It is written as "emulation" but it seems more like one of the many wrappers released which might or not have a performance hit but considering the modern hw I suppose it'd not make much difference anyway in retrogaming. While maybe still not correct, I'd call "emulation" for example the D3D sw renderer that is used when a generic vga driver is installed and an old D3D9 game is launched with the Direct3D sw path that I've tried on Win 8.x and it works quite well (like 800 points with 3DMark2001SE on a dual Atom). Impressive that even pixel shaders test worked.

DXVK does the same thing and can work in Windows.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2022-08-15, 17:24:

DXVK does the same thing and can work in Windows.

In some ways Id prefer to have D3d9 wrapped to Vulkan rather than DX12, would the performance overhead be less going to Vulkan rather than DX12 though.

Might be worth looking that up I guess.

It's probably actually something to do with the weird performance of the cards and some supposedly unfixable issue with the current silicon.

I am sure there will be visual glitches going that method.

ptr1ck wrote on 2022-08-16, 00:04:

It's probably actually something to do with the weird performance of the cards and some supposedly unfixable issue with the current silicon.

Might be more to do with current silicon being optimized for DX12U and RT that is making havoc with older DX versions.

It's basically a wrapper not emulation, and it does not seem to be very efficient at all going by Arc GPU's pretty fucking terrible CS:GO benchmark figures:https://youtu.be/ab6PdDY6Plc?t=409

........native D3D9 driver support was still a thing?

leileilol wrote on 2022-08-16, 06:09:

........native D3D9 driver support was still a thing?

I guess its more about backwards compatiblity...most 32bit games will run on newer systems out of the box...

Anyway from what I've tested for example on Win 8, the retrocompatibility might work but far from perfect when considered the specifications of modern GPUs that should make most games fly at thousands of fps theorically. If we think to many Directx9 titles still sold (and not even cheap) in online store reading around many would be surprised to see on which hardware those titles were used to run and quite good when instead it might be needed the Compatibility Tool or some workaround to find a good balance of speed/compatibility. I understand retrocompatibility can't be a "priority" of course but when old games sometimes run better on linux with Wine and a OGL wrapper, well..

Peter.Mengel wrote on 2022-08-16, 06:19:

leileilol wrote on 2022-08-16, 06:09:

........native D3D9 driver support was still a thing?

I guess its more about backwards compatiblity...most 32bit games will run on newer systems out of the box...

Understandable, I guess. It's hard to imagine for casual users that a simple game using Direct Draw or Direct 3D 3 won't run out of box.
Windows 10/11 must be superior, after all. Or so the logic goes.

In the past, it was just reasonable to assume that the lowest common denominator had to be used, if possible.
To only require what's necessary.
If I was programming a homebrew game, I'd use an a older, simpler API first, after all.
Say, Direct Draw or Direct 3D Retained Mode..

It makes no sense to require/use USB 4 for a mouse or keyboard, for example.
USB 1.x should always do. From a layman's point of view, I mean.

Jo22 wrote on 2022-08-16, 16:45:

Understandable, I guess. It's hard to imagine for casual users that a simple game using Direct Draw or Direct 3D 3 won't run out […]
Show full quote

Peter.Mengel wrote on 2022-08-16, 06:19:

leileilol wrote on 2022-08-16, 06:09:

........native D3D9 driver support was still a thing?

I guess its more about backwards compatiblity...most 32bit games will run on newer systems out of the box...

Understandable, I guess. It's hard to imagine for casual users that a simple game using Direct Draw or Direct 3D 3 won't run out of box.
Windows 10/11 must be superior, after all. Or so the logic goes.

In the past, it was just reasonable to assume that the lowest common denominator had to be used, if possible.
To only require what's necessary.
If I was programming a homebrew game, I'd use an a older, simpler API first, after all.
Say, Direct Draw or Direct 3D Retained Mode..

It makes no sense to require/use USB 4 for a mouse or keyboard, for example.
USB 1.x should always do. From a layman's point of view, I mean.

No you are absoulutly right! Iam always pro compatiblity. Its part of our history and we need todo $ vs usability talks. I doubt that its anything besides improving of income in the typical 0,xx base of profit for a company to get rid of something to get more outcome. And its a shame cause as much i understand you need to earn cash...iam not so pro doing it for nothing while losing so much.

leileilol wrote:

native D3D9 driver support was still a thing?

Black Mesa was released not so long ago.

Very off topic but how does Direct Draw work now. Does it get wrapped to d3d9 or such? In which case we will see ddraw ->d3d9 ->d3d12

directx12 and it's low level API gonna make stuff broken on new computers. We are moving back to DOS times...

I don't know about Win 10 but from many tests in Win 8 and the much complex GMA PowerVR iGPU, I've found that only with the MS Compatibility Tool or some external ddraw "emulator" I got to run old Directx6 games faster than they'd run simply lauching the application. I suppose by default Win try to configure the game launch in a compatibility mode but not always with the same results of a specific manual config cause many games have different tweaks needed to get an acceptable (on such low end GPUs) frame rate or compatible gameplay. Also I imagine as someone said time ago that Dx6/7/8 runs through a layer itself for Directx9/11 so I suppose retrocompatibility became full of many different compatibility layers for such simple 3D rendering.

I've found that Win 7 with its official patches reached a good retrocompatibility in old games even without manual configurations. That isn't exactly similar in Win 8 where the GUI changed, the driver model WDDM too, etc..

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2022-08-17, 19:41:

Very off topic but how does Direct Draw work now. Does it get wrapped to d3d9 or such? In which case we will see ddraw ->d3d9 ->d3d12

No no, not at all, don't worry.
Originally, D3D was done through ddraw.dll, after all.
Both are related in several ways.

386SX wrote on 2022-08-18, 08:24:

I've found that Win 7 with its official patches reached a good retrocompatibility in old games even without manual configurations. That isn't exactly similar in Win 8 where the GUI changed, the driver model WDDM too, etc..

Yes, that's true in several ways, I think.
Like Vista, Seven can use the XPDM display drivers still.
That way, the DX9 runtime can run natively, like it used to run before.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/deta … ls.aspx?id=8109

Another thing is that Aero Glass/WDDM fixed certain old GDI applications.
I'm thinking of Windows 3.1 era software mainly.
Programs that required 256c palettes normally, also ran in 32-Bit colour (desktop) without issues.

Jo22 wrote on 2022-08-18, 08:44:

Yes, that's true in several ways, I think. Like Vista, Seven can use the XPDM display drivers still. That way, the DX9 runtime […]
Show full quote

Yes, that's true in several ways, I think.
Like Vista, Seven can use the XPDM display drivers still.
That way, the DX9 runtime can run natively, like it used to run before.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/deta … ls.aspx?id=8109

Another thing is that Aero Glass/WDDM fixed certain old GDI applications.
I'm thinking of Windows 3.1 era software mainly.
Programs that required 256c palettes normally, also ran in 32-Bit colour (desktop) without issues.

Also another thing to consider added to the new GUI changes which seems to already heavily use the D3D9>11 acceleration to have a fast frame rate "2D GUI" experience, the whole o.s. is heavier and there's not much to do for it.
Those iGPUs of course had their own limitations (uncommon architecture/WDDM1.1 only complex driver, mobile oriented design probably for OpenGL ES scenario, low theorical numbers like fill rate, few unified shaders etc.. of course in a "3 watts" iGPU that was the good side many didn't understand expecting miracles from it) but I've tried to make the o.s. as light as possible while Win 7 remains faster beside when the games/bench were really "heavy" like for example Far Cry or Doom3. In those situations probably a continuous driver optimizations would have improved a bit but it was iGPU/driver limited there and in both o.s. and I'm quite convinced there wasn't much space left to improve.

With such specific uncommon iGPU (which is like having a smartphone GPU installed in a desktop config) that didn't even "know" about Directx6 or 7 rendering, speed improved a lot isolating the fullscreen rendering from the GUI and emulating the ddraw need. It was interesting that even old PowerVR Kyro II benchmarks can run well probably still using the similar old logic for visible surfaces rendering only.

Jo22 wrote on 2022-08-18, 08:44:

Another thing is that Aero Glass/WDDM fixed certain old GDI applications.
I'm thinking of Windows 3.1 era software mainly.
Programs that required 256c palettes normally, also ran in 32-Bit colour (desktop) without issues.

Okay I didn't know about it. Was it one of the reason why 256 colors were supported on Windows Vista/7 (that if you use XPDM drivers, you still can use legacy apps by using that color setting)?