RGGFramework
A native C++ runtime and diagnostic overlay for Dragon Engine games
Mar 2026 – present
The problem
Studying a proprietary engine's asset and render pipeline means observing it at runtime, and doing that without destabilising the host process — a diagnostic tool that crashes what it is measuring is worse than no tool.
Approach
- A generic DXGI/D3D12 overlay bootstrap with native x64 injection, a Win32 window-proc toggle path, and fail-closed render-fault detection.
- ContentLoadTraceModule, which hooks CreateFileW to categorise and record loaded engine assets live, with string allocation tuned hard to hold gameplay framerate.
- Overlay state synchronisation hardened with recursive mutexes after hook re-entrancy produced DX12 draw-path deadlocks.
- Reproducible builds via CMake and PowerShell deployment, with SHA-256 host fingerprinting so the framework only runs against engine builds it supports.
Outcome
An alpha diagnostic overlay used for studying engine internals, with build determinism and host validation treated as first-class requirements rather than afterthoughts.
Built with
- C++
- DirectX 12
- MinHook
- Dear ImGui
- CMake