F33 Change proposal: DXVK as default wined3d backend on VK capable hardware (Self-Contained Change)

[Ben Cotton]

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/DXVKwined3d

== 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: [[User:frantisekz| Frantisek Zatloukal]]
* Email: fzatlouk(a)redhat.com

== 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 [https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk
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, [
https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/wine-dxvk/pull-request/4# 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.

Users can run 'dnf reinstall wine-dxvk' after changing hardware
configuration to get alternatives to use DXVK or wined3d updated.

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.

== 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: Merge
https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/wine-dxvk/pull-request/4# ; add
Recommends: wine-dxvk into wine the package.
* Other developers: N/A (not a System Wide Change)
* Release engineering: N/A
* Policies and guidelines: N/A (not a System Wide Change)
* Trademark approval: N/A (not needed for this Change)


== Upgrade/compatibility impact ==
The aim is to convert users with supported Hardware Configuration to DXVK
as a part of Fedora 32 > Fedora 33 upgrade. There should not be any
breakage since postinst script of wine-dxvk package would verify if the 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 haven't had any 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 ) could
be improved to block certain GPU vendors/generations/models.

AMD and/or nVidia GPUs should not be affected, they either do not support
Vulkan at all, or they support it fully.

On GPUs without Vulkan support, wine-dxvk would remain installed and
unused, 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 [
https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk/issues DXVK Issue Tracker].

== User Experience ==
(not provided)

== 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 ==
N/A (not a System Wide Change)

-- 
Ben Cotton
He / Him / His
Senior Program Manager, Fedora & CentOS Stream
Red Hat
TZ=America/Indiana/Indianapolis

[Neal Gompa]

On Tue, Jul 21, 2020 at 10:45 AM Ben Cotton <bcotton(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/DXVKwined3d
>
>  == 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: [[User:frantisekz| Frantisek Zatloukal]]
>  * Email: fzatlouk(a)redhat.com
>
>  == 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 [https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk 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,
> [https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/wine-dxvk/pull-request/4# 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.
>
>  Users can run 'dnf reinstall wine-dxvk' after changing hardware configuration to
> get alternatives to use DXVK or wined3d updated.
>
>  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.
>
>  == 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.
>  
This is exciting! I'm looking forward to seeing this land!

One question though: why doesn't Wine implement something like
libglvnd for swapping wined3d backends dynamically? It seems like that
would be a sturdier way to do things and handle hardware swaps a lot
more gracefully.


-- 
真実はいつも一つ！/ Always, there's only one truth!

[Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski]

On Thursday, 23 July 2020 at 13:40, Neal Gompa wrote:
>  On Tue, Jul 21, 2020 at 10:45 AM Ben Cotton
> <bcotton(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  >
>  > https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/DXVKwined3d
>  >
>  > == 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. 
[...]
>  This is exciting! I'm looking forward to seeing this land!
>  
>  One question though: why doesn't Wine implement something like
>  libglvnd for swapping wined3d backends dynamically? It seems like that
>  would be a sturdier way to do things and handle hardware swaps a lot
>  more gracefully. 
+1. Is Vulkan supported on AMD Radeon HD 7900 series (TAHITI)? Some
sources I found say it is:
https://vulkan.gpuinfo.org/listreports.php?devicename=AMD%20Radeon%20HD%2...
but vulkaninfo just gives me an error despite my having
mesa-vulkan-drivers installed.

Regards,
Dominik
-- 
Fedora   https://getfedora.org  |  RPM Fusion  http://rpmfusion.org
There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times and
oppression to develop psychic muscles.
        -- from "Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan

[Michael Cronenworth]

On 7/23/20 7:11 AM, Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski wrote:
>  +1. Is Vulkan supported on AMD Radeon HD 7900 series (TAHITI)? Some
>  sources I found say it is:
>  https://vulkan.gpuinfo.org/listreports.php?devicename=AMD%20Radeon%20HD%2...
>  but vulkaninfo just gives me an error despite my having
>  mesa-vulkan-drivers installed. 
While your hardware may be capable that doesn't mean the software driver is
available.

Sometimes it's the opposite: Haswell / Ivy Bridge partially support Vulkan. What to 
do there?

What's more confusing is that AMD hardware have three drivers for Vulkan:
- Mesa
- AMDVLK
- AMDGPU-Pro (Proprietary)

[Frantisek Zatloukal]

On Thu, Jul 23, 2020 at 2:18 PM Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski <
dominik(a)greysector.net&gt; wrote:

>  Is Vulkan supported on AMD Radeon HD 7900 series (TAHITI)? Some
>  sources I found say it is:
>
>  https://vulkan.gpuinfo.org/listreports.php?devicename=AMD%20Radeon%20HD%2...
>  but vulkaninfo just gives me an error despite my having
>  mesa-vulkan-drivers installed.
>  
On this generation of GPUs, you'd need to use an AMDGPU driver instead of
RadeonSI to get Vulkan Support. You can do that by adding
'radeon.si_support=0 radeon.cik_support=0 amdgpu.si_support=1
amdgpu.cik_support=1' to your kernel cmdline. vulkaninfo shouldn't output
any errors after doing that.

The default driver for CGN 1.0 cards might be changed to AMDGPU in the
future.

-- 

Best regards / S pozdravem,

František Zatloukal
Quality Engineer
Red Hat

[Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski]

On Thursday, 23 July 2020 at 15:48, Frantisek Zatloukal wrote:
>  On Thu, Jul 23, 2020 at 2:18 PM Dominik 'Rathann'
> Mierzejewski <
>  dominik(a)greysector.net&gt; wrote:
>  
>  > Is Vulkan supported on AMD Radeon HD 7900 series (TAHITI)? Some
>  > sources I found say it is:
>  >
>  >
> https://vulkan.gpuinfo.org/listreports.php?devicename=AMD%20Radeon%20HD%2...
>  > but vulkaninfo just gives me an error despite my having
>  > mesa-vulkan-drivers installed.
>  
>  On this generation of GPUs, you'd need to use an AMDGPU driver instead of
>  RadeonSI to get Vulkan Support. You can do that by adding
>  'radeon.si_support=0 radeon.cik_support=0 amdgpu.si_support=1
>  amdgpu.cik_support=1' to your kernel cmdline. vulkaninfo shouldn't output
>  any errors after doing that. 
I don't want to use amdgpu driver yet, because it lacks hardware video
decoding. See https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/577 .

Regards,
Dominik
-- 
Fedora   https://getfedora.org  |  RPM Fusion  http://rpmfusion.org
There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times and
oppression to develop psychic muscles.
        -- from "Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan

[Michael Cronenworth]

On 7/23/20 6:40 AM, Neal Gompa wrote:
>  One question though: why doesn't Wine implement something like
>  libglvnd for swapping wined3d backends dynamically? It seems like that
>  would be a sturdier way to do things and handle hardware swaps a lot
>  more gracefully. 
It's just the way these wine-fork projects work. Someone thinks they can design a 
better wine and instead of working with upstream or upstream rejects their idea they 
fork wine and reimplement a DLL or group of subsystems and write their own version.

- DXVK
- D9VK (luckily merged with DXVK now)
- DXGL
- Gallium Nine
- VKD3D (upstream!)

These forks may eventually merge back with upstream as upstream is more open to 
changes than a few years ago, but these 3D API forks are very large changes.

I'm not sure how upstream would implement a libglvnd-like interface for these forks. 
An automated choice may not be what the user wants. They do not offer identical 
feature sets and some have different hardware requirements. TL;DR: It's a mess.