VKD3D-Proton is a fork of VKD3D, which aims to implement the full Direct3D 12 API on top of Vulkan.
VKD3D-Proton 2.12 is presented with a series of significant improvements and solutions to known issues in the implementation, and among the features and fixes that are addressed, performance improvements, stability and compatibility are highlighted.
VKD3D-Proton is a tool that offers specific changes, optimizations and improvements to improve the performance of Direct3D 12 based Windows games in the Proton environment. These improvements are not yet integrated into the main version of vkd3d. VKD3D-Proton focuses on taking advantage of the latest Vulkan extensions and the capabilities of the latest graphics drivers to achieve full Direct3D 12 compatibility.
Valve uses this specific fork in the Wine-based package to run Windows games through Proton. While support for DirectX 9/10/11 in Proton is based on DXVK, the DirectX 12 implementation is based on the vkd3d library. After the death of the original author of vkd3d, CodeWeavers continued development of this part, with contributions from the Wine community.
Main novelties of VKD3D-Proton 2.12
In this new version of VKD3D-Proton 2.12, one of the most important new features of the release is the Added support for NVIDIA Reflex via VK_NV_low_latency2. This feature reduces latency in supported games, improving responsiveness and the gaming experience for users of NVIDIA hardware, resulting in faster aiming, faster reaction times, and maximum precision in competitive games. .
Another improvement implemented in VKD3D-Proton 2.12 is the D3D12 Render Pass API, which is a D3D12 (level 0) rendering implementation, which solves problems in games that depend on this specific DirectX 12 functionality.
In addition to this, in VKD3D-Proton 2.12 VK_EXT_device_fault is implemented, an extension that allows developers to obtain detailed information about faults and errors in the GPU hardware, making it easier to diagnose and resolve issues related to performance and stability.
The V-Sync transition optimization and Tearing Present, this is thanks to the implementation of VK_EXT_swapchain_maintenance1 Enables a smoother transition between V-Sync and Tearing Present modes, eliminating annoying visual artifacts and improving the visual experience for gamers.
On the other hand, in VKD3D-Proton 2.12 it declares Shader Model 6.7 by default if the VK_KHR_shader_maximal_reconvergence and VK_KHR_shader_quad_controls extensions are supported.
This version addresses several known problems, and black screen in games like Atlas Fallen, incorrect disabling of alpha coverage, and GPU crashes in titles like Warhammer: Darktide and the UE5 Lyra demo. Workarounds are implemented for crashes in specific games, such as Resident Evil 4 RT, UE5-based titles, and World of Warcraft, improving the overall stability and compatibility of VKD3D-Proton with a wide range of games.
Of the other changes that stand out of this new version:
- Implementing VK_NV_raw_access_chains significantly improves GPU performance in specific games, especially those that use DXBC instead of DXIL.
- An optimized descriptor copy driver has been implemented for Intel Arc GPUs that support the VK_EXT_descriptor_buffer extension.
- Added support for VKD3D_QUEUE_PROFILE and VK_NV_low_latency2 to facilitate system debugging and profiling.
- Fixed extremely poor GPU performance in some locations in Persona 3 Reload
- A CLI tool is included for inspecting root-sig blobs and improvements are made to breadcrumbs and debugging capabilities.
- Fixes some scenarios where a game tries to create an invalid pipeline that should have failed to create
in native D3D12. - Implemented ID3D12DeviceRemovedExtendedDataSettings stubs.
For those who are interested in Learn more about this new release, you can check the details In the following link.
If you would like to try Proton on Steam now, you already know that you can install the Steam client from the official website, although you will also find it in the repos of most distros.