A new version of VKD3D-Proton has been released. VKD3D-Proton is a fork of VKD3D, which aims to implement the full Direct3D 12 API on top of Vulkan.

VKD3D-Proton Version 2.7

This release rolls up a massive amount of work since the Steam Deck launch in late February
with mostly features and fixes.

Heightened driver requirements

Newer extensions are now required.

• VK_KHR_dynamic_rendering
• VK_EXT_extended_dynamic_state
• VK_EXT_extended_dynamic_state2 (no optional features required)
• VK_KHR_maintenance4

KHR_dynamic_rendering in particular requires Mesa 22.0 or NVIDIA 510 series, which should have
propagated to distributions a long time ago at this point.

NOTE: Proton 7.0 stable series will stick to v2.6 to avoid the hard driver requirement bump.
Proton Experimental and any future stable beyond 7.0 will stick to v2.7 and later.

KHR_dynamic_rendering fixes many previously unsolvable issues, but it required a rewrite,
and it was deemed impractical to support both legacy and modern paths.

Improved pipeline cache

v2.6 introduced support for pipeline libraries, but only for games which made correct use of the D3D12 API.
To improve the situation across the board,
vkd3d-proton now implements an internal "magic" disk cache to enable SPIR-V caching for all games.
It is possible to disable the magic cache and let applications manage the ID3D12PipelineLibrary itself if desired.

To further reduce on-disk footprint of the magic cache, we also make use of VK_EXT_shader_module_identifier
to reduce the vkd3d-proton cache by >95%, since there is no need to store actual SPIR-V data on-disk.

Optimizations

Mostly a lot of minor things this release.

• Slightly improve GPU performance for depth render passes.
• Improve GPU performance for certain floating-point images where UAV usage was enabled.
• Improve GPU performance for certain use cases of WriteBufferImmediate().
• Improve GPU performance for certain access patterns of root descriptors.
• Improve GPU performance for back-to-back buffer-image copies.
• Improve GPU performance when allocating large zero-cleared resources and heaps.
• Misc things here and there to reduce overhead.

New D3D12 features

Mesh shaders

VK_EXT_mesh_shader is required for this. Directly compatible with D3D12.

Advanced ExecuteIndirect

Uses VK_NV_device_generated_commands. Supported by both RADV and NVIDIA. Allows Halo Infinite to run.

DXR 1.1

Implement some missing features from DXR 1.1:

• AddToStateObject()
• ExecuteIndirect trace rays
• Various complex RTPSO features
• DXIL subobject parsing
• Misc query features

With these fixes in place, e.g. Cyberpunk 2077 DXR works. VK_KHR_raytracing_maintenance1 is required for some features.

NOTE: VKD3D_CONFIG=dxr11 is required to enable DXR 1.1 for now.

Shared resources

Basic shared resources and fences are now supported when running on Proton. Allows interop with DXVK.
Special thanks to Derek Lesho ( @Guy1524) for implementation.

SV_Barycentrics

SM 6.1 barycentrics are now exposed through VK_KHR_fragment_shader_barycentric.

Preliminary HDR support

vkd3d-proton can take advantage of HDR now, assuming the system itself supports it.

Game fixes and workarounds

• Fix random GPU hangs in Hitman 3.
• Fix crash in Redout 2.
• Fix random GPU hang in F1 2021.
• Fix random flicker in Guardians of the Galaxy.
• Update some API checks required by latest AgilitySDK runtime features. Fix crash in F1 2022.
• Add various workarounds for game bugs in Halo Infinite.
• Add workaround for amdgpu kernel issue for certain games using imported host memory and multiple Vulkan devices.
• Workaround glitched rendering in F1 2020 due to game bug.
• Workaround certain games that violate placed resource API w.r.t. subresource initialization.
  Spiderman Remastered and Lost Judgment are affected. More games will likely surface.

DXIL support

Countless bug fixes for games released since last release. Too many to enumerate individually.

Misc

• Improve compatibility with Intel ANV driver.
• Improve correctness of GetFrameLatencyWaitableObject().
• Add BLOB PIX decoding.
• Improve stability when minimizing and alt-tabbing in and out of fullscreen in some games.
• Preparation for MIT re-license is underway.

Stronger debugging facilities

• For developers and power users, a breadcrumbs functionality is added to greatly aid GPU hang debugging.
  Requires either VK_AMD_buffer_marker or VK_NV_device_diagnostic_checkpoints.
• When capturing with RenderDoc, cached host memory is enabled by default to speed up capture and improve stability.
• Improve shader replacement system ease-of-use.

Release Version 2.7 · HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton