VKD3D-Proton 2.7 Released With Eight Months Worth Of Changes

[phoronix]

Phoronix: VKD3D-Proton 2.7 Released With Eight Months Worth Of Changes

VKD3D-Proton 2.7 has finally been released as the first tagged release of this Direct3D 12 atop Vulkan API implementation used by Valve's Steam Play (Proton) for enjoying an increasing number of D3D12 Windows games on Linux...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/VKD3D-Proton-2.7-Released

[guglovich]

Increased driver requirements. Support for Vulkan extensions VK_KHR_dynamic_rendering, VK_EXT_extended_dynamic_state, VK_EXT_extended_dynamic_state2 and VK_KHR_maintenance4 implemented in Mesa 22.0 and NVIDIA proprietary 510 drivers is now required.
A new D3D12 pipeline library, introduced in the last release, is adapted to all games, including those that use D3D12 APIs incorrectly, by implementing an internal disk cache to represent SPIR-V, generated from DXBC/DXIL.
Introduced a series of optimizations aimed at reducing overhead and improving GPU performance in situations such as depth pass rendering, use of WriteBufferImmediate(), image processing, resource memory allocation and root descriptor access.
Added support for D3D12 features such as mesh shaders (requires VK_EXT_mesh_shader support), shared resources and fences.
Support for DXR 1.1 continued.
Added initial HDR support.
Numerous fixes for DXIL support.
Improved compatibility with Intel ANV driver.
Improved debugging options.
Improved stability of full-screen games when minimizing and switching with Alt+Tab.
Prepared for translation of the code from LGPL 2.1 to the MIT license.
Problems in Hitman 3, Redout 2, F1 2020, F1 2021, F1 2022, Guardians of the Galaxy, Halo Infinite, Spiderman Remastered and Lost Judgment are fixed.

[SerialCool]

Best thanks to the developers for the great work.

I will try VKD3D-Proton 2.7 under Arch as soon as this version is available.

Is there anything to consider?
I would like to link Wine-Staging.git with DXVK and VKD3D-Proton 2.7.
Is it enough to build the AUR of VKD3D-Proton and activate in the terminal setup_vkd3d_proton install and VKD3D?

Many thanks

[JacekJagosz]

Initial HDR support is really exciting, for now only on Windows and with hardcoded display parameters, but I can't wait for HDR on Linux!

[skeevy420]

Does anyone know how HDR works or will work? Will exclusive full screen games automatically get it? Does it require something like Gamescope?

Prepared for translation of the code from LGPL 2.1 to the MIT license.

That genuinely makes me wonder how many closed source components the official Valve releases are going to have going forward or if one of their long-term goals is to move SteamOS from Linux to Google Fuchsia or FreeBSD. In regards to making money, that seems to work better for Sony, Netflix, and Apple than it does for Canonical and Linux. Google wouldn't be doing all that effort if they didn't think it'd help with making more Android and Chromebook money.

Think about it, as long as Proton, the Steam Client, etc works then the underlying OS becomes moot. Google's Android is the same way -- as long as their Java-Kotlin-Whatever VM runs then all their Play Store bullshit runs. Outside of kernel level things like DRM and whatnot, the OS is mostly irreverent as long as the environment runs.

Take the GPL and Linux away from Android and suddenly Samsung and Motorola don't have to release their modified sources. Fuchsia is going to be a real bad thing for the Android modding scene.

Take the GPL and Linux away from SteamOS and suddenly Epic and EA will be able to play ball and release in-kernel DRM and copy protection measures??? If you compile a custom kernel you can't play Genshin Impact or watch Netflix. I hope I'm just being overly paranoid from that GPL to MIT comment, but it does make you think.

[ryao]

That genuinely makes me wonder how many closed source components the official Valve releases are going to have going forward or if one of their long-term goals is to move SteamOS from Linux to Google Fuchsia or FreeBSD.

I have no idea where this originated. Valve has not stated that they want to move away from Linux, although I imagine they are interested in getting away from glibc at the moment. If they were to surprise all of us by moving to FreeBSD on the steam deck, presumably, they would do it through the Linuxulator to avoid forcing developers to do native FreeBSD builds, which would mean the two could share the same binaries, although they would need to implement futex2 on FreeBSD as a minimum before they could adopt it.

That said, switching to the MIT license would make it match DXVK. Also, it is all OSS, so it really does not matter to end users. The details of the license are issues for developers.

[hartree]

Maybe the idea behind the license change is to allow packaging in proprietary binaries, similar to what Feral Interactive did with their ports.

[skeevy420]

I have no idea where this originated. Valve has not stated that they want to move away from Linux, although I imagine they are interested in getting away from glibc at the moment.

It's the farthest conclusion I can jump to that actually makes sense when I see a major multimedia company say, paraphrased, we're preparing to translate our code from a Linux License to a Not Linux License. The way Valve has Steam-Linux set up with Wine isn't that different than Google and how they have Play set up with Android. All either of them have to do is port their non-OS specific runtime to another OS and they're both set. Moving their runtimes to a FOSS OS that doesn't require sharing publicly released changes is in both of their interests as commercial entities. It makes just as much sense for Valve as it does for Google to transition from Linux.

I wouldn't be thinking that if Valve would have thrown us a bone with a new SteamOS release for desktops by now. There's no technical reason that they couldn't release SteamOS 3 for desktops since random people already have. With all the Deck clones starting to appear it wouldn't surprise me that much if Valve wanted to put some reigns in place and have an official SteamOS licensing program like how Google licenses Android provided you meet certain hardware specs. That way they can make their money by games, software, hardware, and licenses to use their custom Fuchsia or FreeBSD based OS to makers that want to run the official Steam Deck OS and not Windows or Linux with the Steam Client installed.

Google has also shown how hard security, DRM, etc can be with a Linux based operating system and how much of a cat and mouse game it is with hackers when they have access to your legally forced to be released sources so they've been working on their NIH alternative to FreeBSD for nearly half a decade now just to get around that. Any technological achievements with Fuchsia are moot in comparison to what it'll allow them to do in regards to behind the scenes work that makes other corporations happy by not having to share all of their changes with hackers. If Valve sticks with Linux long-term they'll have the exact same game of cat and mouse Google has been dealing with. They might be into games, but I doubt that's a game they want to be involved with.

Because Video Games is a major, major industry it makes a lot of sense that game makers would pressure Valve into going a route that makes it harder to pirate games and software -- locked down operating systems with auditable source code like FreeBSD and Fuchsia are ways to accomplish that and make it easier to implement things like SecureBoot. Entertainment and media makers are probably pushing them to use an OS that allows them to put DRM in place on videos, songs, books, and whatnot so they can release their apps on the Deck and Deck clones. Moving to Not Linux allows them to please a lot of people who can make them a lot of money. I doubt they care about pissing off the 1% or 2% of gamers that use Linux that will never bring dump trucks of Hulu and Netflix money.

What's funny is Google is copying 1990s Apple with Fuchsia . You can talk a lot of trash about Apple, but they're not stupid. Well, maybe now they are since they don't have a good leader like Steve Jobs anymore. Vulc-a-what? Hurr-durr Metal for the winz.

[skeevy420]

Maybe the idea behind the license change is to allow packaging in proprietary binaries, similar to what Feral Interactive did with their ports.

That was my first thought...and then I went off the deep end playing "What If" to the point that my deep end makes more sense to me than just packaging proprietary binaries.

[ryao]

It's the farthest conclusion I can jump to that actually makes sense when I see a major multimedia company say, paraphrased, we're preparing to translate our code from a Linux License to a Not Linux License. The way Valve has Steam-Linux set up with Wine isn't that different than Google and how they have Play set up with Android. All either of them have to do is port their non-OS specific runtime to another OS and they're both set. Moving their runtimes to a FOSS OS that doesn't require sharing publicly released changes is in both of their interests as commercial entities. It makes just as much sense for Valve as it does for Google to transition from Linux.

I wouldn't be thinking that if Valve would have thrown us a bone with a new SteamOS release for desktops by now. There's no technical reason that they couldn't release SteamOS 3 for desktops since random people already have. With all the Deck clones starting to appear it wouldn't surprise me that much if Valve wanted to put some reigns in place and have an official SteamOS licensing program like how Google licenses Android provided you meet certain hardware specs. That way they can make their money by games, software, hardware, and licenses to use their custom Fuchsia or FreeBSD based OS to makers that want to run the official Steam Deck OS and not Windows or Linux with the Steam Client installed.

Google has also shown how hard security, DRM, etc can be with a Linux based operating system and how much of a cat and mouse game it is with hackers when they have access to your legally forced to be released sources so they've been working on their NIH alternative to FreeBSD for nearly half a decade now just to get around that. Any technological achievements with Fuchsia are moot in comparison to what it'll allow them to do in regards to behind the scenes work that makes other corporations happy by not having to share all of their changes with hackers. If Valve sticks with Linux long-term they'll have the exact same game of cat and mouse Google has been dealing with. They might be into games, but I doubt that's a game they want to be involved with.

Because Video Games is a major, major industry it makes a lot of sense that game makers would pressure Valve into going a route that makes it harder to pirate games and software -- locked down operating systems with auditable source code like FreeBSD and Fuchsia are ways to accomplish that and make it easier to implement things like SecureBoot. Entertainment and media makers are probably pushing them to use an OS that allows them to put DRM in place on videos, songs, books, and whatnot so they can release their apps on the Deck and Deck clones. Moving to Not Linux allows them to please a lot of people who can make them a lot of money. I doubt they care about pissing off the 1% or 2% of gamers that use Linux that will never bring dump trucks of Hulu and Netflix money.

What's funny is Google is copying 1990s Apple with Fuchsia . You can talk a lot of trash about Apple, but they're not stupid. Well, maybe now they are since they don't have a good leader like Steve Jobs anymore. Vulc-a-what? Hurr-durr Metal for the winz.

Linux uses the GPLv2, not the LGPL. It is not a “Linux license” in the first place.

That said, you make far too much fuss about things that do not matter. The software will remain OSS, just like DXVK is. This does not hurt anyone in any way. If anything, it is better for OSS in general since it serves as an easy way for developers to add Vulkan support to games written for D3D12.

Also, for what it is worth, most OSS developers do not want most companies’ terribly written code anyway. That is why forced code drops from companies are often ignored by the community. What OSS developers want are PRs from people willing to stand behind code and good documentation, which you never get from code drops. FreeBSD is a great example of this. They neither see forced code drops nor want them, but they do see quality code in PRs from people willing to stand behind it, which is what is truly worthwhile. Mainline Linux is similar since Linus will not merge poor quality abandonware that was only open sourced because the GPL required it.