compatibility and customization project for a locally owned copy of Blur (Bizarre Creations, 2010).

Original owned game data is treated as immutable input. The root project keeps profiles, saves, generated overlays, Wine prefixes, and diagnostics local under the platform data directory (or BLUR_HOME). The pinned native lift also maintains its own extracted/copied working files under its runtime root, so the project describes those generated copies explicitly instead of claiming that nothing is ever copied.

Two complementary runtimes are under evaluation:

1. A Unix-host Wine 32-bit fallback that runs from a per-profile generated working copy instead of the external source directory.
2. blur-web, which lifts the supported x86 executable to native code and exposes rendering/input through a browser without duplicating game logic.

CLI

The Rust 2024 blur crate is the local control plane around the pinned vendor/blur-web submodule. Build it with cargo build --release, then use:

blur doctor [--profile NAME]
blur profile create NAME [--game-dir /owned/Blur]
blur profile list
blur play [--profile NAME] [--runtime native|wine]
blur unlock [--profile NAME] authentic|all|custom [--allow cars,paint]
blur unlock [--profile NAME] --revert
blur lan doctor|discover|host|join
blur input [--profile NAME] show|set|reset|import|export|validate
blur language [--profile NAME] list|show|set|validate|import|export
blur perf [--profile NAME] [--sample-frames 120]

Profiles live under the platform-local data directory (or BLUR_HOME) with separate save/, overlay/, config/, and wine/ paths. Generated overlay files are metadata only for the native root flow. The launcher records an external game directory and never patches or rewrites the source Blur.exe, signed PAKs, or authentic saves in place; explicit generated copies may exist in native runtime roots and in the Wine working overlay.

Native lifted play is the default. --runtime wine is an explicit fallback and requires a profile created with --game-dir. Today that fallback is enforced on Unix hosts only. Existing local native-lift assets under ignored refs/blur-web are used until the pinned vendor tree has been built; source remains pinned in vendor/blur-web, while ordinary launch uses the selected runtime root rather than requiring a writable vendor checkout. Linux/Unix host flows are the active implementation target today; native Windows parity remains an explicit validation item, not a completed claim.

make check validates reproducible repository state and never requires owned proprietary data. make doctor validates this machine's external game, toolchain, and generated native runtime. make setup builds the pinned vendor/blur-web checkout; BLUR_NATIVE_ROOT is the explicit override for a separate research checkout.

Unlock commands currently implement reversible policy metadata only. Authentic, all, and custom revisions are explicit and can be reverted, but the runtime gameplay hook that enforces those policies is not complete. The CLI does not claim that content has been unlocked.

Configurable input

Each profile owns a versioned config/input.json. blur input show prints the whole effective document; set --path JSON_POINTER --value JSON performs a validated atomic edit; reset --preset authentic|modern selects an optional preset; and import, export, and validate [--runtime native|wine] provide a portable, explicit workflow. The schema represents up to four players, multiple keyboard/gamepad devices per player, selectors, digital bindings, axis routing, deadzones, saturation, inversion, linear/exponential/cubic steering curves, and configurable hotkeys. Duplicate physical sources, duplicate axes, invalid ranges, unknown targets, unsafe paths, and unsupported schema versions fail loudly before the active file is replaced. Gamepad selectors are either *, an exact browser Gamepad API id, or index:N; keyboard devices use the browser's single * seat. Editing a built-in document clears its preset marker, and Wine accepts only the exact authentic preset rather than trusting that marker.

The blur-web browser loads the selected profile through a dedicated no-cache local endpoint. It applies player-1 keyboard remaps, multiple device selectors, standard or explicit gamepad buttons, axes, deadzones and curves, and hotkeys. The current lifted host exposes only one keyboard/XInput seat: configurations for players 2-4 remain portable but native launch refuses them while enabled. Wine receives the original game input directly and cannot safely consume these browser transforms; it therefore accepts only the authentic transparent preset and refuses every non-applicable mapping instead of silently ignoring it. The complete mapping hash is included in LAN compatibility fingerprints, so behaviorally different peers are not presented as equivalent.

Language and catalogs

Each profile owns an atomic, versioned config/language.json. English is the strict canonical fallback and the built-in English and French launcher catalogs have exact 100% key coverage. blur language list|show|set manages the effective locale; validate, import, and export handle either the portable language config or, with --catalog, an extensible profile-local catalog. Unknown keys, unsafe paths, oversized files, unsupported schemas, and attempts to replace built-in catalogs fail before the active configuration changes. Locale identifiers use canonical BCP47 language/script/region/variant casing; underscores and case are normalized by language set, while imports must already be canonical. Extensions and private-use subtags are intentionally not accepted. Regional English/French tags use their base built-in catalog unless an exact profile-local catalog is installed.

The native lifted runtime receives the verified base language through BLUR_LANG and --lang; blur-web maps it to the Win32 GetUserDefaultLCID/GetUserDefaultLangID values consumed by the game and to #lang= for the browser wrapper and frame-time HUD. The Wine fallback sets LANG/LC_ALL and the isolated prefix's HKCU\\Control Panel\\International LocaleName/Locale values before launch. English (0x0409) and French (0x040c) are the currently verified runtime mappings; unsupported runtime language subtags fail before launch rather than being silently advertised as translated. The LAN language-catalog fingerprint includes the active catalog and canonical English fallback because either can change effective launcher text.

language list scans only filenames and file metadata in the external game directory, never reads or rewrites proprietary data, and distinguishes complete, partial, and unknown. A complete native-game claim requires both a recognized non-empty regular localized text catalog and the matching non-empty regular voiceoverui_<locale>.baf; empty markers provide no evidence, while a lone voice bank or ambiguous/packed PAK is partial or unknown. The known supported copy keeps localization inside signed PAKs, so complete French game text/audio is not claimed until those concrete exact-name catalog markers are actually observable.

Performance instrumentation

blur perf launches the native runtime with the existing blur-web BLUR_PROF, BLUR_FRAMESTAT, BLUR_OBJSTAT, renderer perf() rings, and HUD. Reports cover host wall/CPU time, host peak RSS where the platform exposes it, received-Present interval percentiles, renderer identity, WebGL GPU timer values when the extension is available, browser JS heap when Chromium exposes it, guest/object teardown, and time from a browser-observed input-state change to receipt of the next WebSocket batch containing a Present. The latter includes browser, transport, and scheduling delay and is explicitly an approximation: it is not display-photon latency. WebGPU currently reports its renderer and frame pacing but no GPU duration because that renderer has no equivalent timer metric. A valid release run still requires a human-driven moving race and normal shutdown; boot-only output is not a performance claim.

Same-subnet LAN

blur lan adds a small UDP discovery control protocol around the original serverless LAN transport. It has no daemon, cloud, account, relay, VPN, or port forwarding dependency. By default it selects a private broadcast-capable IPv4 interface, binds UDP 47802, advertises session/player metadata plus a verified game/runtime/input/language-catalog compatibility fingerprint plus the selected canonical BCP47 locale, and filters incompatible peers. Protocol-v1 advertisements remain safely decodable for diagnostics but are always incompatible with protocol v2. Use --bind and --port to select the discovery interface and port. A non-private address is refused unless it is explicitly selected with --allow-public, which only permits that bind choice and does not disable the same-subnet filter.

The game transport itself remains the vendor implementation on UDP 47801 and is enabled with BLUR_NET_MESH=1; the original in-game LAN host/join screens remain authoritative. blur lan join is only a compatibility preflight for selecting the expected session before entering the original LAN UI. Firewall state is diagnosed only by bind behavior and instructions: the CLI never creates or changes firewall rules.

Current limit: two physical machines still need the release-gate validation covering discover, host, join, race, disconnect, and reconnect. The CLI handshake rejects known-incompatible builds, stale/future packets, and sources outside the selected subnet policy. --allow-public only permits an explicitly selected non-private interface on that subnet; it is not authentication and is still intended only for a trusted local network.