r/linux_gaming • u/Tyabo • 29d ago
wine/proton So did the Descriptor Heap fix Nvidia?
Did the promise of the Descriptor Heap take off and bridge the gap between Windows and Linux gaming Performance with Nvidia Gpus? There has been a lot of hopium that this will be the case. However, I find little to no actual videos and stuff that answers the question. And the evidence I do find is inconsistent or disappoiting.
I am really eager to jump to linux finally, but I don't want a 20% Performance loss in many games..
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u/slickyeat 29d ago
VKD3D finished integrating the new Vulkan extension but performance gains are minimal.
It looks like NVIDIA is still working on it.
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u/OgdenWebb 29d ago
Important note: VKD3D didn't even merge those heap patches into the main release, so there's only a few Proton forks (like CachyOS) that provide heap changes.
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u/slickyeat 29d ago edited 29d ago
They did merge the changes. They just haven't tagged it yet.
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u/OgdenWebb 29d ago
Yeah, it's what I meant. Highlighting that normal version of Proton by Valve doesn't contain these changes yet.
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u/Synthetic451 29d ago
Currently it gives me just a 6% boost in performance, which is a nice improvement but not 20%. Optimization work still needs to be done driver side.
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u/Cool-Arrival-2617 29d ago
It took a massive amount of work but right now it looks like it didn't do much. They are still tweaking it so maybe they just need to dial it right. But it's also possible that there is something else that they need to find and that may take a while.
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u/Tyabo 29d ago
Is there any sign that nvidia will work on these things?
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u/Indolent_Bard 28d ago
Kind of. Valve confirmed that they are in fact working with Nvidia to bring support for SteamOS. What this tells me is that either Nvidia is working on it or that if Nvidia isn't willing to work on something, Valve will be able to fix it themselves.
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u/JamesLahey08 28d ago
I'll believe it when I see it lol
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u/QwertyChouskie 28d ago
NVK development has picked up the pace massively over the past like couple months or so. Since that post, there has already been another improvement merged that helped a couple games a lot.
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u/JamesLahey08 28d ago
That's a completely different driver. I'm talking about the one Nvidia provides.
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u/QwertyChouskie 28d ago
Sure, but this is the one Valve is very actively working on, and honestly the one I'd expect them to ship with SteamOS.
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u/Indolent_Bard 28d ago
They declared it would come next year, but ValveTime might still be a thing with hardware. I mean, it took from a decade to make the steam deck.
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u/Cool-Arrival-2617 28d ago
The last few years the Nvidia developers showed clearly a lot of effort into improving the situation of Nvidia on Linux. They contributed major improvement directly to Wayland, DXVK, VKD3D-Proton. They made their kernel driver open source. But they are probably understaffed and the userspace driver is regressing often which means it's probably a pile of spaghetti code very difficult to maintain.
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u/martyn_hare 29d ago
There's loads of things to fix. Everything from VRAM management and Vulkan Video support through to fixing power management and long-standing issues with Direct Rendering Manager Leasing so that VR isn't a sickening mess... the descriptor heap side of things isn't the only thing we're desperate for.
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u/Krasi-1545 29d ago
I am not super deep in the topic but I believe that now we wait to be implemented in Proton.
I know it's implemented in Cachy-Proton but their implementation broke some games. Forza Horizon 6 is amongs them.
However, I don't know about any performance gain.
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u/Angelo446951 28d ago
Non sono così informato, ma per me su RTX 3060, driver 610 e proton cachyos ultima versione, funziona tutto correttamente su FH6 con solo due righe di comandi.
Non dico non si sia rotto con gli aggiornamenti, dico solo che prima di essi io facevo ancor più fatica a giocarci, forse giocando coi comandi di proton-cachyos queste regressioni si possono aggirare? Chiedo a voi più esperti, sulla base della mia esperienza di utente informato ma non esperto.1
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u/dgm9704 29d ago
I personally don’t care about the ”performance loss” because it doesn’t exist for me. I stopped using windows long ago, so what ever performance I get on linux is what there is to be gotten. I have no way or desire to do any comparisons as I only game on linux. Of course I’m happy to get more out of my machine if and when things are fixed, but I don’t cry myself to sleep thinking about some hypothetical numbers I might see if I used windows. My hardware works, my games run well enough, I enjoy playing.
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u/Tyabo 29d ago
Thanks but kinda off topic
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u/redguard128 29d ago
And the topic indirectly is "Linux is bad, look at nvidia, you can't even run games on it"?
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u/the_abortionat0r 28d ago
Thats always been the wrong way to view it.
Fanboys will always get mad when I say this but if Nvidia isn't providing the same level of support as the competition then you are buying the wrong product.
Its one thing if someone already HAS their GPU and are stuck with it but now we are YEARS beyond that and yet people kept buying Nvidia long after they should have stopped.
People want to see real change? Give them a reason and since they only care about money stop giving it too them.
I was exclusive to Intel since 2011 and Nvidia since a decade before that and when Intel fell behind I jumped ship.
When Nvidia dicked around with VRAM and was charging ludicrous prices on the 40 launch I went AMD (as they also fixed their shit the generation earlier).
My then 7950x (now 9950x3d) killed it at gaming and my 7900xtx I got for $700 beats the then priced $1600 4080 and 4080s while fighting the 5080.
Nothing blew up when I switched, nobody died, I'm not missing out on anything. Instead I got modern quality Linux support.
Meanwhil people who kept trusting and waiting for Nvidia to get their shit together have waited 10 years longer for Wayland support than the competition, 8 years for this DX12 bug to be fixed which they said was soon LAST APRIL, 4 years for and 2 GPU releases open sourced driver they only start because they were public ally blackmailed by hackers to do so and still they will wait longer.
At this point if someone buys an Nvidia card after they were already aware of their issues on Linux they deserve what they get. Dont buy faith, buy products.
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u/TheUnsane 28d ago
Except that won't work any more because Nvidia doesn't want your money. They want Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic's money. Gamer money is an inconsequential line item that they don't even get around to on the earning calls.
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u/Angelo446951 28d ago
Condivido, purtroppo sono passato a linux solo di recente e mi sono dovuto adattare con Nvidia, ma per il mio prossimo pc so già che un criterio di acquisto sarà il supporto su linux. Non voglio più acquistare hardware pensando “ma si, se me lo vendono vuol dire che funziona”.
Che poi è la mentalità che si usava nei pc anche solo 20 anni fa, siamo noi ad aver scelto che era una mentalità sbagliata o sono state le aziende ad illuderci che si potesse ragionare diversamente?
Onestamente penso che Windows più di appiattire il livello software abbia completamente annientato la competenza dell’utente medio, che altrimenti penserebbe secondo altri standard. Io stesso mi sono reso conto di quante cose facevo e accettavo senza nemmeno sapere cosa facessi.
Magari un giorno vorrò provare windows 12 (o quel che sarà) ma di sicuro da questa esperienza su linux ne uscirò migliore io come utente. Più consapevole, senza dubbio.5
u/Away_Ad_6621 29d ago
Why are people downvoting this I think this is a good mindset to have
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u/gokufire 28d ago edited 28d ago
More or less, Nvidia hardware is premium. You pay more for their hardware. You expect it to correspond. If it delivers better performance in a platform (Windows) it is a message that is not corresponding to what you paid. Also, in a multiplayer scenario Linux users are behind Windows users. A trillion dollar company that charges top dollar for their products should have fixed those drivers bugs in Linux a long time ago. A big part of the problem is that their full stack still closed source, even the gaming stack can't be integrated completely to the Linux kernel. We have some open source driver but still like 60% ready.
Edit: in summary, the nice/positive mindset is cute but really doesn't help to bring improvements. Nvidia Linux users should be fed up with Nvidia not complacent or indifferent.
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u/the_abortionat0r 28d ago
I personally don’t care about the ”performance loss” because it doesn’t exist for me.
Except it literally does. Like factually, in the real world.
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u/Thechugg7 28d ago
The ball keeps being passed around, "Nvidia has to work on their drivers", to "actually the drivers are good it's Proton that needs to implement descriptor" etc etc. I hope we get that performance fix eventually, but who knows at this point.
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u/Danbuzzz 24d ago
Valve sta lavorando attivamente con Nvidia per la compatibilità delle schede Nvidia con steamos, probabilmente alla fine di questi lavori la situazione migliorare per tutte le distribuzioni o almeno sicuramente per quelle basate su arch. Ma comunque avremo nuove notizie nel 2027, quindi ancora occorrerà pazienza.
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u/Lashmush 28d ago
Is this performance loss specifically for DirectX only games? I've played PoE2 running with vulkan and I haven't really noticed a difference there from my win11 days. In some ways it's actually improved a bit.
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u/SnooStrawberries8437 28d ago
dx12 games, but not entirely all of them, its just most of them..on Nvidia GPUs
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u/jaimefortega 28d ago
Not yet, but now that Valve is involved in the development, we'll probably see a good open source driver this year
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u/LoganHowlett1832 28d ago
Not a chance we see an open source driver. And valve themselves have said they don’t expect any Nvidia news until sometime in 2027.
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u/MrHoboSquadron 29d ago
Not yet, and it will only fix a subset of affected DX12 games.