Why woud you even need this? The game runs perfectly fine on modern hardware using modern drivers, I still play it frequently on my Ryzen 5600X, RX 6700XT Windows 11 DX12 PC. The game installs DirectX 9.0c which coexists with the current DirectX version. At most you may need to enable Direct Play manually as a feature, which I did not have to on Windows 10.

Mostly because I noticed that antialias and some effects appear crisper on dx11 and wanted to go that extra mile, without resorting to things like Reshade which inevitably clog the UI.

Garrick wrote on 2023-01-20, 11:09:

Mostly because I noticed that antialias and some effects appear crisper on dx11 and wanted to go that extra mile, without resorting to things like Reshade which inevitably clog the UI.

This is not my experience, the visuals are the same.

Thanks for the report, it turned out to be a bug in the D3D11 backend of dgVoodoo. I've just fixed it and it'll be included in the next version.

Btw, for D3D9 it's much better to wrap it to D3D12 instead of D3D11. Because of performance and other minor reasons.
If you still want to play the game through dgVoodoo then config it to use D3D12, it works with it as expected, I checked it out.
To do that, set 'Output API' to 'Direct3D 12' from the default 'Best available one' on the General tab in the CPL app.

It worked, thank you very much!

I apologize for the double post, but I wanted to provide a small update on this. Basically, dgvoodoo enacted on DOW2 has allowed it look much better than how it looks in Vanilla. Take this screenshot as proof. I know it's not the 'intended' use of the wrapper, but still it looks very very cool. Compare the image below with any public DOW2 screenshot.
Dgvoodoo (MSAA 8x/Anisotropic 16x/Phong shadows)

Vanilla

So you're just using it to force higher anti-aliasing? I thought such a relatively recent game would still be fully compatible with modern cards.

It is, but it's quickly showing its age. with dx12 the game It looks better. I am using dgvoodoo in an uninteded way, namely as something closer to reshade/enbseries without their drawbacks. On a secondary note, some of our mod team's guys reported an increase in minimum fps as well. It's an happy accident and I just ran with it.

Garrick wrote on 2023-02-03, 06:15:

with dx12 the game It looks better.

It's hard to see any difference, but if you say so.

Garrick wrote on 2023-02-03, 06:15:

It is, but it's quickly showing its age. with dx12 the game It looks better. I am using dgvoodoo in an uninteded way, namely as something closer to reshade/enbseries without their drawbacks. On a secondary note, some of our mod team's guys reported an increase in minimum fps as well. It's an happy accident and I just ran with it.

DX12 is doing nothing here, you are just forcing higher AA and different shadows.

Allright, allright. What matters is that we've seen an increase in performance and the game looks better and not in a reshadeish post-processed way, and it is being perceived as such not only by me but also from other fellow players. It's just a cool find, and what I get is a series of dismissals. Thanks for nothing I guess, I thought it could have been interesting to share. Have a wonderful life.

Garrick wrote on 2023-02-04, 09:14:

Allright, allright. What matters is that we've seen an increase in performance and the game looks better and not in a reshadeish post-processed way, and it is being perceived as such not only by me but also from other fellow players. It's just a cool find, and what I get is a series of dismissals. Thanks for nothing I guess, I thought it could have been interesting to share. Have a wonderful life.

Sorry to burst your placebo bubble.

appiah4 wrote on 2023-02-04, 10:18:

Garrick wrote on 2023-02-04, 09:14:

Allright, allright. What matters is that we've seen an increase in performance and the game looks better and not in a reshadeish post-processed way, and it is being perceived as such not only by me but also from other fellow players. It's just a cool find, and what I get is a series of dismissals. Thanks for nothing I guess, I thought it could have been interesting to share. Have a wonderful life.

Sorry to burst your placebo bubble.

Keep going at it. Sure, it's all Placebo. Or maybe I said 'improvement in performances' because...I have concrete proof that there is an increase in performance, from the game's internal performance test?
No Dgvoodoo2, game internal AA ON

with Dgvoodoo2

I will concede that a different AA method, shadows and anisotropic filter might not be everyone's cup of tea, but I believe they improve the game's graphical presentation. Now, the outer limit is in the game's assets (but modding will come around to it).
Have a nice day.

PS. You know the joke about the guy atop a pedestal? Come down so I can tell you.

Now I see that dgvoodoo makes the image extremely blurry, which is to be expected with all that multisample anti-aliasing, whereas without it the game is much sharper -- and nicer, in my opinion. Personally, blurry games annoy me. I guess it's a matter of taste. Some like it smooth and smeary, though I'll never understand why.

It improves performance because it appears to be rendering at a lower resolution and upscaling or something because that image is a terribly blurry mess. The ground texture at the bottom of the screen has lost absolutely ALL of texture detail - and that is supposed to have 16x AF? The entire foilage on the lower right has become indiscernable. Whatever you are smoking, it's good stuff.

No upscaling involved. I give up, Appiah. You've given me nothing but contempt here. I'll leave.

Garrick wrote on 2023-02-04, 16:01:

Keep going at it. Sure, it's all Placebo. Or maybe I said 'improvement in performances' because...I have concrete proof that there is an increase in performance, from the game's internal performance test?

I know nothing about this game, but if you open both game screenshots in browser tabs and flip between them what do you see?

I see the second picture being horribly blurry. Even the interface icons and text are blurry. I also don't see any difference in the shadows other than that they are blurry along with everything else. That's not phong shadows, that's just a blurry image.

There may be something that looks better in motion, but the second shot you posted is objectively blurrier than the first, to the point that many many details are lost.

I don't know what kind of graphics card you are using, but if you have an RTX card you can enable DLDSR (under DSR factors) which will allow you select higher rendering resolutions than your native display res. The GPU actually renders at a high resolution, then scales it down to your native res. This works independently of the game engine and provides absolutely gorgeous anti-aliasing as long as the game's 2D assets scale properly and don't end up tiny and unusable. I use this in pretty much any game that I can. I am able to play at 2880x1620 on my 1080P display with basically no aliasing.

Garrick wrote on 2023-02-05, 22:18:

No upscaling involved. I give up, Appiah. You've given me nothing but contempt here. I'll leave.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, you were right; I just went into dg cp and played around with some settings and now it looks EVEN BETTER!

Hi there (to Dege), just one of the players testing dgvoodoo for this game, and I realized something weird.. screenshots for reference..

In the 1st pic, you will notice the unit (the Tactical Marine Squad) with the healthbar above them.

Once I press the windows button to check something outside (eg: Web browser etc.), then I return to the game, the healthbar disappears.

Issue is reproducible. It is not just the healthbar of that unit alone. Any units / buildings around, would have this affect them.
The weird thing is.. once the affected unit enters a transport and exits, the missing healthbar returns.

There is no in-game button to show / hide the healthbars, and I thought it weird.

I have checked, and this issue doesn't happen normally (without dgvoodoo).
Its strange that dgvoodoo would affect the in-game UI though.

Also, had another issue (see the 3rd pic), where.. I'm not sure how.. the whole UI in-game HUD disappears. I haven't have an idea how this issue was made.

Regardless, if its an issue on dgvoodoo, hopefully that can be checked out!

@appiah4, I'm not gonna exclaim how wonderful dgvoodoo is on improving Retribution, when I can see the differences as pointed out. Some people just like having options, so let that be I guess. However, if you are going to be sanctimonious like with Garrick, then I will not entertain those remarks. Thank you.