World Wine News issue 413

This is the 413th issue of World Wine News. Its main goal is to inform you of what's going on around Wine. Wine is an open-source implementation of the Windows API on top of X and Unix. Think of it as a Windows compatibility layer. Wine does not require Microsoft Windows, as it is a completely alternative implementation consisting of 100% Microsoft-free code. 

The full article is here

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vkd3d-proton version 2.6 has been released

VKD3D-Proton is a fork of VKD3D, which aims to implement the full Direct3D 12 API on top of Vulkan. The project serves as the development effort for Direct3D 12 support in Proton.

 

It has been a long while since 2.5, and this release rolls up a lot of fixes, features and optimizations.

Fixes

• Fix black screen rendering bug in Horizon Zero Dawn after latest game updates.
• Fix crashes on startup in Final Fantasy VII: Remake and Warframe.
• Fix crashes in Guardians of the Galaxy when interacting with certain game objects.
• Fix hang on game shutdown in Elden Ring.
• Fix broken geometry rendering in Age of Empires: IV.

Optimization

• Improve generated shader code for vectorized load-store operations in DXIL.
• Greatly reduce CPU overhead for descriptor copy operations,
  which is a key contributor to CPU overhead in D3D12.

Features

Pipeline library rewrite

Support D3D12 pipeline libraries better where we can now also cache
generated SPIR-V from DXBC/DXIL.
Massively reduces subsequent load times in Monster Hunter: Rise,
and helps other titles like Guardian of the Galaxy and Elden Ring.
Also lays the groundwork for internal driver caches down the line for games which do not use this API.
Also, deduplicates binary blobs for reduced disk size requirements.

Shader models

Shader model 6.6 is now fully implemented. This includes support for:

• ResourceDescriptorHeap[] direct access
• 64-bit atomics
• IsHelperLane()
• Compute shader derivatives
• WaveSize attribute
• Packed math intrinsics

Minor features

• Handle API feature MinResourceLODClamp correctly if VK_EXT_image_view_min_lod is supported.
• Expose CastFullyTypedFormat feature.
• Expose some advanced shader features on Intel related to UAV formats (VK_KHR_format_feature_flags2).
• Support COLOR -> STENCIL copies.

Workarounds

• Workaround DEATHLOOP not emitting synchronization commands correctly. Fixes menu flicker on RADV.
• Workaround quirky API usage in Elden Ring. Removes many kinds of stutter and chug when traversing the scenery.
• Workaround certain environments failing to create Vulkan device if some VK_NVX_* extensions are enabled.
• Workaround glitched foliage rendering in Horizon Zero Dawn after latest game updates.
• Workaround some questionable UE4 shaders causing glitched rendering on RADV.

Note on future Vulkan driver requirements

2.6 is expected to be the last vkd3d-proton release before we require some newer Vulkan extensions.
VK_KHR_dynamic_rendering and VK_EXT_extended_dynamic_state
(and likely dynamic_state_2 as well) will be required.

VK_KHR_dynamic_rendering in particular requires up-to-date drivers and the legacy render pass path
will be abandoned in favor of it. Supporting both paths at the same time is not practical.
Moving to VK_KHR_dynamic_rendering allows us to fix some critical flaws with the legacy API
which caused potential shader compilation stutters and extra CPU overhead.

Link to source code

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Vkd3d 1.3 Released

The Wine team is proud to announce that release 1.3 of vkd3d, the Direct3D to Vulkan translation library, is now available.

This release contains improvements that are listed in the release notes. The main highlights are:

• Initial HLSL compilation support.
• Shader model 5.1 descriptor array support.
• Support for disassembling Direct3D shaders.

The source is available here.

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Lutris 0.5.10-beta2 has been released

Lutris helps you install and play video games from all eras and from most gaming systems. By leveraging and combining existing emulators, engine re-implementations and compatibility layers, it gives you a central interface to launch all your games.

The client can connect with existing services like Humble Bundle, GOG and Steam to make your game libraries easily available. Game downloads and installations are automated and can be modified through user made scripts.

Download this version of Lutris from here.

Changelog :

• Add new window to add games to Lutris, with searches from the website,
  scanning a folder for previously installed games, installing a Windows
  game from a setup file, installing from a YAML script or configuring a
  single game manually.
• Move the search for Lutris installers from a tab in the Lutris service
  to the window for adding games.
• Add a coverart format
• Add integration with EA Origin
• Add integration with Ubisoft Connect
• Download missing media on startup
• Remove Winesteam runner (install Steam for Windows in Lutris instead)
• PC (Linux and Windows) games have their own dedicated Nvidia shader cache
• Add dgvoodoo2 option
• Add option to enable BattleEye anti-cheat support
• Default to Retroarch cores in ~/.config/retroarch/cores if available
• Add support for downloading patches and DLC for GOG games
• Add --export and --import command line flags to export a game a lutris
  game and re-import it (requires --dest for the destination path)
• Add command line flags to manage runners: --install-runner, --uninstall-runners,
  --list-runners, --list-wine-versions
• Change behavior of the "Stop" button, remove "Kill all Wine processes" action
• Gamescope option is now disabled on Nvidia GPUs
• Enable F-Sync by default

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