Proton Hotfix from Valve gets The Witcher 3 next-gen DX12 working on Steam Deck

I tried. It took forever to load into the game. It crashed after a minute of gameplay. I gave up. I will wait...

Does anyone know how to enable raytracing and DLSS in the game? They were grayed out.

The most interesting observation was that the game uses d3d11on12 for the dx12 "port" of the game, something that microsoft says NOT to do for complex 3d software because it's not optimised at all an causes higher cpu loads. In that regard it's something similar to the RTX remix from Portal RTX that also converts the game to another API in order to make it possible to inject some RT into it. Not ideal. I'll be continuing some gameplay test tonight and see how the DX11 version runs and what the differences are.

Does anyone know how to enable raytracing and DLSS in the game? They were grayed out.

Use:
PROTON_ENABLE_NVAPI=1 VKD3D_CONFIG=dxr11 %command%

But you really don't have to bother because it'll crash very quickly after enabling RT. And I've read that savegames that are saved with RT on will not load properly with it off.


Last edited by Ehvis on 15 December 2022 at 4:03 pm UTC

Told ya!

As someone who has been on GOG for a long time, I'm not surprised that they didn't bother to get something tested before pushing a public release. They've done the same thing with the webpage countless times.

Performance experience with DX12 version is really bad. DX11 one works well.

And I've read that savegames that are saved with RT on will not load properly with it off.

Why would they make the save format depend on a graphics option?

I tried. It took forever to load into the game. It crashed after a minute of gameplay. I gave up. I will wait...

Does anyone know how to enable raytracing and DLSS in the game? They were grayed out.

It still crashes immediately for me on my desktop, even with Proton Hotfix enabled.

It works pretty well on my Steam Deck. Got great performance with FSR2: solid 40fps at medium settings, no hairworks; I always turn if off, anyway (it takes too much ressources on all of my systems and I'm not sure I like the look of it).

Edit: Wrong setting... Tried too many combinations


Last edited by Mohandevir on 15 December 2022 at 8:55 pm UTC

witcher 3 now uses dxr raytracing, it needs dx12, because there is no dx11 raytracing implementation, at least modern and useful one . maybe part of the rendering code is translation of dx11 to dx12 but it is necessary anyway and might work faster just because of lower dx12 overhead

Nope, DX12 version works much worse and doesn't load GPU fully resulting in dips to 40 fps for me, while in DX11 mode this new version hits 160-180 fps even on Ultra+ settings.


Last edited by Shmerl on 15 December 2022 at 7:14 pm UTC

For me with the fix on my arch with rx6600xt and r1600X it hangs and gets the whole screen corrupted.
I can only go then to the console and kill the game. And it seems that I only can reboot to get to the desktop (restarting the desktop doesn't seem to work).
It needs a little more work. I haven't test the performance, but I tried all at maximum and it seems ok (I used to play it with a gf660, so I don't require hight fps).

So the AcquireWrappedResources performance hit in D3D11On12 is still a thing?

Performance experience with DX12 version is really bad. DX11 one works well.

Just gave it a shot with the newly released vkd3d-proton 2.8, game loads fine however fps is very unstable compared to dx11.


I'd say right now the only reason to use the DX12 version is to enable FSR2.

Performance experience with DX12 version is really bad. DX11 one works well.

Just gave it a shot with the newly released vkd3d-proton 2.8, game loads fine however fps is very unstable compared to dx11.


I'd say right now the only reason to use the DX12 version is to enable FSR2.

Even that... I'm unconvinced. The image looked too blurry. I still get that 40fps mark, though. I also tried comparing that setup (FSR2 in automatic mode) to Steam Deck's FSR (3) with TAAU AA at 1152*768 resolution. It looks better and feels smoother, imo. I'll try a more extensive play session later to confirm it's not just a weird occurence, but the Steam Deck's internal temps were oscillating between 60 and 68deg with this setup while with FSR2, it got regularly above 80deg with the fan noise typical with these temps.

Anyone to comfirm/deny?

Edit: I stand on my first impressions. DX12 at medium settings with TAAU AA, 1158x768 resolution and the Steam Deck's FSR (3) , it runs and looks much better than in-game FSR2 automatic with similar settings, for this game. Something wrong with this FSR2 implementation?


Last edited by Mohandevir on 16 December 2022 at 7:02 pm UTC

Played some on both DX12 and DX11 today. DX11 gives me slightly higher fps, but it's not really noticeable and it looks exactly the same. Do have to say, the Ultra+ settings are very nice for draw distance but they are brutal on fps. I'm managing about 65 fps with it around the White Orchard area. I think this is why I have pretty stable fps and similar numbers to DX11. I hammering the GPU and not really giving it a chance to become CPU bound. As far as I understand, the real problem starts when D3D11on12 starts hitting core limits.

Honestly, I don't understand why they went the D3D11on12 route. They could have (and it's what I expected) back-ported the DX12 support from CP2077 into the game for a more solid implementation. Instead using a translation layer, that microsoft itself says not to use, and making the game cpu bound seems like a bad choice when you're trying to repair some of the reputation damage for prior releases. I imagine it would have been better received if they never put the RT in and stuck with the DX11 version that still has a good list of graphical improvements.

They could have (and it's what I expected) back-ported the DX12 support from CP2077 into the game for a more solid implementation.

That's what I expected as well since I read the announcement of the “upgrade”, although I wasn't sure about the solid part.

Proton Hotfix from Valve doesn't get it working for me (PC, not Steam Deck). It still crashes out to handler dialog at the last moment before the game spawns, for me. Not only that, Proton Hotfix renamed the wine pfx out of the way and I had to go fishing for my game data.

I'm going back to my upstream wine based proton-tkg (proton_tkg_7.22.some.git.spaghetti) where at least the game launcher works ("REDlauncher"... it looks like a thin version of the Galaxy client or something) and I can choose between DirectX 12 and DirectX 11. It does not appear with any of the valve wine based protons (including my proton-tkg with valve bleeding edge) for whatever reason (aborts and default game exe runs?)

The DirectX 11 version seems to be a separate build and it runs OK. I do see that d3d11on12.dll in the bin\x64_dx12 directory but that's not being used for the DirectX 11 build. I didn't think so, but I renamed the x64_dx12 directory right out of the way to see and it did not affect the DirectX 11 build of the game at all.

steam/steamapps/common/The Witcher 3/bin/x64 <---- DirectX 11 build
steam/steamapps/common/The Witcher 3/bin/x64_dx12 <--- DirectX 12 build

I'm sure they used some translation at the source level in the first place to port this to DirectX 12.

I feel like the hotfix only works for AMD maybe, I run an Nvidia 3090 TI and it takes FOREVER to load, if ever. I kinda gave up and went back to dx11 for now. Game load almost instant on dx11.

Proton hotfix worked for me but when I got the part where they reach the first village and go to the tavern, my pc crashed so hard, I had to reset it.

If CD Projekt had chosen Vulkan instead of directx12 they probably would not have had so many issues with their engine and they could easily port it to Linux and mac. Seems they gave up now since they are switching to a commercially available game engine for their other games !