DXVK 2.7, the latest release of the Vulkan-based implementation for D3D9, D3D10, and D3D11 on Linux/Wine, has introduced significant enhancements aimed at improving the gaming experience. Available for download, this version follows closely on the heels of DXVK 2.6.2 and includes vital updates for popular games such as God of War, Watch Dogs 2, and Final Fantasy XIV.
The highlights of DXVK 2.7 include support for the VK_EXT_descriptor_buffer Vulkan extension, which is enabled by default for newer AMD and NVIDIA GPUs. This enhancement yields a notable reduction in CPU overhead, benefiting performance in high-demand titles. Notably, the developers have acknowledged concerns regarding older graphics cards, where performance regressions may occur, particularly with NVIDIA Pascal and AMD RDNA2 architectures.
Additionally, DXVK 2.7 introduces memory defragmentation as a default feature for Intel’s Battlemage and Lunar Lake GPUs, discards the legacy state cache feature, and improves support for planar video output views. It also ensures zero-initialization for all variables and groupshared memory in D3D11 shaders, enhancing efficiency and stability.
Other changes include the implementation of the ID3DDestructionNotifier interface, the exclusion of Vulkan devices lacking required feature support from being listed as DXGI/D3D9 adapters, and specific optimizations to improve certain graphics rendering processes, such as D3D9 StretchRect.
Moreover, support has expanded to encompass additional games including Metaphor: ReFantazio, Astebreed, GTR – FIA GT Racing Game, LEGO City Undercover, and Wargame: European Escalation.
For full details on the changes in DXVK 2.7, interested users can access the release notes on the project’s GitHub page. Those who installed DXVK through their distribution’s software repositories may need to wait for the new version to become available through that route before experiencing the latest enhancements.