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Hot on the heels of Wine 4.0, the excellent DXVK [GitHub] project has another fresh release available this weekend.

Some great sounding improvements made it into this release including more CPU overhead reductions, from reducing "redundant Vulkan API calls" which should help games with a large number of shaders like Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Additionally, GPU synchronization overhead was also reduced which could help performance further. On top of that, there's even efficiency improvements for Tessellation shaders with no more Vulkan validation errors.

It also comes with a healthy set of bug fixes:

  • Fixed incorrect MultiDrawIndirect behaviour introduced in v0.95 (see PR #863)
  • Fixed crash in Resident Evil 2 Demo when using Wine's DXGI implementation (see PR #878)
  • Fixed potential issue with DXVK clearing the wrong render targets, which could lead to various types of rendering errors.
  • Fixed regression introduced in v0.95 that caused rendering issues in Titanfall 2 and potentially other games.
  • Mass Effect Andromeda: Actually report Nvidia GPUs as Nvidia GPUs to fix corrupted screen space reflections (#885)

A new version of the state cache was also implemented, this may cause some stutter while it builds up a new one. The "dxgi.maxFrameLatency" option has returned and "d3d11.fakeStreamOutput" was removed.

Full release notes here.

Sounds like a pretty great release, one I will be trying out plenty during next week. If you do try it out across the weekend, do come back and comment with your experiences.

Now that this and Wine 4.0 is out, hopefully a big update to Steam Play is around the corner. Would be a pretty big update to it.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Vulkan, Wine
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Brisse Jan 27, 2019
Quoting: WoodlandorI have a few single player games that will not work due to DRM issues.

I’m curious as to what Steam’s terms of service are on modifying the game files as there are obviously removal tools from the pirate community.

On one hand, yes you are removing a “security feature” and likely breaking the EULA of that particular game.

On the other hand, since it was purchased on Steam. The fact that you paid for that game is 100% verifiable ?

Don't think it's the same in the US, but in most of Europe you have the legal right to reverse engineer and modify however you see fit as long as you do not violate copyright. This right goes above whatever the EULA says, so if the EULA tries to prevent you, you can just ignore it because it's invalid. This also means that downloading a nocd-patch or similar for a game which you have a licence for is perfectly legal.
Woodlandor Jan 27, 2019
Quoting: GuestWhy would you worry to break an EULA? Did you really read all and agree? They enforce this after buying the game anyway and do not care to make the game run fine on your platform. So they take your money, show you later an EULA, enforce you to agree with everything as otherwise they blocking you from using the game. Fixing a game that I own and paid for is my right :-)

Its not the EULA for the game I'm worried about breaking, it's Steam's terms of service and losing my account/library :D
strycore Jan 27, 2019
Quoting: Avehicle7887
Quoting: strycore
Quoting: Avehicle7887
Quoting: CorbenSo the only remaining big point that's still on the list, seems getting those DRM and anti-cheat mechanisms work with wine/proton. Then we would also be able to play the big multiplayer titles, like Fortnite or PUBG... those are still a hurdle for some people to totally switch to Linux I can imagine.

Personally I don't really mind, I don't miss those games. But in general it would be great to be able to have a solution for that.

Unfortunately there's also the 'Windows Media Foundation' issue which has FMV issues in various games, such as the new Resident Evil 2, Darksiders 1 - Warmastered Edition and a few others I forgot the name of.

Should be an interesting year for Wine with all the projects surrounding it.

I got the Media Foundation videos to work with Darksiders Warmastered. This is a new feature in Lutris 0.5.0 which allow installing individual cab file components. Darksider s is the only WMF game I have but I would be interested to see if this method works for other games.

That's wonderful news, got any hints how I can do that without using Lutris? I prefer to use just Wine whenever possible. Thanks

Someone got RE2 running as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79DCa-5BYSI&feature=youtu.be

There is a link in the description which will take you to the project I re-implemented in Lutris. Take note of the issues. This is not maintained very well.
Whitewolfe80 Jan 27, 2019
Quoting: Avehicle7887
Quoting: strycore
Quoting: Avehicle7887
Quoting: CorbenSo the only remaining big point that's still on the list, seems getting those DRM and anti-cheat mechanisms work with wine/proton. Then we would also be able to play the big multiplayer titles, like Fortnite or PUBG... those are still a hurdle for some people to totally switch to Linux I can imagine.

Personally I don't really mind, I don't miss those games. But in general it would be great to be able to have a solution for that.

Unfortunately there's also the 'Windows Media Foundation' issue which has FMV issues in various games, such as the new Resident Evil 2, Darksiders 1 - Warmastered Edition and a few others I forgot the name of.

Should be an interesting year for Wine with all the projects surrounding it.

I got the Media Foundation videos to work with Darksiders Warmastered. This is a new feature in Lutris 0.5.0 which allow installing individual cab file components. Darksider s is the only WMF game I have but I would be interested to see if this method works for other games.

That's wonderful news, got any hints how I can do that without using Lutris? I prefer to use just Wine whenever possible. Thanks

Probably not my friend as Strycore is the creator of lutris aka matthew comandant
Purple Library Guy Jan 27, 2019
Quoting: GuestNice release! I'm still impressed how well DXVK works, how fast it has evolved and how much I use Proton(Wine) now. After Valve allowed us to install Linux games with Proton, I've started to test several additional games with DXVK and it is getting really hard to find the ones that do not run or have some graphical issues :-) Yes, BattlEye and other DRM software is an issue, but this is nothing DXVK can change and it is all up to the game developers and maybe Valve to ask for another solution.
There's something I don't quite understand about all this: These anti-cheat softwares are . . . software, right? Software that, like, runs on . . . Windows? What exactly is so special about them that makes it hard for Wine to run them? Clearly there must be something or this whole deal wouldn't be an issue, but can anyone explain to me what?
Purple Library Guy Jan 27, 2019
Quoting: Brisse
Quoting: WoodlandorI have a few single player games that will not work due to DRM issues.

I’m curious as to what Steam’s terms of service are on modifying the game files as there are obviously removal tools from the pirate community.

On one hand, yes you are removing a “security feature” and likely breaking the EULA of that particular game.

On the other hand, since it was purchased on Steam. The fact that you paid for that game is 100% verifiable ?

Don't think it's the same in the US, but in most of Europe you have the legal right to reverse engineer and modify however you see fit as long as you do not violate copyright. This right goes above whatever the EULA says, so if the EULA tries to prevent you, you can just ignore it because it's invalid. This also means that downloading a nocd-patch or similar for a game which you have a licence for is perfectly legal.
I believe in the US it's the reverse--the DMCA makes it actually illegal to remove "security features" or "bypass encryption measures" or like that even on something you supposedly own, making EULAs still irrelevant but in the other direction--it would still be illegal even if the EULA specifically gave you the right. I think it's insane, but that's the Digital Millennium Copyright Act for you.
Brisse Jan 27, 2019
Quoting: Purple Library Guy
Quoting: GuestNice release! I'm still impressed how well DXVK works, how fast it has evolved and how much I use Proton(Wine) now. After Valve allowed us to install Linux games with Proton, I've started to test several additional games with DXVK and it is getting really hard to find the ones that do not run or have some graphical issues :-) Yes, BattlEye and other DRM software is an issue, but this is nothing DXVK can change and it is all up to the game developers and maybe Valve to ask for another solution.
There's something I don't quite understand about all this: These anti-cheat softwares are . . . software, right? Software that, like, runs on . . . Windows? What exactly is so special about them that makes it hard for Wine to run them? Clearly there must be something or this whole deal wouldn't be an issue, but can anyone explain to me what?

"In an effort to make copy protection more effective (i.e. resistant to cracks), the methods used by many copy protection products have become complex, difficult to understand (obfuscated), and hard to debug. In some cases Wine would need to be altered to allow for almost rootkit-like functionality of programs to get some of these copy protection schemes to work. To support copy protection Wine developers have to contend with undocumented interfaces, code obfuscation, and maintaining compatibility with *nix security models. "

https://wiki.winehq.org/Copy_Protection

Anti-cheat is probably a similar situation.
Brisse Jan 27, 2019
Quoting: Purple Library Guy
Quoting: Brisse
Quoting: WoodlandorI have a few single player games that will not work due to DRM issues.

I’m curious as to what Steam’s terms of service are on modifying the game files as there are obviously removal tools from the pirate community.

On one hand, yes you are removing a “security feature” and likely breaking the EULA of that particular game.

On the other hand, since it was purchased on Steam. The fact that you paid for that game is 100% verifiable ?

Don't think it's the same in the US, but in most of Europe you have the legal right to reverse engineer and modify however you see fit as long as you do not violate copyright. This right goes above whatever the EULA says, so if the EULA tries to prevent you, you can just ignore it because it's invalid. This also means that downloading a nocd-patch or similar for a game which you have a licence for is perfectly legal.
I believe in the US it's the reverse--the DMCA makes it actually illegal to remove "security features" or "bypass encryption measures" or like that even on something you supposedly own, making EULAs still irrelevant but in the other direction--it would still be illegal even if the EULA specifically gave you the right. I think it's insane, but that's the Digital Millennium Copyright Act for you.

Yea, I don't know the details but I've heard it's something along those lines. Pretty crazy if you ask me.
Purple Library Guy Jan 27, 2019
Quoting: Brisse
Quoting: Purple Library Guy
Quoting: GuestNice release! I'm still impressed how well DXVK works, how fast it has evolved and how much I use Proton(Wine) now. After Valve allowed us to install Linux games with Proton, I've started to test several additional games with DXVK and it is getting really hard to find the ones that do not run or have some graphical issues :-) Yes, BattlEye and other DRM software is an issue, but this is nothing DXVK can change and it is all up to the game developers and maybe Valve to ask for another solution.
There's something I don't quite understand about all this: These anti-cheat softwares are . . . software, right? Software that, like, runs on . . . Windows? What exactly is so special about them that makes it hard for Wine to run them? Clearly there must be something or this whole deal wouldn't be an issue, but can anyone explain to me what?

"In an effort to make copy protection more effective (i.e. resistant to cracks), the methods used by many copy protection products have become complex, difficult to understand (obfuscated), and hard to debug. In some cases Wine would need to be altered to allow for almost rootkit-like functionality of programs to get some of these copy protection schemes to work. To support copy protection Wine developers have to contend with undocumented interfaces, code obfuscation, and maintaining compatibility with *nix security models. "

https://wiki.winehq.org/Copy_Protection

Anti-cheat is probably a similar situation.
Ah. Thank you.
Alloc Jan 27, 2019
Anticheat stuff typically runs on a very low level these days, i.e. kernel mode of the OS with a lot of internal stuff going on to try to make sure no one is hacking. You wouldn't really be able to replicate everything that would be needed on a compatibility layer.

DRM is a different thing though, wonder how many companies still do that anyway these days though? Can't remember what my last game was that had actual DRM, though I must admit that I rarely play "triple A" games (imho triple A these days sucks most of the time compared to actual "innovations" from indies).
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