Fix Generals Linux shell map disable and skirmish FontChars SIGSEGV

[fbraz3]

Summary

• restore Linux hardware fallback in base Generals GameLOD init so shell map is not disabled when Windows-only requirement probe returns zeroes
• make skirmish battle honor list item data cast 64-bit safe in base Generals popup menu
• fix root cause of skirmish crash in shared text renderer by normalizing incoming WCHAR to 16-bit code units before unicode font array growth/indexing
• update March 2026 dev diary with session notes

Root Cause

User-provided GDB trace crashed in FontCharsClass::Get_Char_Spacing during skirmish menu init (SkirmishGameOptionsMenuInit).
On Linux, wchar_t is 32-bit and text could arrive with packed UTF-16-like values, which could drive out-of-range unicode array indexing in Get_Char_Data.

Files Changed

• Core/Libraries/Source/WWVegas/WW3D2/render2dsentence.cpp
• Generals/Code/GameEngine/Source/Common/GameLOD.cpp
• Generals/Code/GameEngine/Source/GameClient/GUI/GUICallbacks/Menus/PopupPlayerInfo.cpp
• docs/DEV_BLOG/2026-03-DIARY.md

Validation

• static analysis reports no errors in changed C++ files
• user confirmed skirmish click path works after fix

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

This PR addresses Linux/base-Generals stability and feature regressions by restoring sensible hardware defaults for LOD gating (preventing shell map disable), fixing 64-bit safety in listbox item payloads, and hardening shared font glyph indexing against non-Windows wchar_t/packed UTF-16-like values that caused skirmish UI crashes. It also logs the work in the March 2026 development diary.

Changes:

• Add non-Windows hardware fallback values in GameLODManager::init() to prevent shell map disable when Windows-only probes return zeros.
• Make battle honor listbox item-data storage use a 64-bit-safe int↔pointer cast.
• Normalize WCHAR to 16-bit code units in FontCharsClass::Get_Char_Data() before unicode array growth/indexing to prevent out-of-range access.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 4 out of 4 changed files in this pull request and generated 1 comment.

File	Description
docs/DEV_BLOG/2026-03-DIARY.md	Adds Session 82 notes describing the shell map + skirmish crash fixes and validation.
Generals/Code/GameEngine/Source/GameClient/GUI/GUICallbacks/Menus/PopupPlayerInfo.cpp	Updates listbox item-data cast to be safe on 64-bit builds.
Generals/Code/GameEngine/Source/Common/GameLOD.cpp	Adds non-Windows fallback CPU/RAM values after requirement probing to avoid false min-spec failures.
Core/Libraries/Source/WWVegas/WW3D2/render2dsentence.cpp	Normalizes incoming WCHAR to 16-bit before unicode glyph array indexing to prevent SIGSEGV.

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Fixes two Linux/64-bit stability issues in base Generals (shell map erroneously disabled; skirmish UI crash in font rendering) while keeping behavior aligned with the engine’s legacy 16-bit glyph indexing assumptions, and records the work in the March 2026 dev diary.

Changes:

• Add non-Windows fallback defaults in GameLODManager::init() when hardware detection returns zero/unknown values (prevents shell map being disabled).
• Make listbox item-data storage 64-bit safe by casting via intptr_t in the battle honor popup.
• Prevent skirmish SIGSEGV in FontCharsClass::Get_Char_Data() by normalizing incoming WCHAR to 16-bit code units before Unicode array growth/indexing.
• Add a dev diary entry for the session.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 4 out of 4 changed files in this pull request and generated no comments.

File	Description
Core/Libraries/Source/WWVegas/WW3D2/render2dsentence.cpp	Normalizes WCHAR to 16-bit prior to font array access to avoid out-of-range indexing on platforms with 32-bit wchar_t.
Generals/Code/GameEngine/Source/Common/GameLOD.cpp	Applies non-Windows fallback CPU/RAM defaults only when detection fails (zero/unknown), restoring expected shell map behavior.
Generals/Code/GameEngine/Source/GameClient/GUI/GUICallbacks/Menus/PopupPlayerInfo.cpp	Updates listbox item-data cast to be 64-bit safe via intptr_t.
docs/DEV_BLOG/2026-03-DIARY.md	Adds March 2026 session notes documenting the fixes and validation.