SHBIN

The SHBIN (SHader BINary) format is used to contain compiled and linked shader programs. These can include vertex shaders and geometry shaders. In commercial applications, SHBIN files can be found as standalone files with the extension .shbin, or within container formats like, for example, CGFX (with the extension .bcsdr). They are typically compiled from .vsh files, .gsh files, and sometimes .asm files.

A SHBIN's structure starts with a binary header (DVLB), then a single program header (DVLP), then one or more executable headers DVLE(s). The binary header specifies the number and location of DVLEs. The program header specifies the generic parts of the shader (i.e. the shader program data, the operand descriptor data, and a filename symbol table). The executable headers specify the contextual details (i.e. entry point, constant values, debug symbols, etc). There may be multiple executable headers, so in this sense multiple shaders sharing the same program code can be stored in a single SHBIN. Hence for the following, note the distinction between "program" and "executable".

For a description of the instruction set, see the following page : Shader Instruction Set

Header

Offset	Size	Description
0x0	0x4	Magic "DVLB"
0x4	0x4	N = number of DVLEs in SHBIN
0x8	0x4*N	DVLE offset table; each offset is a u32 relative to the start of the DVLB section

The DVLP section comes directly after the binary header.

DVLP

Offset	Size	Description
0x0	0x4	Magic "DVLP"
0x4	0x4	Unknown, same value as in DVLE. (Likely a version number)
0x8	0x4	Offset (relative to DVLP start) to the compiled shader binary blob
0xC	0x4	Size of compiled shader binary blob, in words
0x10	0x4	Offset (relative to DVLP start) to operand descriptor table
0x14	0x4	Number of operand descriptor table entries (each entry is 8-bytes long)
0x18	0x4	Unknown (Same value as offset to filename symbol table?)
0x1C	0x4	Unknown (Always zero?)
0x20	0x4	Offset (relative to DVLP start) to filename symbol table
0x24	0x4	Size of filename symbol table

DVLE

Offset	Size	Description
0x0	0x4	Magic "DVLE"
0x4	0x2	Unknown, same value as in DVLP. (Likely a version number)
0x6	0x1	Shader type (0x0 = vertex shader, 0x1 = geometry shader; might contain other flags)
0x7	0x1	true = merge vertex and geometry shader outmaps (geometry shader)
0x8	0x4	Executable's main offset in binary blob (in words)
0xC	0x4	Executable's program's endmain offset in binary blob (in words)
0x10	0x2	Bitmask of used input registers
0x12	0x2	Bitmask of used output registers
0x14	0x1	Geometry shader type (point = 0x0, variable/subdivide = 0x1, fixed/particle = 0x2)
0x15	0x1	Starting float constant register number for storing the fixed-size primitive vertex array (geometry shader, fixed mode)
0x16	0x1	Number of fully-defined vertices in the variable-size primitive vertex array (geometry shader, variable mode)
0x17	0x1	Number of vertices in the fixed-size primitive vertex array (geometry shader, fixed mode)
0x18	0x4	Offset (relative to DVLE start) to constant table
0x1C	0x4	Number of entries in constant table (each entry is 0x14-byte long)
0x20	0x4	Offset (relative to DVLE start) to label table
0x24	0x4	Number of entries in label table (each entry is 0x10-byte long)
0x28	0x4	Offset (relative to DVLE start) to output register table
0x2C	0x4	Number of entries in output register table (each entry is 0x8-byte long)
0x30	0x4	Offset (relative to DVLE start) to uniform table
0x34	0x4	Number of entries in uniform table (each entry is 0x8-byte long)
0x38	0x4	Offset (relative to DVLE start) to symbol table
0x3C	0x4	Size of symbol table (in bytes)

Label Table Entry

Offset	Size	Description
0x0	0x2	Label ID
0x0	0x2	Unknown (always 1?)
0x4	0x4	Offset (relative to shader program blob start) to label's location, in words
0x8	0x4	Size of label's location (in words). 0xFFFFFFFF/(uint32_t)-1 if there is no size.
0xC	0x4	Offset (relative to DVLE symbol table start) to label's symbol

Constant Table Entry

Each executable's constants are stored in a constant table. This information is used by ctrulib's SHDR framework to automatically send those values to the GPU when changing to a given program. An entry is constituted by a header and the constant data, the latter of which uses a format specific to the constant type.

Offset	Size	Description
0x0	0x1	Constant type (0=bool, 1=ivec4, 2=vec4)
0x2	0x1	Constant register ID

Corresponding constant entry formats:

Offset	Size	Description
0x0	0x1	0x0
0x2	0x1	Boolean constant register ID
0x4	0x1	Value (boolean)

Offset	Size	Description
0x0	0x1	0x1
0x2	0x1	Integer constant register ID
0x4	0x1	x (u8)
0x5	0x1	y (u8)
0x6	0x1	z (u8)
0x7	0x1	w (u8)

Offset	Size	Description
0x0	0x1	0x2
0x2	0x1	floating-point constant register ID
0x4	0x4	x (float24)
0x8	0x4	y (float24)
0xC	0x4	z (float24)
0x10	0x4	w (float24)

Output Table Entry

Offset	Size	Description
0x0	0x2	Output type (see table below)
0x2	0x2	Register ID
0x4	0x2	Output attribute component mask (e.g. 5=xz)
0x6	0x2	Unknown (Consistently the same number throughout the entire shader?)

Output types :

Type	Description
0x0	result.position
0x1	result.normalquat
0x2	result.color
0x3	result.texcoord0
0x4	result.texcoord0w
0x5	result.texcoord1
0x6	result.texcoord2
0x7	?
0x8	result.view

Uniform Table Entry

Keep in mind that the usage of the term "Uniform" here is used as defined by Nvidia (variable who obtains its initial value from an external environment) and not as defined by RenderMan/GLSL (variables whose values are constant over a shaded surface).

The uniform table contains a list of all registers whose initial values are derived by an external source along with their layout and associated symbol.

Offset	Size	Description
0x0	0x4	Offset (relative to DVLE symbol table start) to variable's symbol
0x4	0x2	Register index of the start of the uniform
0x6	0x2	Register index of the end of the uniform (equal to start register for non-arrays)

The register indices refer to a unified register space for non-output registers. The mapping of register index values to registers is the following:

Values	Registers
0x00-0x0F	v0-v15
0x10-0x6F	c0-c95
0x70-0x73	i0-i3
0x78-0x87	b0-b15

DVOJ

There is another file format for shaders, which starts with the string "DVOJ". This format seems to be used for unlinked shader objects. It seems likely that one or multiple DVOJs can be linked to a DVLB file, similarly to the C compilation model.

Structurally, a DVOJ header captures all information there is about a single shader instance. It uses the same fields like the DVLB, DVLP, and DVLE structures, but also stores two unknown blocks of data. It seems that the entry point of a DVOJ is always the first shader instruction.

All offsets in the following table are given relative to the DVOJ start.

Offset	Size	Description
0x00	0x4	Magic "DVOJ"
0x04	0x4	Unknown. Seems to be related to the DVLE shader type.
0x08	0x4	Unknown.
0x0C	0x4	Padding? (usually 0xFFFFFFFF)
0x10	0x4	Offset to constant table
0x14	0x4	Number of entries in constant table (each entry is 0x14-byte long)
0x18	0x4	Offset to label table
0x1C	0x4	Number of entries in label table (each entry is 0x10-byte long)
0x20	0x4	Offset to the compiled shader binary blob
0x24	0x4	Size of compiled shader binary blob, in words
0x28	0x4	Offset (relative to DVLP start) to shader instruction extension table
0x2C	0x4	Number of shader instruction extension table entries (each entry is 8-byte long)
0x30	0x4	Offset to unknown block 1
0x34	0x4	Number of items in unknown block 1 (each item is 8-byte long). This seems to be equal to the total number of instructions.
0x38	0x4	Offset to unknown block 2
0x3C	0x4	Number of items in unknown block 2 (each item is 12-byte long). This seems to be equal to the number of instructions taking arguments (i.e. excluding NOP, END, ...)
0x40	0x4	Offset to output register table
0x44	0x4	Number of entries in output register table (each entry is 0x8-byte long)
0x48	0x4	Offset to uniform table
0x4C	0x4	Number of entries in uniform table (each entry is 0x8-byte long)
0x50	0x4	Offset to symbol table
0x54	0x4	Size of symbol table (in bytes)

Unknown Block 1 Item

A wild guess is that this denotes shader source line information. Take the information with a grain of salt, though, since it hasn't been backed by any empirical data so far.

The index N of the item within Unknown Block 1 corresponds to the Nth instruction in the shader binary.

Offset	Size	Description
0x0	0x4	Byte offset within symbol table pointing to a source shader filename.
0x4	0x4	Line number of the corresponding shader instruction within the shader source code.

Unknown Block 2 Item

Offset	Size	Description
0x0	0x4	This seems to be an index of a shader instruction. All non-nullary instructions seem to be referenced exactly once.
0x4	0x4
0x8	0x4