Whether to stop the streaming loop AFTER loading level. refine and
playback both stop here — at the first cold (cache-miss) or slow level past
the >=1-level first-paint floor. Playback's floor applies only when the
ladder started empty; a restored prefix is already showable. For playback
this is the ONLY brake besides the budget deadline, and it is the one that
matters: a cold level costs hundreds of ms, a resident one ~10-20 ms, so
residency (not level index) is what separates "affordable inside a tick"
from "stalls the tick".
prefetch deepens regardless of residency — warming cold levels is its whole
job — and is bounded by the pass budget + abort instead.
A refinement residency allowance is independent of those disciplines. When
supplied, the first level that spends the remaining settled-byte headroom is
kept, then the pass stops before another cache-resident level can append.
Whether to stop the streaming loop AFTER loading
level.refineandplaybackboth stop here — at the first cold (cache-miss) or slow level past the >=1-level first-paint floor. Playback's floor applies only when the ladder started empty; a restored prefix is already showable. Forplaybackthis is the ONLY brake besides the budget deadline, and it is the one that matters: a cold level costs hundreds of ms, a resident one ~10-20 ms, so residency (not level index) is what separates "affordable inside a tick" from "stalls the tick".prefetchdeepens regardless of residency — warming cold levels is its whole job — and is bounded by the pass budget + abort instead.A refinement residency allowance is independent of those disciplines. When supplied, the first level that spends the remaining settled-byte headroom is kept, then the pass stops before another cache-resident level can append.