DXVK as default wined3d backend on VK capable hardware

Summary

Proposal to replace default wined3d backend with DXVK, A Vulkan-based translation layer for Direct3D 9/10/11 which allows running 3D applications on Linux using Wine.

Currently, wine in Fedora uses wined3d and users can optionally install DXVK (be it wine-dxvk package or by any other means). With this change accepted, wine would use DXVK instead of wined3d on supported GPUs automatically.

Owner

Name: Frantisek Zatloukal
Email: fzatlouk@redhat.com

Current status

Targeted release: Fedora 33
Last updated: 2020-07-21
FESCo issue: <will be assigned by the Wrangler>
Tracker bug: <will be assigned by the Wrangler>
Release notes tracker: <will be assigned by the Wrangler>

Detailed Description

DXVK is an alternative to wined3d providing more performant and more compatible way to run Windows applications and games using DirectX 9, 10 and 11.

More detailed description is available on DXVK Github.

DXVK is available as a wine-dxvk package since Fedora 31. wine-dxvk package uses alternatives system for following wine dll files: d3d9, d3d10.dll and d3d11.dll .

Should this proposal be accepted, a Pull Request will be merged into the wine-dxvk package which ensures it gets set as default backend only on systems with Vulkan support. wine-dxvk will then get added as "Recommends: wine-dxvk" into the wine package itself.

This proposal can be accepted in a "reduced form" of replacing the default wined3d backend only for DirectX 10 and 11 and leaving DirectX 9 to be handled by the current wined3d.

Feedback

Benefit to Fedora

Fedora users running recent Windows games will get superior performance and compatibility. Steam already leverages DXVK but there are other Game Stores and standalone games which would benefit from DXVK. Users had to know about this project and install it manually (or use e.g. Lutris), whereas having DXVK included by default will make sure everybody gets the best possible performance and compatibility.

I haven't done benchmarking per se, there are multiple resources on the Internet comparing DXVK and wined3d. If necessary I will do additional testing on my hardware in the week of July 27th.

Scope

Proposal owners:

Other developers: N/A (not a System Wide Change)

Release engineering: #Releng issue number (a check of an impact with Release Engineering is needed)

Policies and guidelines: N/A (not a System Wide Change)

Trademark approval: N/A (not needed for this Change)

Upgrade/compatibility impact

Aim is to convert users with supported Hardware Configuration to DXVK as a part of Fedora 32 > Fedora 33 upgrade. There shouldn't be any breakage since postinst script of wine-dxvk package would verify if GPU supports Vulkan or not and set alternatives to wined3d or DXVK accordingly.

There is a slight possibility of user experience degradation compared to wined3d on old Intel iGPUs supporting just a subset of Vulkan specification (Ivy Bridge and Haswell generations). I don't have an opportunity to test DXVK on such hardware, however, if issues are discovered, check for Vulkan from wine-dxvk package PR ( https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/wine-dxvk/pull-request/4#_1__26 ) can be improved to blacklist certain GPU vendors/generations/models.

AMD and/or nVidia GPUs shouldn't be affected, they either don't support Vulkan at all, or support it fully.

On GPUs without Vulkan support, wine-dxvk would remain installed and not used, consuming about 167 MB of HDD space. Users would be able to opt-out from using DXVK by adding 'exclude=wine-dxvk*' into /etc/dnf/dnf.conf and removing wine-dxvk package.

How To Test

1. Make sure you have Vulkan compatible GPU ('vulkaninfo' runs without errors)

2. Install wine-dxvk package

3. Run some Windows game with wine

A testday will take place before Fedora 33 GA to determine and workaround (disable DXVK and fallback to wined3d) issues on potentially broken hardware and GPU drivers.

In cases when something worked before installing wine-dxvk and stopped after (or regressed), bugs should be reported to DXVK Issue Tracker.

User Experience

Dependencies

N/A (not a System Wide Change)

Contingency Plan

Contingency mechanism: Obsolete wine-dxvk through base wine package
Contingency deadline: N/A (not a System Wide Change)
Blocks release? No
Blocks product? No

Documentation