Dota 2 is Valve's first game to support Vulkan, the successor to OpenGL. This is Valve's first public release of the game to use Vulkan, so there will be some rough edges. It is in beta, so it's not finished.
You will need to opt-in to the Steam Client Beta to get more recent Steam Overlay fixes for Vulkan. Without it, the Steam Overlay will cause a performance drop with Vulkan enabled games.
You will need to click the Vulkan DLC in your Steam library and run Dota 2 with the "-vulkan" launch option to make it use it.
GPU drivers: NVIDIA 600-series+ (364.16+ driver), AMD GCN 1.2 (16.20.3 driver). You will also need at least 2GB of VRAM or it may crash.
A new Nvidia driver is due to come out with vertical sync fixes, as the game will still tear even with it on.
Basic testing, Intel i7, Nvidia 980ti
With the Vulkan option enabled basic gameplay with not much going on it was fluctuating between 79-85FPS.
With the OpenGL option the same was sitting at around 100-110FPS.
I imagine the Vulkan option will improve much more over time. Considering that API, drivers and game implementation are all knew we need to give it time to mature.
Actual benchmarking
I tried to use the famous Phoronix Test Suite to benchmark it, but I find that software to be rather cumbersome and annoying to use. I can't seem to get the Dota 2 benchmark to even run. I edited the script to actually point to my Dota 2 install (the PTS test relies on the default install location) but it doesn't find Steam). See my forum post on Phoronix here about it, maybe someone can shed some light as I've never really used PTS before. If I can get it to work, I will do some proper tests.
See the news post on the official Dota 2 website here.
File any bugs you find on github here. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
You will need to opt-in to the Steam Client Beta to get more recent Steam Overlay fixes for Vulkan. Without it, the Steam Overlay will cause a performance drop with Vulkan enabled games.
You will need to click the Vulkan DLC in your Steam library and run Dota 2 with the "-vulkan" launch option to make it use it.
GPU drivers: NVIDIA 600-series+ (364.16+ driver), AMD GCN 1.2 (16.20.3 driver). You will also need at least 2GB of VRAM or it may crash.
A new Nvidia driver is due to come out with vertical sync fixes, as the game will still tear even with it on.
Basic testing, Intel i7, Nvidia 980ti
With the Vulkan option enabled basic gameplay with not much going on it was fluctuating between 79-85FPS.
With the OpenGL option the same was sitting at around 100-110FPS.
I imagine the Vulkan option will improve much more over time. Considering that API, drivers and game implementation are all knew we need to give it time to mature.
Actual benchmarking
I tried to use the famous Phoronix Test Suite to benchmark it, but I find that software to be rather cumbersome and annoying to use. I can't seem to get the Dota 2 benchmark to even run. I edited the script to actually point to my Dota 2 install (the PTS test relies on the default install location) but it doesn't find Steam). See my forum post on Phoronix here about it, maybe someone can shed some light as I've never really used PTS before. If I can get it to work, I will do some proper tests.
See the news post on the official Dota 2 website here.
File any bugs you find on github here. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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QuoteI tried to use the famous Phoronix Test Suite to benchmark it, but I find that software to be rather cumbersome and annoying to use. I can't seem to get the Dota 2 benchmark to even run. I edited the script to actually point to my Dota 2 install (the PTS test relies on the default install location) but it doesn't find Steam). See my forum post on Phoronix here about it, maybe someone can shed some light as I've never really used PTS before. If I can get it to work, I will do some proper tests.
The GoL/Phoronix Blood Feud continues... :D
0 Likes
Quoting: KeyrockNot at all, I have great respect for his work despite my comments now and then (Read Phoronix for years), but PTS could use some quality of life updates to make it simpler to use. A UI wouldn't be a bad idea either.QuoteI tried to use the famous Phoronix Test Suite to benchmark it, but I find that software to be rather cumbersome and annoying to use. I can't seem to get the Dota 2 benchmark to even run. I edited the script to actually point to my Dota 2 install (the PTS test relies on the default install location) but it doesn't find Steam). See my forum post on Phoronix here about it, maybe someone can shed some light as I've never really used PTS before. If I can get it to work, I will do some proper tests.
The GoL/Phoronix Blood Feud continues... :D
2 Likes, Who?
Quoting: liamdaweNot at all, I have great respect for his work despite my comments now and then (Read Phoronix for years), but PTS could use some quality of life updates to make it simpler to use. A UI wouldn't be a bad idea either.Yeah, I'm just having a spot of tongue in cheek fun.
On topic: I suspect we won't be seeing gains immediately, as with Talos, as it's probably either just a wrapper or a very basic/barebones implementation right now.
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while in development doing a benchmark won't do any good because with the development layers in place Vulkan operates much like OpenGL does on a normal basis. you may see some increases once it's more optimized. you won't see full potential until the development layers are removed from the Vulkan development build, which is when it will be officially released.
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Quoting: neowiz73while in development doing a benchmark won't do any good because with the development layers in place Vulkan operates much like OpenGL does on a normal basis. you may see some increases once it's more optimized. you won't see full potential until the development layers are removed from the Vulkan development build, which is when it will be officially released.
Where did you get the idea that they actually ship with those layers on? I would think it would be common sense to disable them even if it's a beta. I'd wager you wouldn't get 20FPS out of it if that was the case.
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Quoting: neowiz73while in development doing a benchmark won't do any good because with the development layers in place
Development layers can easily be enabled/disabled on runtime using environment variables. Or even when they are configured via game settings, they can be easily disabled and then they cause _no_ overhead. Vulkan validation and debug layers is not a thing that you recompile your whole project with. Just enable it, or not, when loading the Vulkan driver.
There might be some other development / debugging code enabled there, though.
Last edited by Jajcus on 24 May 2016 at 12:56 pm UTC
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Nice. Having Dota2 on Vulkan means that Valve now is going to do the same as Croteam: Testing, optimizing and helping driver developers test performance to improve the drivers.
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Quoting: liamdaweMichael should indeed update some scripts from the suite (he has this habit of leaving less used scripts to rot), but not sure what you mean by "cumbersome and annoying to use", its graphical interface is already dead simple.Quoting: KeyrockNot at all, I have great respect for his work despite my comments now and then (Read Phoronix for years), but PTS could use some quality of life updates to make it simpler to use. A UI wouldn't be a bad idea either.QuoteI tried to use the famous Phoronix Test Suite to benchmark it, but I find that software to be rather cumbersome and annoying to use. I can't seem to get the Dota 2 benchmark to even run. I edited the script to actually point to my Dota 2 install (the PTS test relies on the default install location) but it doesn't find Steam). See my forum post on Phoronix here about it, maybe someone can shed some light as I've never really used PTS before. If I can get it to work, I will do some proper tests.
The GoL/Phoronix Blood Feud continues... :D
View video on youtube.com
Last edited by dubigrasu on 24 May 2016 at 2:00 pm UTC
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The official site has no link to any kind of manual I could find. Unless I am blind, only found it by googling for it: http://www.phoronix-test-suite.com/documentation/phoronix-test-suite.html
As for the GUI, it seems it does include some kind of HTML5 UI, but even that won't load without first configuring by a text file. It doesn't tell you what to configure either, just tells you to do it.
As for the GUI, it seems it does include some kind of HTML5 UI, but even that won't load without first configuring by a text file. It doesn't tell you what to configure either, just tells you to do it.
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Quoting: liamdaweThe official site has no link to any kind of manual I could find. Unless I am blind, only found it by googling for it: http://www.phoronix-test-suite.com/documentation/phoronix-test-suite.html
As for the GUI, it seems it does include some kind of HTML5 UI, but even that won't load without first configuring by a text file. It doesn't tell you what to configure either, just tells you to do it.
You don't have to configure anything, just start with "phoronix-test-suite gui" and agree to User Agreement.
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