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The developers behind DXVK have just rolled out version 2.7, and it brings some great improvements for Linux gamers—especially those using Wine or Proton to play Windows games.
For those unfamiliar, DXVK is a translation layer that converts Direct3D 9, 10, and 11 calls into Vulkan, letting you run a wide range of Windows games smoothly on Linux systems. With this new update, DXVK gets faster, smarter, and more compatible with both old and new hardware.
What’s New in DXVK 2.7?
One of the biggest changes in version 2.7 is the new support for a Vulkan feature called VK_EXT_descriptor_buffer, which is now enabled by default on most modern AMD and NVIDIA GPUs. This might sound a bit technical, but the bottom line is simple: it reduces CPU overhead, which means better performance in several demanding games. Titles like Final Fantasy XIV, God of War, Metaphor: ReFantazio, and Watch Dogs 2 should feel smoother and more responsive thanks to this update.
However, the DXVK team is being careful not to break anything. This feature is turned off on older GPUs, like NVIDIA’s Pascal series or earlier, and AMD’s RDNA2 cards when using certain drivers. Some of these combinations caused performance drops instead of gains, so the devs decided it’s better to leave the feature off unless the hardware can truly benefit. If you’re using the RADV driver (the open-source Vulkan driver for AMD), you don’t need to worry—you’re in the clear.
Other Improvements Worth Noting
There are quite a few other under-the-hood improvements too:
Memory defragmentation is now turned on by default for Intel’s upcoming Battlemage and Lunar Lake GPUs. This should help with better memory management and overall performance. A few older features, like the legacy state cache, have been removed to clean up the codebase.
DXVK now supports more complex video output formats (called planar video views), and it also ensures that certain types of memory in D3D11 shaders are initialized correctly—fixing potential bugs or graphical glitches in some games.
The update also introduces support for the ID3DDestructionNotifier interface and avoids listing Vulkan devices that don’t support the features DXVK needs—preventing possible crashes or misbehavior. One bug fix worth mentioning addresses a Vulkan issue in the game Modulus. There’s also a performance tweak for D3D9 in Source Engine games that use multisample rendering (think Half-Life 2, Portal, etc.).
A Few Changes for AMD Users
Windows users running AMD Polaris or Vega GPUs should know that DXVK now requires the VK_KHR_maintenance5 Vulkan extension. Also, for systems with limited video memory (VRAM), DXVK will now more strictly follow what the driver reports as the “available budget.” This change can really help in Unity-based games where VRAM limits can cause stuttering or crashes.
Better Game Support
As usual, this release includes fixes and tweaks for a handful of games. If you’ve had trouble with any of the following, things should now work more smoothly:
- Astebreed
- GTR – FIA GT Racing Game
- LEGO City Undercover
- Star Trek: Starfleet Command III
- Test Drive Unlimited 2
- Wargame: European Escalation
How to Get It
DXVK 2.7 is available now from the project’s GitHub page. You can download the source and build it yourself if you’re comfortable with that. If you installed DXVK through your Linux distro’s package manager, you’ll likely need to wait a little while for the update to show up there.
