docs(fifa17): the caption path is not in CardsDLL, and a 4th definitionId check

Chased the league-logo lead to a useful boundary and stopped there.
FUN_180119bd0 — the cardtype-7 caption resolver the whole club-item story rests
on — has ZERO references anywhere in CardsDLL: no call, no jmp, address never
taken in .text/.rdata/.data. It is nonetheless a real function. An unreferenced
real function in a DLL is almost certainly an export, which puts its caller in
FIFA17.exe. So the owned cardtype-9 caption path is not in CardsDLL and looking
for it there is wasted effort; the launch probe remains far cheaper than parsing
the export table and 79 MB of EXE.

Also verified definitionId a fourth way, by a different method than the existing
three: every real atom name appears exactly once in CardsDLL's .rdata
(resourceId, cardsubtypeid, itemState, assetId, cardassetid, rareflag, owners,
contract, discardValue, and localizedName), while definitionId is absent
entirely. Recorded but NOT applied — the path carrying it is live-proven and the
saving is payload only.

Method note added: CardsDLL is .text 0x180001000, .rdata 0x1801e5000, .data
0x18028a000. Confusing a live mapping offset with an image offset reads the wrong
section and returns false negatives — it made every atom lookup, controls
included, come back ABSENT until corrected. Validate scans against a known key.
This commit is contained in:
funman300
2026-08-21 21:28:13 +00:00
parent 59c249e76a
commit 404e859cb6
@@ -464,6 +464,33 @@ The lead worth following: find whether the owned cardtype-9 render path reaches
this resolver, and if so which field feeds the league id. If it does, league
logos need no `localizedName` at all and separate from the ball/misc gap.
#### Where to look next, and where NOT to (2026-08-21)
The lead above was chased and stopped at a useful boundary. `FUN_180119bd0`
the cardtype-7 caption resolver this whole section rests on — has **zero
references anywhere in CardsDLL**: no `call`, no `jmp`, and its address is never
taken in `.text`, `.rdata` or `.data`. It is nonetheless a genuine function
(clean `mov rax,rsp` entry after `int3` padding).
A real, unreferenced function in a DLL is almost certainly an **export**, which
puts its caller in FIFA17.exe. That matches the shape of everything else here:
CardsDLL owns the card model and the database, and the EXE owns the UI that asks
for captions. `FUN_180098f20`'s only caller likewise iterates a small list
element, not a card record — a browse/catalog builder, not the owned-item path.
So the practical guidance is: **stop looking for the owned cardtype-9 caption
path inside CardsDLL.** It is not there. Closing this by static reading means
parsing CardsDLL's export table and following the callers in FIFA17.exe's 79 MB,
which is a much larger job than the launch probe in "The one probe still
outstanding" — one item, one family, and the answer is visible on screen.
Method note for whoever does dump memory here: CardsDLL's sections are
`.text` at image `0x180001000`, `.rdata` at `0x1801e5000`, `.data` at
`0x18028a000`. Confusing a LIVE mapping offset with an IMAGE offset silently
reads the wrong section and produces false negatives — every atom-name lookup
came back ABSENT until the region was corrected, including controls like
`resourceId`. Always validate a memory scan against a key known to be present.
---
## 4. The card lifecycle
@@ -1008,6 +1035,21 @@ be misrouted onto another field. **Freeze risk: none** -- removing a key the par
skips strictly reduces executed code. Low value, zero cost, and it removes a field
that three documents describe as if it did something.
**Fourth verification, 2026-08-21 (independent method).** Searched CardsDLL's
own `.rdata` in the running client for the literal key names. Every real atom is
present exactly once — `resourceId` `0x18022a3a8`, `cardsubtypeid` `0x180230520`,
`itemState` `0x180231490`, `assetId` `0x180230178`, `cardassetid` `0x180204200`,
`rareflag`, `untradeable`, `owners`, `contract`, `discardValue`, and notably
`localizedName` at `0x1802316d0` — while **`definitionId` is ABSENT entirely**.
The client has no string for it, so no arm can exist. That is a different method
from the three above (string table rather than key dictionary) and it agrees.
NOT applied all the same. The player path that carries `definitionId` is
live-proven in production, the saving is payload only, and this project's house
rule is that a flag defaults to the live-proven value. "Provably inert" is a good
reason to stop documenting it as meaningful; it is not on its own a reason to
change a working wire. Bundle it with the next change that needs a launch.
---
## 7. Proposed corrections to existing documents