D7VK is the open-source project that began as a Direct3D 7 implementation atop the Vulkan API for Linux gamers and with time expanded to support all the way back to Direct3D 3. Out today is D7VK 1.6 with continuing to enhance this D3D compatibility layer atop Vulkan for enhancing retro/vintage gaming on Linux.
The D7VK 1.6 release overhauls its interaction with DXVK’s Direct3D 9 back-end. With improved vertex processing, D7VK 1.6 should improve GPU bound performance — except that with modern hardware it’s quite hard to be GPU-bound with Direct3D 7 era and older titles. Today’s v1.6 release announcement describes the impact in turn as just helping “a potato level GPU and is only really noticeable in benchmarking.”
D7VK 1.6 also fixes a few regressions for Direct3D 5 game titles and various other fixes and enhancements.
Downloads and more details on today’s D7Vk 1.6 release via GitHub.
