Vulcan is absolutely the way to go. DX11 is awful right now.

[Ancient Toaster]

This game was running like absolute garbage for me. EA ran a lot better on DX11.

If you're using an RTX Card and the new Nvidia driver I really recommend switching to Vulcan. Not only is it smooth there is ZERO stutter using Vulcan. With DX11 every time I turned the camera it would drop into the low 20's and stutter then finally get back to a solid 70 FPS, but it was so bad in the Druid grove area that I was considering maybe just dropping the game until a patch.

If anyone else is having massive stutter, frame drops etc. I highly recommend launching the game in Vulcan.

[LeftPaw]

I didn't really take much notice of the lag while playing DX11 until I gave Vulkan a try. It is in your face noticeable. The game just glides in Vulcan but hic-ups all the time in DX11. The only down side is in Vulkan your computer is taxed that bit more, nothing to worry about but you notice the fans pick up a bit.

[Dable]

It's probably already been mentioned but I don't think dx11 supports hdr and vulcan does. So I use Vulcan. Only one crash in hours of play.

[Deylendor]

My problem is that the launcher always reverts to DX11, no matter how many time I select Vulcan and play.

[RazzyKaos]

Originally posted by raubrey:

Vulkan for modern AMD certainly. I can run the game at twice the frame rate with a 7900 XT.

Strange, i have AMD Ryzen 7 6800H (8 cores, 3.2Ghz), AMD RADEON RX6650XT 8GB graphics card, Corsair Vengeance 32GB DDR5 4800MHz SODIMM RAM, and installed this on a Corsair 4TB MP600 PRO XT GEN 4 SSD. In EA, I used Vulkan and had no issues, no stuttering, no lag, nothing. Now my experience with Vulkan is crashing every 40 minutes or so, where as DirectX has been better for me.

[alanrco]

Recovering shipment from cave scenario. DX11 really tripped over itself and was unplayable, Seemed okay up to then. I played the same quest over using Vulkan. Super smooth and at 4K all bells and whistles (think DLSS makes the difference). I know DX11 is the default on startup but Larian recommended Vulkan during early access.

Nvidia RTX2080Ti + 9 series cpu + 32Gb

[MINUANO GAMING]

Originally posted by SIX:

Same here running a 13900k with dx11 the grove is laggy even tho I have a stable 90 fps

Yeah, I just got to the grove on DX11 and it was a stutterfest. Went back to Vulkan and never looker back.

The only common denominator I can think of is our e-cores which apparently DX11 can't handle.

[Feels Ranger Man]

Originally posted by AncientToaster:

This game was running like absolute garbage for me. EA ran a lot better on DX11.

If you're using an RTX Card and the new Nvidia driver I really recommend switching to Vulcan. Not only is it smooth there is ZERO stutter using Vulcan. With DX11 every time I turned the camera it would drop into the low 20's and stutter then finally get back to a solid 70 FPS, but it was so bad in the Druid grove area that I was considering maybe just dropping the game until a patch.

If anyone else is having massive stutter, frame drops etc. I highly recommend launching the game in Vulcan.

I have the opposite experience with a 3090ti and intel 13900. Everytime I use Vuikan it crashes within 30-40m as if it's a memory leak. Only had 1 crash in 10 hours on DX11.

[el0ax]

Using a rtx 4060 -- DX11 very smooth, some glitchiness w/ Vulcan.

Thank goodness both are available, usually people can get at least one or the other working well. Heck, I'd be happy with *more* API options.

[pahrias]

Right, I would love to, but for whatever reason it either wont load or crashes frequently. Usually during cut scenes.

[Zoid13]

Originally posted by Sempavor:

I'm using Dirctx11, drivers are up to date and with my RTX 3070ti the game runs fine. Very, very fine.

this but different gpu :)

[Lashane The Simp of Mimi]

RTX 2070 Super OC Edition. my GPU is outdated but it runs on DX11 just great locked at 60 frames with literally all settings on Ultra/High.

[TFerretNXG]

i never update nvidia drivers unless there is an actual problem. nvidia has a bad habit of gimping their older rtx or gtx cards. even though i have a 3080 im sure they are not beyond gimping it on a driver level to make me feel like i should upgrade my card. ive had zero problems with whatever driver was the latest in june when i reinstalled windows.

[Boogy]

HDR is much better on Vulkan as well.
DX11 has highlights clamping if set higher than 100 brightness in game

[riverslq]

Loading Vulkan on my machine gives a neverending white screen hang on startup.

DX11 functions perfectly and has since EA.

[Martin]

Originally posted by riverslq:

Loading Vulkan on my machine gives a neverending white screen hang on startup.

DX11 functions perfectly and has since EA.

Exit the Larian Loader to get the game to run. I get similar, the game doesn't load correctly unless you exit the preloader.

This only started to happen since the hotfix. Game runs fine for me in Dx11 as well.