DX12 to Vulkan MOD for older GPUs on Windows

[mirh]

Among others, 23.12.1 added VK_KHR_maintenance5 which is actually getting optionally used by vkd3d.
But the thing is crashing on windows because amdvlk (and well, generally a lot of dx12 games programming) sucks, not because of extensions. Starfield is also SOL.

 

[izy]

so, now vulkan mod will work in AMD Graphics?View attachment 324301

I have low expectations but we should try and see

 

[donnyddd]

i tried this on Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora for the lulz and maybe peformance gain but it doesnt work at all tried every zip file and tried both d3d12core.dll's from the game itself and the zip files

 

[avidgamer121]

i tried this on Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora for the lulz and maybe peformance gain but it doesnt work at all tried every zip file and tried both d3d12core.dll's from the game itself and the zip files

i wonder why they are pushing mesh shaders, doesn't help the performance.

 

[mirh]

The difference is night and day.

Mesh shaders explained: What are they, what's the big fuss, and why are they only in Alan Wake 2?

Why it's taken so many years for mesh shaders to actually be used in a game.

www.pcgamer.com

GitHub - nvpro-samples/gl_vk_meshlet_cadscene: This OpenGL/Vulkan sample illustrates the use of "mesh shaders" for rendering CAD models.

This OpenGL/Vulkan sample illustrates the use of "mesh shaders" for rendering CAD models. - nvpro-samples/gl_vk_meshlet_cadscene

github.com

Using Turing Mesh Shaders: NVIDIA Asteroids Demo | NVIDIA Technical Blog

The NVIDIA Asteroids demo showcases how the mesh shading technology built into NVIDIA’s Turing GPU architecture can dramatically improve performance and image quality when rendering a substantial…

developer.nvidia.com

AW2 is heavy specifically because it budgeted its environmental complexity around this feature
(even though there's still this mystery around VKD3D.. one extremely desperate pitch I got is that perhaps they are translating/reordering the meshlet calls in a way that is more optimized for the older architecture)

 

[izy]

You guys should try this https://store.steampowered.com/app/993090/Lossless_Scaling/, seems interesting, some kind of Frame Gen for all GPUs, worth a shot for who wants to play AW2 on older GPUs.
Attention, for it to work correctly you must set your monitor to 60hz and lock the game at 30fps, which works the same as the mods but in all dx11, dx12, vulakn and emulator games.

Also updated this MOD with the latest files -DX2Vulkan - gplasync - vkd3d-proton-2.11.1.zip (last file) -- updated with vkd3d-proton-2.11.1 (new DX12 DLLs, 01/01/24) -- not tested but maybe it works better, the changelogs from the last versions look promising.

 

[delshay]

@OP

If you're converting DX12 to Vulkan then it should also work on windows 7 right?

 

[Shihab]

@OP

If you're converting DX12 to Vulkan then it should also work on windows 7 right?

Perhaps, perhaps not.
VK3D does require Vulkan 1.3 support, which, afaik, isn't -officially- available on Win7. VK1.3 came out after vendors dropped 7's driver support.
Also, DXVK/VK3D only translate the graphics API calls. Games may still require functionality/libraries not available on older OSes, or have explicit OS version checks.

That said, some people did report getting some games to work, so the mods should work to some extent. But expect more hacks and bugs for a shorter list of playables.

 

[Ralph98]

This Vulkan mod is not faster for me on my Maxwell M3000M gpu. I use FSR3 mod so maybe this is why. Tested this on Alan Wake 2.

Thanks to FSR3 mod this game is playable on this card. I had to overclock it. Outside its about 20-30 fps with about 25 average. Everything on low

I think that on desktop Maxwell gpu with overclock you would be able to get 30fps average.

Game is playable.

 

[izy]

I think this will be no longer needed for AW2 after this update:
https://videocardz.com/newz/alan-wa...u-performance-game-now-playable-with-gtx-1070

 

[avidgamer121]

I think this will be no longer needed for AW2 after this update:
https://videocardz.com/newz/alan-wa...u-performance-game-now-playable-with-gtx-1070

View attachment 337760

i wonder how it will perform on my 1050 ti now, just imagine how even better it could if it originally had rasterized graphics. They must have been aware of the consequences (like poor performance of 10 series gpus but they still went on with it and created a mess. New doesn't always mean better and bringing unnecessary complexities only hurts the consumer.

 

[Shihab]

i wonder how it will perform on my 1050 ti now, just imagine how even better it could if it originally had rasterized graphics. They must have been aware of the consequences (like poor performance of 10 series gpus but they still went on with it and created a mess. New doesn't always mean better and bringing unnecessary complexities only hurts the consumer.

The performance penalty had nothing to do with it being "rasterized" or not. Mesh shaders do geometry, not lighting.
Few, high-profile games of 2023 catered to the 1000 series. Even those without mesh shaders often ran like crap on this generation.

I love my 1080, but let's be honest here, these are 7 years old cards.

 

[avidgamer121]

The performance penalty had nothing to do with it being "rasterized" or not. Mesh shaders do geometry, not lighting.

how are you saying? even devs admit it that's why they are doing so, do you see those numbers? such a significant performance jump

Edit: nvm i mixed two different things, i saw that article and in comments there was some guy said so and i took his words for granted.

 

[delshay]

Perhaps, perhaps not.
VK3D does require Vulkan 1.3 support, which, afaik, isn't -officially- available on Win7. VK1.3 came out after vendors dropped 7's driver support.
Also, DXVK/VK3D only translate the graphics API calls. Games may still require functionality/libraries not available on older OSes, or have explicit OS version checks.

That said, some people did report getting some games to work, so the mods should work to some extent. But expect more hacks and bugs for a shorter list of playables.

OK. But what if you have the SDK for a game. Can you then write/add a vulkan API for that game. ...Example Metro Exodus has a released SDK. Being aware the Linux version uses Vulkan, & if Vulkan is cross platform, then it should be easy to port to windows right? or am I talking crap..

 

[Shihab]

OK. But what if you have the SDK for a game. Can you then write/add a vulkan API for that game. ...Example Metro Exodus has a released SDK. Being aware the Linux version uses Vulkan, & if Vulkan is cross platform, then it should be easy to port to windows right? or am I talking crap..

I doubt that. "SDKs" for already made games are little more than map editors. Tbh, I'm not aware of any radical overhaul to the renderer in games that weren't open-sourced (Quake, Doom).

Why would you want to do that, anyway?

 

[Ralph98]

I think this will be no longer needed for AW2 after this update:
https://videocardz.com/newz/alan-wa...u-performance-game-now-playable-with-gtx-1070

View attachment 337760

So maybe I will have 30fps average on my beautifull maxwell m3000m I also noticed some improvement when installing nvidia 551.70 driver.

 

[delshay]

I doubt that. "SDKs" for already made games are little more than map editors. Tbh, I'm not aware of any radical overhaul to the renderer in games that weren't open-sourced (Quake, Doom).

Why would you want to do that, anyway?

isn't what this thread is all about "DX12 to Vulkan".

I'm not a programmer, but i'm fairly good at custom hardware modding. ..Anyway there's a debate which API is better DX12 or Vulkan. Iv'e just seen one game that was released last year which has both API & the latest Vulkan 1.3.

See here around 15FPS faster GTX 1650 - Atlas Fallen (DX12 - Vulkan) 1080p All Settings Tested - YouTube

 

[Shihab]

isn't what this thread is all about "DX12 to Vulkan".

I'm not a programmer, but i'm fairly good at custom hardware modding. ..Anyway there's a debate which API is better DX12 or Vulkan. Iv'e just seen one game that was released last year which has both API & the latest Vulkan 1.3.

See here around 15FPS faster GTX 1650 - Atlas Fallen (DX12 - Vulkan) 1080p All Settings Tested - YouTube

What this thread makes use of isn't vulkan for the sake of vulkan, rather that the translation - coincidentally - fixed whatever fallback pipeline they had for non mesh shader supporting hardware. Could be mirh's guess, could be vkd3d does a better, implicit conversion of its own.
The gains from the patch izy linked to strongly indicate that Remedy's fallback was indeed subpar, and it could be improved without changing the API.

Vulkan and directx are tools. How well either performs depends on the programmer (and vendor implementation), not just the API itself. Vulkan isn't inherently faster than d3d, and neither is the reverse. You'll find cases for both everywhere. Heck, you can find both cases in the same title!

That said, as far as mesh shaders are concerned, which API the dev uses is irrelevant. Even if they went with vulkan, Remedy could've designed their engine around meshlets, wrote a shoddy fallback (or none at all), and locked all cards pre-Turing cards out.

 

[Ralph98]

I can confirm that latest patch 16.1 gives almost 100% performance boost on my M3000M. Game is now fully playable with FSR 3 mod. What a performance gain

 

[mirh]

That's curious, considering DF found the bigger version of the same chip couldn't even render properly the game.

 

[3d_space_pinball]

Btw, latest patch + drivers (24.3.1) for Radeon VII. Game still has texture bugs but it's only missing ~10% now instead of ~40%. Runs way better, DXVK still does not work.