Version 2.5.2

Windows changes

On Windows, if VK_EXT_fullscreen_exclusive is supported, DXVK will now always try to disable exclusive fullscreen in an attempt to work around common alt-tab issues, as well as issues with numerous games that mix D3D9 with GDI user interfaces. Whether this is honored is up to the graphics driver. (#4465, PR #4485)

Previously, this was only done for D3D9 applications that explicitly enabled support for GDI dialog boxes in fullscreen mode. The d3d9.enableDialogMode configuration option to control that behaviour was removed accordingly.

Note: This change may affect input latency and/or performance, depending on the exact implementation of Vulkan swap chains in the graphics driver. It does not affect Linux systems in any way since the concept of exclusive fullscreen, and thus any problems associated with it, do not exist there.

Bug fixes and Improvements

• Added an implementation of D3D9 shader validation interfaces. This is needed for The Void and used in several other D3D9 games. (PR #4398)
• Fixed behaviour when D3D9 applications use incorrect texture types as seen in Alpha Protocol. (PR #4513)
• If VK_KHR_maintenance5 is supported, DXVK will now use VK_FORMAT_A8_UNORM to implement the corresponding D3D11 format. This fixes warnings in various games, as well as rendering issues in TopSpin 2K25 (#4514).
• Optimized behaviour of disabled clip planes for D3D9 games. (PR #4508)
• Fixed an issue where the DXVK_CONFIG environment variable was not applied correctly under specific circumstances.
• Fixed various issues causing Wine test failures for D3D8 and D3D9. (PR #4479)
• Borderlands 2: Fixed missing lava in certain places. (PR #4482)
• Codename Panzers: Phase One / Two: Work around an issue with the main menu not rendering on regular Wine builds. (PR #4495)
• The Sims 2: Extended existing app profiles to various mod tools. (#4518, PR #4520)

Version 2.5.1

Bug fixes

• Fixed a major regression where anisotropic filtering would not work correctly in D3D9 games. (#4452)
• Fixed some build issues with dxvk-native. (PR #4446)
• Fixed some build issues with recent versions of clang. (#4467)
• GTA Trilogy Definitive Edition: Work around a crash when HDR is enabled. (PR #4450)
  Note: Since these games use Unreal Engine 4, HDR is unsupported in D3D11 mode.

Version 2.5

Memory managment

Resource and memory management were completely rewritten in order to use allocated video memory more efficiently:

• Reduced fragmentation may reduce peak memory usage in games such as God of War by up to 1 GiB in extreme cases.
• Memory defragmentation is now performed periodically to return some unused memory back to the system.
  The goal is not to reduce VRAM usage at all costs; instead this is done conservatively if the system is under memory pressure, or if a significant amount of allocated memory is unused. Keeping some unused memory is useful to quickly service subsequent allocations.

Note: Defragmentation is currently disabled on Intel's ANV driver, see #4434. The dxvk.enableMemoryDefrag config option can be set to enable or disable this feature via the the Configuration file.

Driver support

While technically not required, the new memory management works best on drivers that support both VK_EXT_memory_budget and VK_KHR_maintenance5. The Driver Support page was updated accordingly.

D3D8 / D3D9

Software cursor

Support for emulated cursors was implemented for the D3D9 cursor API, which allows games to set an arbitrary image as the mouse cursor. This fixes an issue in Dungeon Siege 2 (#3020) and makes the cursor appear correctly in Act of War and various older D3D8 games. (PR #4302)

Sampler pool

Unreal Engine 3 games using D3D9 have a quirk in that they pass a seemingly uninitialized value as the mipmap LOD bias. In order to avoid creating more Vulkan sampler objects than the driver supports, previous versions of DXVK would round the LOD bias to a multiple of 0.5, which could introduce visual inaccuracies. As a more correct solution, DXVK will now destroy unused Vulkan samplers on the fly and use the correct LOD bias.

Note: The aforementioned workaround was never needed or used in the D3D11 implementation, it only affected D3D9.

Bug fixes and Improvements

• On Nvidia driver version 565.57.01 and newer, strict float emulation is enabled by default for improved correctness.
  Games for which this option was already enabled may see a small performance uplift on this driver.
• Made various changes to potentially improve performace on certain mobile GPUs. (includes PR #4358)
• Display modes are now ordered by refresh rate to be more consistent with wined3d and fix issues with some games picking the wrong display mode.
• Fixed a large number of wine test failures.
• Ascension to the Throne: Fixed old regression that would cause parts of the ground to render black. (#4338, PR #4341)
• Command & Conquer: Generals: Fixed performance issue caused by a missing D3D8 entry point. (PR #4342)
• King's Bounty: Warriors of the North: Fixed water rendering issue. (#4344, PR #4350)
• Tomb Raider: Legend: Fixed flickering geometry with strict float emulation. (#4319, PR #4442)
• Rayman 3: Fixed a regression that caused rendering issues. (#4422, PR #4423)

D3D11 / DXGI

Resource management changes

In order to reduce system memory pressure and improve stability in 32-bit games, creating, uploading and discarding resources is now throttled if the amount of temporary staging memory allocations exceed a certain threshold. This fixes crashes in Total War: Rome II and a number of other games. Additionally, large DYNAMIC textures commonly used for video playback will no longer use a staging buffer.

The d3d11.maxDynamicImageBufferSize and d3d11.maxImplicitDiscardSize options were removed accordingly; affected games such as Total War: Warhammer III and Ryse: Son of Rome should now perform well by default, without excessive memory usage.

Note: These changes negatively affect CPU-bound performance in a number of games, including Shadow Warrior 2.

Bug fixes and Improvements

• SEQUENTIAL swap effects are now implemented for DXGI swap chains, which allows games to read previously presented backbuffers. This fixes an issue wherein savegame thumbnails would appear black in certain visual novels. (ValveSoftware/Proton#7017)
• Devirtualized some D3D11 method calls to improve compatibility with Special K.
• Fixed incorrect shader code generation for EvaluateAttributeSnapped.
• Lock contention is reduced in certain games that use Deferred Contexts for rendering.
  This may improve performance on older CPUs in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and some other games.
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered: Fixed a possible GPU hang. (#3884)
• Diablo 4: Work around an issue where the game does not start if an integrated GPU is exposed.
• The Sims 4: Work around a use-after-free bug in the game's D3D11 renderer for real this time. (#4360)
• Vindictus: Work around potential rendering issues caused by uninitialized constant buffer data. (#4405, #4406)
• Yakuza 0 and Yakuza Kiwami: Fixed a regression introduced in DXVK 2.4.1 that would cause these games to lock up on start. (PR #4297)

Miscellaneous changes

• An SDL3 backend was added for dxvk-native. (PR #4326, #4404)
• Fixed an issue introduced in DXVK 2.4.1 which would lead to error messages about failed buffer creation.
• Fixed a long-standing issue where overlapping occlusion queries would lead to incorrect Vulkan usage. (#2698)
• Fixed a rare issue wherein timestamp queries would not be tracked correctly and could read incorrect data.
• Fixed various other issues that led to Vulkan validation errors in games such as Dishonored 2, Tales of Arise and The Sims 4.
• Fixed various issues with MSVC builds. (PR #4444)
• Disabled a workaround for broken render target clears on Nvidia drivers prior to version 560.28.03 on unaffected drivers.
• If supported, VK_EXT_pageable_device_local_memory is now used to enable better driver-side memory management.

Version 2.4.1

General improvements

• The size for memory chunks is now determined dynamically based on the amount of memory the application has already allocated.
  This should improve the out-of-the-box behaviour in various game launchers; the dxvk.maxChunkSize option was removed accordingly.
• Fixed an issue where the Vulkan swap chain would not always be recreated appropriately in a native Wayland environment. (PR #4252)
• Fixed an issue with descriptor pools growing too large on Nvidia cards in some situations. (PR #4166)
• Changed default shader code generation for DXBC mad instructions to work around flickering issues in games that use different vertex shaders to render the same geometry in multiple render passes. The d3d11.longMad and d3d9.longMad options were removed accordingly.

D3D8 / D3D9

• Improved overall robustness of the D3D8 implementation with error handling and fixed various memory leaks.
• Slightly improved performance by optimizing vertex buffer uploads. (PR #4275)
• Significantly improved performance in some games using Software Vertex Processing. (PR #4274)
• Fixed full-screen presentation issues in some Game Maker games. (PR #4245)
• Removed VK_IMAGE_USAGE_SAMPLED_BIT from textures that don't need it. (#4176)
• Enabled strict float emulation by default on AMDVLK now that this driver optimizes the pattern emitted by DXVK. (PR #4203). Do note that this was already the case on RADV.
• Chrome: Gold Edition: Enabled 60 FPS limit to work around game issues at higher frame rates. (PR #4260)
• GTA: San Andreas: Fix regression that made it crash with DXVK 2.4 (#4141, PR #4151)
• Operation Racoon City: Worked around a game crash. (#4172, PR #4175)
• Prince of Persia (2008): Enabled 240 FPS limit to work around game issues at very high frame rates. (PR #4281)
• Rayman 3: Fixed missing geometry. (PR #4143)
• Serious Sam 2: Fix in-game videos (#4158, PR #4161)
• Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow: Enabled 60 FPS limit to fix broken input and physics. (PR #4254)
• The First Templar: Fixed lighting issues. (#4291, PR #4292)
• The Sims 2: Fix regression that made it crash with earlier DXVK versions (PR #4277)

D3D11 / DXGI

• Worked around a general issue wherein some games default to an integrated GPU based on the amount of available video memory.
• Worked around an issue where various games would misbehave when the amount of available VRAM is reported as a power of two.
• Changed shader code generation for dot product instructions to be more in line with code generation on native drivers.
  This fixes a water rendering issue in Trails through Daybreak on Nvidia. (#4162)
• Implemented a basic dead code elimination pass to avoid generating invalid SPIR-V shaders in rare situations.
  Note: All these shader-related changes will invalidate fossilize databases.
• Games will now leave fullscreen mode when the game window loses focus.
  This is closer to Windows behaviour and fixes various issues with games hanging on some setups. (PR #2675)
• Made sure the built-in options in DXVK for a game take precedence over the options enabled/disabled by DXVK-NVAPI.
  This fixes a performance regression in God of War on Nvidia GPUs.
• Batman Arkham Knight: Worked around an issue where the game does not start when it detects an Intel GPU. (PR #4152)
• Hunt Showdown: Fixed a crash caused by DXVK reporting a very high UMD driver version.
• Kena: Bridge of Spirits: Worked around a water rendering issue when the game detects an Intel GPU. (PR #4207)
• Microsoft Flight Simulator: Fixed garbled screen on start-up (#4276)
• Senran Kagura Peach Ball: Fixed character models being rendered the wrong way around. (#4216)
• The Sims 4: Work around a crash caused by a use-after-free bug in the game.

Version 2.4

D3D8 support

D8VK is now part of DXVK, and implements D3D8 largely on top of the existing D3D9 implementation. Please refer to pull request #3411 for further details.

Native WSI changes

dxvk-native now supports multiple window system backends that the application can choose between at runtime. Refer to the corresponding pull request #3738 for details. In addition, proper ABI versioning has been added for native libraries.

Non-native refresh rate emulation

In environments where the display mode cannot be changed (e.g. Proton), it is possible that DXVK reports a different refresh rate to the game than what the display is currently running at. This is problematic for games that require to be run at 60 FPS but do not limit their frame rate when using a 60 Hz display mode.

To work around this, the frame rate limiter will now be engaged automatically if a game runs in full-screen mode with vertical synchronization enabled, and if the detected frame rate over a short period of time is higher than the refresh rate of the selected display mode. This also applies to D3D12 when using vkd3d-proton as of commit 80f6c46 or later.

In case a game runs at a lower rate than expected and does not provide an in-game option to change refresh rate, this behaviour can be disabled by setting d3d9.maxFrameRate = -1 (or the corresponding dxgi option for D3D10+ games). Setting DXVK_FRAME_RATE also overrides this behaviour as usual.

Bug fixes and Improvements

• Fixed various issues with D3D9 fixed-function texture coordinate processing (PR #4015, PR #4026).
• Fixed pipeline layout compatibility issues when using graphics pipeline libraries, which would cause crashes or rendering issues on AMD's official drivers with pipeline libraries enabled.
• If supported, VK_NV_descriptor_pool_overallocation will now be used to potentially save small quantities of descriptor memory.
• Improved descriptor pool management in general to save memory in case a game renders without ever presenting to the screen.
• Improved video processor blit functionality (PR #3970 PR #3984)
• Improved compatibility to third-party mods hooking various DXGI entry points (PR #3966, #3968).
• Battlefield 2, 2142: Work around hang on alt+tab (PR #4109).
• Dead Space 2: Work around issues caused by the game's Vsync implementation (PR #4071).
• Dragonshard: Work around performance issues (PR #4079).
• Fallout 4: Work around an issue with the game locking itself to 45 FPS on Steam Deck OLED.
• Fallout New Vegas: Fix rendering issues when using certain mods (PR #4079).
• Ghostbusters Remastered: Work around flickering character faces (#4045, PR #4046).
• Gothic 3: Fix shadow rendering issues caused by incorrectly reported format support (#3980, PR #3991).
• Guild Wars 2: Work around a flickering issue (PR #3992).
• Prototype: Work around broken shadow rendering if the game detects an AMD or Intel GPU (#4008, PR #4011).
• Star Citizen: Work around an issue with the game's UMD version check (PR #3985).
• The Sims 2: Work around low CPU-bound performance in some situations.
• Tomb Raider Legend: Work around flickering character issues (PR #4105).
• Red Faction Guerrila Remastered: Work around sky box rendering issues (#3696, PR #3972).
• Rise of Nations: Work around crash on alt+tab (PR #4117).
• Watch Dogs, Watch Dogs 2: Work around flickering character issues (PR #4059, PR #4090).
• WRC 4: Enable 60 FPS limit to work around audio issues (PR #4099).

Version 2.3.1

Features

If supported by the driver, DXVK will now use the VK_NV_raw_access_chains extensions to allow more efficient shader code generation on specifically on Nvidia GPUs. This is intended to close the gap to Windows performance drivers specifically in D3D11 games in GPU-bound scenarios, but not all games will see an improvement.

Note: This extension is currently only supported on Vulkan beta drivers, version 550.40.55 or later, and currently requires Proton Experimental.

Bug fixes and Improvements

• Fixed invalid SPIR-V being generated for Renderdoc internal D3D11 shaders.
• Fixed undefined behaviour with out-of-bounds constant buffer loads with dynamic indices.
• Fixed HDR not being enabled for DXGI_FORMAT_R16G16B16A16_FLOAT swap chains.
• Reworked the dxgi.syncInterval option to also apply to D3D12 games.
• Reverted the use of VK_FORMAT_A8_UNORM due to rendering issues in some games.
• D3D9 games will now set the VkApplicationInfo::applicationVersion field to 1.
• Reworked how dynamic system memory buffers are copied to the GPU in D3D9 games. (PR #3765)
  This improves performance in games such as Shank 2 (#3755), Flammable Freddy (#2375) and Blood Rayne (#1828).
• Only enable alpha to coverage when rendering to a multisampled render target in D3D9. (#3815)
  This fixes broken lighting in Flatout 3 (#3798) and incorrect dithering in Injustice: Gods Among Us. (#3617)
• Ace Combat Assault Horizon: Fixed GPU hang on RADV. (#3715, PR #3716)
• Assassin's Creed 2: Fixed crash on alt tab. (#3653, PR #3763)
• Battlefield 2, Battlefield 2142: Fixed disappearing spawn and gear selection UI on alt tab. (#3651, PR #3797)
• Battlestations Midway: Improved performance. (PR #3683)
• Codename Panzers Phase One/Two: Improved performance. (PR #3812)
• Dead Space (2008): Fixed diagonally sliced menu on RADV. (Mesa Issue 9126, PR #3764)
• Granblue Fantasy Relink: Work around a game bug that would cause broken rendering with AMDAGS enabled.
  Also enabled the dxvk.ignoreGraphicsBarriers option to increase performance in case neither NVAPI nor AGS are loaded.
• Gujian 2: Fix invisible geometry. (#3838, PR #3839)
• Kenshi: Improved performance (PR #3776)
• MySims: Fix mouse selection being off. (#3825, PR #3840)
• Operation Flashpoint: Red River: Fix missing main menu UI elements. (#2184, PR #3852)
• SkyDrift: Work around OOM crash on alt tab. (#3639, PR #3689)
• Sonic CD: Limit to 60 FPS because game speed is tied to the frame rate. (PR #3771)
• Supreme Ruler Ultimate: Work around game bug causing a freeze on alt tab (#3784, PR #3816)
• Tales from the Borderlands: Fixed crash. (PR #3664)
• The Settlers: Fixed crash. (PR #3734)
• Total War: Medieval 2: Fix black loading screen in windowed mode. (#3724, PR #3843)
• UK Train Simulator 1: Fix black foliage. (#3780, PR #3782)
• War Thunder: Fix particle effects not rendering properly.

Note: Updated binaries due to buggy version number display.
sha256: 3d8e73e574bc0666aa965ddb37c7e4126f831d2d82c4068740fe1463075b4c76

Version 2.3

Presentation improvements

If VK_KHR_present_wait is supported, and if vertical synchronization is enabled, frame latency events will now be signaled when an image is actually being presented, rather than when rendering work prior to the present request has completed on the GPU. This may reduce input latency in some games, also affects the dxgi.maxFrameLatency and d3d9.maxFrameLatency options.

This functionality is also used to more accurately report the number of frames actually presented via DXGI frame statistics.

Note: On some platforms and compositors, Vulkan present events may not correspond to the image actually being presented on screen, in which case frame latency is going to remain higher than expected.

Additionally, if VK_EXT_swapchain_maintenance1 is supported, enabling and disabling vertical synchronization may no longe require recreating the Vulkan swap chain, which works around severe performance issues in games which change their present interval on a per-frame basis.

Note: On Linux, this is currently only supported when running Gamescope with ENABLE_GAMESCOPE_WSI=1 set.

Configuration changes

The dxgi.nvapiHack config option was deprecated, and a new option dxgi.hideNvidiaGpu with a slight change in behaviour was added instead, alongside similar options for AMD and Intel GPUs. This allows implementing more targeted application workarounds for issues with e.g. XESS libraries in the future if necessary. Refer to the example configuration for more details.

Note: The old dxgi.nvapiHack option still works if dxgi.hideNvidiaGpu is not set, but will be removed in a future release.

Additionally, the dxgi.tearFree and d3d9.tearFree options were consolidated into a new dxvk.tearFree option, due to changes in the presentation logic. The old options were removed.

Bug fixes and Improvements

• Configuration options can now be specified via an environment variable, DXVK_CONFIG. See the README for details (PR #3581).
• If VK_EXT_depth_bias_control is supported, depth bias scaling will now be correct in most situations. This fixes shadow rendering artifacts in various D3D9 games and is especially important on GPUs that do not support 24-bit depth formats. This affects games such as F.E.A.R. (#1461), Far Cry 2 (#2941) and Assassin's Creed Brotherhood (#2642).
• If VK_EXT_line_rasterization and its relevant features are supported, smooth or rectangular lines will now be used if requested by the application. This functionality is generally not used by games, but may be useful for applications such as level editors.
• If VK_KHR_maintenance5 is supported, DXGI_FORMAT_A8_UNORM images will now use the corresponding Vulkan format.
• D3D9 command submission now works the same way as it does for D3D11, which will lead to more submissions but generally reduces resource readback latency. This may improve performance in games that frequently synchronize with the GPU.
• Fixed a minor issue with D3D9 feedback loop tracking.
• Fixed a minor issue with D3D11 stream output (#3634).
• Fixed a bug and performance issues with the implementation of D3D11 tiled resources.
• Fixed various issues with reporting HDR metadata.
• Fixed a crash when compiling D3D9 shaders generated by the vkd3d HLSL compiler. (PR #3616)
• Implemented keyed mutex synchronization on top of newly added winevulkan functionality (PR #3601, PR #3635).
  Note: This will only work with recent Proton builds.
• Added stubs for various D3D9On12 interop interfaces. This is needed for Train Simulator Classic (#3445).
• Added an interface to allow external libraries, such as NVAPI, to enable HDR in various D3D11 games as well as Elden Ring (PR #3625).
  Note: This will only work in combination with jp7677/dxvk-nvapi@c3a1c48 or newer. This will not work on Windows.
• A Total War Saga: TROY: Fixed trees not rendering when MSAA is enabled.
• Far Cry 2: Fixed crash when using D3D10.
• Halo Online: Fixed water rendering. (#3594, PR: #3627)
• Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris: Fixed deadlock when using Exclusive Fullscreen (#3458).
• RaceRoom Racing Experience: Fixed a crash when starting a race. (#3386, PR: #3389)
• Spider Man: Shattered Dimensions: Fixed a regression that caused blocky shadows. (#3593, PR: #3624)
• Test Drive Unlimited 2: Fixed shadows on grass. (#3469, PR: #3471)
• The Sims 2: Fixed a regression in DXVK 2.2 that affected terrain rendering. (#3474, PR: #3476)
• Titanfall: Fixed a crash caused by a miscompiled shader.
• Tomb Raider Anniversary: Improved performance. (#3438, PR: #3439)

Version 2.2

D3D11On12 support

In order to enable D3D12 support in recent Unity Engine titles such as Lego Builder's Journey, this release introduces support for creating D3D11 devices from a D3D12 device using D3D11On12CreateDevice, as well as the basic ID3D11On12Device interface. This is achieved by importing the Vulkan device and resource handles from vkd3d-proton into DXVK, and otherwise uses DXVK's existing D3D11 implementation.

A vkd3d-proton build as of HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton@26c4fed or later is required for this to work.

D3D9 Partial Presentation

DXVK now supports presenting to parts of a window by copying the contents of the backbuffer to system memory and then drawing them into the window on the CPU. This improves compatibility with game launchers, particularly those based on Microsoft's WPF toolkit, and some visual novels. It will however come with a noticable performance hit.

Additionally, overall behaviour of D3D9 swap chains was improved and the d3d9.noExplicitFrontBuffer option was removed.

Logging changes

When running on Proton or plain Wine, DXVK will no longer create log files by default and instead only write log messages to the console using wine-specific functionality, in order to avoid creating unnecessary extra files. This matches vkd3d-proton behaviour. Note that log file creation can be re-enabled by setting the environment variable DXVK_LOG_PATH to a valid path.

When filing bug reports, users are encouraged to upload the full Proton log.

Bug fixes and Improvements

• Warnings about unknown interfaces being queried via QueryInterface will only be logged once in order to avoid growing log files indefinitely in some games. (#3231)
• Fixed a regression when rendering YUY2 or UYUY texture formats. This fixes in-game videos in Jade Empire (#3182) and Sid Meier's Pirates (#3189) (PR #3342)
• Fixed an issue wherein threads were not properly destroyed.
• Fixed Vulkan validation errors caused by incorrect layout tracking when enabling feedback loops for a texture.
• Fixed Vulkan validation errors caused by 0x0 sized clears in D3D9.
• D3D9 StateBlocks now only allocate memory for the parts that are actually used. This fixes Total War: Shogun 2 running out of address space when using the D3D9 renderer. (#2703, PR #3248)
• Improved usage of some VK_EXT_extended_dynamic_state3 features to avoid hitting slow paths on some drivers.
• Improved enumeration of DXGI outputs on systems with multiple GPUs. This fixes performance issues with recent RE Engine games (D3D12) on such systems.
• Significantly reduced memory usage in situations where games create unused D3D11 devices.
• Battle Fantasia Revised Edition: Locked frame rate to 60 FPS to work around game bugs at higher frame rates. (PR #3256)
• Cold Fear: Fixed missing geometry (#3293, PR #3390)
• Dawn of Magic 2: Fixed a crash upon start (#3271, PR #3272)
• DC Universe Online: Fixed a hang after alt-tabbing out and back in. (#3314, PR #3316)
• Far Cry 2: Work around rendering issues on Intel hardware, as well as low performance on all GPUs. (PR #3241)
• Halo: The Master Chief Collection: Fixed memory leak due to invalid query usage by the game (PR #3273)
• Warhammer 40k: Space Marine: Fixed shadow rendering (#3298, PR #3305)

Version 2.1

HDR support

On systems supporting HDR10 color spaces, HDR can now be enabled by setting the environment variable DXVK_HDR=1, or by setting the option dxgi.enableHDR = True in the configuration file. When using vkd3d-proton 2.8 or newer, this will allow D3D12 games to detect and use the HDR10 color space if they support it.

No major Linux desktop environment currently supports HDR. In order to use this on Linux, a Gamescope session with --hdr-enabled is required. This is currently only supported under AMDGPU and requires kernel patches from the josh-hdr-colorimetry branch.

Note: D3D11 support is implemented, but not expected to work in most games as they typically require AMDAGS or NVAPI to set up HDR output, rather than using the corresponding DXGI APIs. Additionally, only Nvidia drivers are expected to work on Windows.

Shader compilation improvements

Use of pipeline libraries was extended to pipelines with tessellation or geometry shaders in order to further reduce stutter. Additionally, more features of the VK_EXT_extended_dynamic_state3 extension are leveraged to reduce stutter in some situations when MSAA is used, provided that the Vulkan driver supports them.

Note: Current development builds of RADV will expose VK_EXT_graphics_pipeline_library with the features that DXVK needs if the RADV_PERFTEST=gpl environment variable is set. Note that the implementation is not yet complete and does not support shader caching at this time, but it should generally work with DXVK.

Sample rate shading

For older games that support MSAA, the d3d9.forceSampleRateShading and d3d11.forceSampleRateShading options were added to let users enable sample rate shading for all shaders. This will have a very high impact on GPU-bound performance, but may increase overall image quality in certain games that suffer from specular aliasing or shimmering alpha-tested geometry.

Note: Games that resolve the rendered images inadequately (e.g. performing a linear resolve on HDR render targets) will likely not benefit from this option.

GLFW backend

For native Linux builds of DXVK, a GLFW backend was added as a compile-time alternative to the existing SDL2 backend. See PR #3111 for details.

Bug fixes and Improvements

• Improved D3D11 command submission logic in order to make overall performance more consistent, and to bring DXVK's behaviour more in line with native D3D11 drivers.
• Fixed D3D11 reference counting issues around 2D textures. (#3169)
• Fixed Vulkan validation errors when creating DXGI_FORMAT_A8_UNORM UAVs. Note that UAVs of this format may not work as expected.
• Fixed Vulkan validation errors that would occur when allocating dedicated image memory on Nvidia GPUs in some situations.
• Fixed Vulkan validation errors caused by broken timeline semaphores on 32-bit Proton.
• Worked around an issue with the Uplay overlay being stuck on screen. (#3146)
  Note that this fix does not apply to Windows as it was achieved by loading winevulkan.dll directly instead of the actual Vulkan loader.
  Note that this change will break Red Dead Redemption 2 with dxvk-nvapi prior to this commit: jp7677/dxvk-nvapi@ac00a42
• Worked around a bug in AMD's Windows driver as well as AMDVLK that would cause numerous games to crash since DXVK 2.0. (#3172)
• Fewer threads will be used to perform background optimization of graphics pipeines. This may result in a smoother gameplay experience on some systems. Note that this change does not affect initial shader compiling, as finishing that quickly is crucial to avoid stutter.
• The state cache file will now only be created when the first pipeline is written to it, in order to avoid empty cache files.
  This change mostly affects D3D9 games on systems with EXT_graphics_pipeline_library support.
• Ashes of the Singularity: Fixed performance regression caused by suboptimal descriptor set allocation.
• Battlefield: Bad Company 2: Fixed flickering (#3078, PR #3079)
• Cardfight!! Vanguard: Fixed rendering (PR #3068).
• Gujian 3: Fixed rendering issues on some GPUs. (#1784)
• Resident Evil 4 HD: Fixed invalid Vulkan usage causing a GPU hang on RADV. (PR #3089)
• Saints Row: The Third: Fixed a severe performance issue with rain when using the D3D9 renderer. (#2473, PR #3158)
• Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice: Fixed stuttering issues on Nvidia GPUs. (#3179)
• Sonic Frontiers: Worked around a game bug that would cause shadows to flicker when GPU-bound.
• Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance: Fixed a crash after loading (#3058, PR #3060)

Note: The setup script setup_dxvk.sh was no longer deemed useful and got removed. This change will only affect users who manually install DXVK into a wine prefix, rather than using it through Proton or Lutris.

Note: Due to changes to our DXGI implementation, older versions of vkd3d-proton (prior to 2.8) will no longer work with this version of DXVK.

Version 2.0

Driver compatibility

A Vulkan 1.3 capable driver and wine version are required to run this version of DXVK. See the driver support page for details.

Many features in this release, especially the shader compilation changes detailed below, require the use of modern Vulkan features, such as Dynamic Rendering, Extended Dynamic State, and Null Descriptors. Due to the significant changes required to make use of them, it was no longer practical to maintain and test code paths for older drivers which do not support these features.

In practice, any system capable of running D3D11 and D3D12 games using Proton Experimental right now will be able to run DXVK 2.0.

Note: Third-party Vulkan layers that were not updated for Vulkan 1.3 will no longer work.

D3D9 changes

Memory management improvements

In order to reduce the likelihood of running out of address space in 32-bit D3D9 games, DXVK will now use memory-mapped files to store shadow copies of textures. This allows us to unmap memory that is not being used by the game, thus freeing up significant amounts of address space, up to several hundred Megabytes. See PR #2663 for implementation details.

Note: This change does not affect 64-bit games since address space is not a concern there. It also does not affect D3D10 or D3D11 since resource uploads work differently in those APIs and are much more memory efficient.

Render target feedback loops

On drivers which support VK_EXT_attachment_feedback_loop_layout, reading from an active render target in D3D9 games is now properly supported, which previously caused rendering artifacts on newer AMD hardware and required driver-level workarounds. This affects a number of games, including GTA IV.

Alpha test improvements

The D3D9 alpha test implementation was changed to more closely match the behaviour of Nvidia's implementation, which fixes inaccuracies in various games. The d3d9.alphaTestWiggleRoom option was removed, and games that previously required this option should now work correctly by default.

D3D10 changes

DXVK previously shipped incomplete implementations of d3d10.dll and d3d10_1.dll, but has not installed them by default since Version 1.6 since wine's implementation provides more features that are needed for D3D10 games to run, including the D3D10 Effects framework.

Since our implementation is incomplete and has not been used by Proton or Lutris for a very long time, DXVK will no longer ship these DLLs starting with this release. The D3D10 API itself is still supported via d3d10core.dll.

D3D11 changes

Feature support

DXVK now exposes D3D11 Feature Level 12_1 with the following newly added features:

• Tiled Resources up to Tier 3, provided that the corresponding Vulkan sparse binding and sparse residency features are supported
• Conservative Rasterization up to Tier 3, provided that the corresponding Vulkan conservative rasterization features are supported.
• Rasterizer Ordered Views, provided that the corresponding Vulkan fragment shader interlock features are supported.

While no games are known to use these features directly in D3D11, some games and game launchers rely on feature support being consistent between D3D11 and D3D12 in order to allow users to enable D3D12 in the game options. While our implementation of these feature is generally functional, there may be bugs or performance issues in case a game does use them.

Furthermore, DXVK now supports the D3D11_FEATURE_SHADER_CACHE and D3D11_FEATURE_D3D11_OPTIONS5 feature queries.

Note: AMD Vulkan drivers do currently not support fragment shader interlock and are limited to feature level 12_0.

Note: Intel's ANV driver currently does not support the corresponding Vulkan features and is therefore limited to feature level 11_1. This applies to both DXVK and vkd3d-proton.

Device contexts

The implementations of ID3D11DeviceContext were refactored so that immediate contexts and deferred contexts no longer use common entry points. This is closer to Windows behaviour and may improve compatibility to third-party libraries and mods that hook into the D3D11 immediate context specifically, and reduces CPU overhead since some frequently used code paths are now more specialized for each context type.

State clear and restore methods were optimized to further reduce CPU overhead in games that heavily use deferred contexts, e.g. Assassin's Creed: Origins, or explicitly call ClearState frequently, e.g. God of War.

Shader compilation changes

On drivers which support VK_EXT_graphics_pipeline_library, including the IndependentInterpolationDecoration feature, Vulkan shaders will now be compiled at the time the game loads its D3D shaders, rather than at draw time. This reduces or eliminates shader compile stutter in many games.

In games that load their shaders during loading screens or in the menu, this can lead to prolonged periods of very high CPU utilization, especially on weaker CPUs. For affected games it is recommended to wait for shader compilation to finish before starting the game to avoid stutter and low performance. Shader compiler activity can be monitored with DXVK_HUD=compiler.

Note: The relevant Vulkan features are currently only supported by Nvidia drivers (version 520.56.06 or later). Driver support is expected to improve in the future.

State cache interactions

This feature largely replaces the state cache. If the given Vulkan features are supported, only pipelines that cannot use the pipeline library feature (e.g. pipelines using tessellation shaders) will be written to and read from the state cache, so newly created state cache files will typically only contain a few dozen to a few hundred pipelines, as opposed to thousands or tens of thousands. If the graphics pipeline library feature is not supported, the state cache will be used the same way as it was in older DXVK versions.

Note: State cache files created with DXVK versions prior to 1.4.3 can no longer be used.

Note: Despite our efforts, due to the significant changes under the hood, there may be issues when using an older state cache file under some circumstances. If you experience crashes, please test if the game runs with a clean cache file (DXVK_STATE_CACHE=reset) before reporting a bug.

Caveats

• Games which only load their D3D shaders at draw time (e.g. Witcher 3, most Unreal Engine games) will still exhibit some stutter, although it should still be less severe than without this feature.
• For 32-bit games, the implementation tries to aggressively free Vulkan pipelines in order to save memory. This may cause stutter if the driver's on-disk shader cache is not working properly.
• On Nvidia drivers, the on-disk shader cache will be significantly larger than with previous versions of DXVK. It may be necessary to bypass the size limit by setting the environment variable __GL_SHADER_DISK_CACHE_SKIP_CLEANUP=1, or setting a new limit manually via __GL_SHADER_DISK_CACHE_SIZE (in bytes).

Linux build support

Work from dxvk-native has been upstreamed in order to facilitate native Linux builds of DXVK, which can be used as a drop-in replacement to port D3D applications without having to change rendering code.

Note: When porting a D3D11 application, please refer to the Feature support and Developer Guidelines pages on the Wiki to avoid hitting unsupported or slow code paths in DXVK.

Repository changes

As part of cleaning up the repository, test applications that were of limited usefulness, as well as our custom d3dcompiler frontends, have been moved to the new dxvk-tests repository.

Vulkan and SPIR-V headers are now pulled in as submodules from the original repositories. This changes how the repository needs to be cloned and updated, or otherwise building DXVK will fail:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk.git

# Run the following command to make git pull
# automatically pull in submodule updates
cd dxvk
git config submodule.recurse true

The project wiki was also updated and expanded to be more useful.

Bug fixes and Improvements

• Improved behaviour of DXGI waitable swap chains.
• Improved implementation of DXGI frame statistics.
  Note: The implementation is still not accurate, especially in scenarios with multiple displays or if variable refresh rate is used.
• Removed limitations on how many resources can be bound at the same time.
• Removed several workarounds for specific Vulkan drivers or driver versions. This is primarily relevant for Steam's shader pre-caching, as the generated shader code no longer diverges as much depending on the driver version and supported feature set.
• D3D11 shaders now use the Vulkan memory model in order to more accurately implement UAV coherency rules in compute shaders.
• Fixed various issuses with the D3D11.3 WriteToSubresource and ReadFromSubresource methods.
• Fixed various float emulation issues in D3D9 applications.
• Fixed seamless cube map filtering in D3D9 applications (PR #2889).
• Fixed issues when rendering to DXGI_FORMAT_A8_UNORM (D3D11) or D3DFMT_A8 (D3D9) render targets with blending enabled.
• Fixed a bug with dual-source blending when multiple render targets are bound, which could lead to unpredictable results. This affects Elex 2 and potentially other games.
• Fixed memory allocation logic on Intel integrated graphics.
• Changed behaviour of the DXVK_STATE_CACHE environment vari...