Performance increase WORKAROUND

[vlad_8011]

[NOTE : THIS IS WROKAROUND OF THE ISSUE, IT SHOULD NOT BE THREATED AS FIX, DEVELOPERS CAN INTEGRATE THIS NATIVELY INTO GAME, WHICH WOULD HELP WITH CACHING PROBLEMS (for example as BETA) ]

So i found out, DXVK is making framereate more stable. From 60 with very common dips to 15-20 on rather strong rig (RX 6800 XT, Ryzen 5800X, 32GB RAM CL14 3600Mhz) to 50-60 with occasional dips to 40.

Now, soultion is not perfect. First off, expect very heavy stuttering and microfreezes of the game for first few matches. Secondly, not every .dll may be compatible with your system, hardware or game itself (wrapper have 4 of them).

So if you readed DXVK and wrapper you propably know what it is. This is Vulkan wrapper, which in very simple words, translate DirectX into Vulkan. Gates Of Hell is DX11 , x64 title*

Installaltion:

- head over official github release page:
https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk

- On the right hand side you got "releases", click on version (for time of writing this) 2.3.
- Scroll down into "dxvk-2.3.tar.gz", download file.
- Open the archive, open archive inside (recommended 7zip) and head into x64 folder, now you shall see 4 files:
-d3d9.dll
-d3d10core.dll
-d3d11.dll**
-dxgi.dll
- extract all those files into game folder (steamapps\common\Call to Arms - Gates of Hell\binaries\x64).

* - Game is DX11 title, so it should use DXVK d3d11.dll, but.....
** - In case when game will not start, remove this file, and game should start working on dxgi.dll (log will be automatically created).

Where those stable FPS come from?

Look, im not programmer, i cant explain this in details, but what i see is large increase in CPU and GPU usage - you can use performance overlay before and after applying this wrapper. As of right now, i'm using this for around 2 weeks. Not a single crash. Its worth of trying, it cost nothing. You dont need to change anything in system, drivers - nothing. But if you want, there is also trick with disabling The High Precision Event Timer in device manager in system. Simply disabling this "device" makes no change in the system, but it may improve performance of some DX11 and older DX titles.

[Madnesis]

I'm really interested in testing this (I already did on other games and yes, it does help for some) but because of the anti-cheat, I'm wondering if there is any risk of getting banned. I don't plan to play online.

[vlad_8011]

Цитата допису Madnesis:

I'm really interested in testing this (I already did on other games and yes, it does help for some) but because of the anti-cheat, I'm wondering if there is any risk of getting banned. I don't plan to play online.

Well, I'm playing offline for 3 weeks now - no ban.

[Madnesis]

I copied all 4 files from the archive "x64" folder into "Steam\steamapps\common\Call to Arms - Gates of Hell\binaries\x64" folder but Vulkan doesn't seem to kick in. I see no performance difference plus no new log file. Any idea what I might be doing wrong?

[vlad_8011]

Цитата допису Madnesis:

I copied all 4 files from the archive "x64" folder into "Steam\steamapps\common\Call to Arms - Gates of Hell\binaries\x64" folder but Vulkan doesn't seem to kick in. I see no performance difference plus no new log file. Any idea what I might be doing wrong?

What PC are you using (components)? Did you tried deleting that one file?

[Madnesis]

Цитата допису vlad_8011:

Цитата допису Madnesis:

I copied all 4 files from the archive "x64" folder into "Steam\steamapps\common\Call to Arms - Gates of Hell\binaries\x64" folder but Vulkan doesn't seem to kick in. I see no performance difference plus no new log file. Any idea what I might be doing wrong?

What PC are you using (components)? Did you tried deleting that one file?

All specs available from my Steam profile.

[vlad_8011]

Do you have installed game on HDD or ssd? Did you deleted that one file as instructed?

[Madnesis]

Цитата допису vlad_8011:

Do you have installed game on HDD or ssd? Did you deleted that one file as instructed?

Not sure why it's important but I have the game on SSD (NVMe). I tried everything but I can't get it to work but at the same time, the game has anti-cheat hence I'm wondering if DVXK is actually really running for you. Is this something you checked using MSI Afterburner or with the "dxvk.conf" config file?

[Hussar of Glory]

Цитата допису Madnesis:

Цитата допису vlad_8011:

Do you have installed game on HDD or ssd? Did you deleted that one file as instructed?

Not sure why it's important but I have the game on SSD (NVMe). I tried everything but I can't get it to work but at the same time, the game has anti-cheat hence I'm wondering if DVXK is actually really running for you. Is this something you checked using MSI Afterburner or with the "dxvk.conf" config file?

We can check it in Adrenalin for AMD , but no idea about Nvidia stuff

[vlad_8011]

Exactly. AMD overlays show current used API, and there was strong difference with performance, this I'm sure it's working. But let me ask you something else @madnesis:
What performance do you have? You know, dxvk improves it, but it doesn't triple your FPS ;) with 3090 and some I7 or i9 with SSD you should have no problems.

[Madnesis]

Цитата допису GIGN Pain Soldier:

Цитата допису Madnesis:

Not sure why it's important but I have the game on SSD (NVMe). I tried everything but I can't get it to work but at the same time, the game has anti-cheat hence I'm wondering if DVXK is actually really running for you. Is this something you checked using MSI Afterburner or with the "dxvk.conf" config file?

We can check it in Adrenalin for AMD , but no idea about Nvidia stuff

Nice! I wasn't aware of that. Is that software coming with the AMD GPU drivers?
EDIT: my question was related to Adrenalin.

Цитата допису vlad_8011:

Exactly. AMD overlays show current used API, and there was strong difference with performance, this I'm sure it's working. But let me ask you something else @madnesis:
What performance do you have? You know, dxvk improves it, but it doesn't triple your FPS ;) with 3090 and some I7 or i9 with SSD you should have no problems.

My bad, I had Vulkan running all along. I was able to confirm with MSI Afterburner (the "dxvk.conf" overlay trick did not work). When playing one of the skirmish missions, I went from 100 FPS to 120 FPS, which is good already but AMD will benefit even more from Vulkan. Thanks OP!

[vlad_8011]

Just to be clear - it have nothing to do with drivers, just architecture differences.

I'm happy it worked for you. Nvidia GPUs should also benefit - maybe not that much as AMD, but also a lot. Take note this game engine is very old, and we can be happy we can play 60+ FPS. Direct11 have it's flaws, and for this specific engine it may symm up to large fps fluctuations. That's where vulkan shines, and and can shine in other titles based on dx9, dx10.

Vulkan was made by AMD, but it help on any hardware. It also made Alan wake 2 playable on GTX 1000 series and RX 5000 series.

If we take title, which was running poorly, for example GTA 4, here it also helps a lot. It's always worth to try, at worst game will not launch or launch in background and you have to close it via task manager.

[Cynicus Nihilisticus Paradoxus]

Tanks for this OP. Honestly, Running a RX580 and I tried it and there is definitely a difference.

I even tried it on normal CtA to check if it works well there as well and bingo. So thank you for this solution, I can deffo's recommend this!!

[Cyriak]

first I thought it worked because when there is little units spawned in skirmish I had more than 200 FPS instead of 100+ fps like before but then when intense battle starts it goes again low under 30 fps...

[vlad_8011]

Цитата допису Cyriak:

first I thought it worked because when there is little units spawned in skirmish I had more than 200 FPS instead of 100+ fps like before but then when intense battle starts it goes again low under 30 fps...

Yup, something have changed over time. Even on Linux, where this game was working better, there are drops to 20's and 30's.

EDIT: Much better performance was on pre 1.37 game version, also less bugs, but sadly, mods and editor are no more working with it.

[1337Dude]

DXVK breaks some graphical features. But it also can be used with WineHooks to scale the UI properly at 4k. Right now I'm using ReShade to restore SSAO. The other graphical feature that's broken is the soft particles. We might have to wait for a patch for that feature to work. Check out my UI scaling thread to learn how to use this to scale the UI properly.

Also lol @ the OP for suggesting this is something that should be implemented by the devs. Really weird ideas people come up with around here. I'm curious if it's because the community here is more...international?