Compatibility with Vulkan API?

[acrolvm]

I've been using DXVK to run Train Sim over Vulkan instead of Direct 3D, this has netted me some pretty nice performance improvements and eliminated issues with the game crashing when Alt Tabbing to other applications. Unfortunately it seems that with this enabled, RW Enhancer doesn't hook onto TS. I was wondering if it would at all be possible to add some sort of compatibility within RW Enhancer so that I would be able to keep using DXVK. I obviously do not know how complicated this would be but I thought it might be worth asking none the less. Thanks.

[FoxDelta99]

Hi Acrolvm,

I've done some software development, but never developed any 3D application, so, I may completely be wrong in the following.

My understanding is the the API (Direct3D or Vulkan) manages everything that is display on screen at low level. So, basically, implementing Vulkan support in addition to Direct3D would require to rewrite most if not all graphical improvements provided by RWEnhancer, which is quite a heavy work, and even possibly the sound improvements, as these API tends to manage this part too.

So in short, I believe this would require some heavy development, and thus would take quite some time, at the cost of implementing new features, debug, etc...

[RW Central]

Hello @acrolvm and @FoxDelta99, Vulkan support in RWE 2 is coming very soon. RWE 2 users will be able to switch TS rendering to Vulkan with only one button click inside RWE 2 settings  

This will use a custom made version of DXVK library (with some specific adjustments for TS) directly integrated in RWE 2 software as a new feature. This vulkan integration will be updated regularly to provide more performance and stability as the time goes on.

Here is a RWE 2 screenshot running under Vulcan 1.3 graphic API. 

[FoxDelta99]

Wow,great job !

[Reef]

I really can't wait for this, I've tried the DXVK in my install but for some odd reason I lose my mouse cursor in-game and can't seem to find any explanation or fix for it anywhere. 

[RW Central]

@Reef The first version of Vulkan renderer for RW Enhancer 2 is currently under final testing  I sent you a PM if you would like to try.

[Reef]

While I truly appreciate the effort of integrating this into RWE2 I'm saddened to say I can't use it, I cannot as you know use it in Fullscreen (my preferred setup because I use DSR x2) and for reasons unknown Windowed Borderless doesn't work for me (no mouse cursor in-game) and Windowed oddly doesn't allow me to use my native screen resolution of 2560x1080 (see attached image) let alone the DSR x2 Resolution of 3620x1527.

I can work around the latter problem of TS options only allowing me to go up to 1680x1050 (which is not even my correct ratio let alone resolution size) by editing the PlayerProfiles.bin and manually inputting a close approximation of my native screen res at 2550x1000, but the quality is degraded from the 3620x1527 resolution I'm used to.

Let me also say I know this is absolutely not any fault of RWEnhancer2 (or its Developer of course) this is something on the DXVK level (I know this because I had exactly the same issues with it in it's native form prior to being integrated into RWE2), the Fullscreen issue needs addressing by the DXVK Dev and I'm not sure it ever will because we (TS users) are not using it as it was intended, it is intended to be used through Wine (a Windows emulator for Linux) and if it works as intended for that then that is what we'll probably be stuck with.

I also find it odd that more people aren't having this issue and I can only surmise that it's because of the odd native resolution of my SuperWide curved monitor.

On a positive note I will say that when it worked (DXVK in Windowed with my custom resolution added to the PlayerProfiles.bin) I was getting 40 to 50 FPS on the outside sections of JT's Metropolitan Line, where I usually have 26 to 30 on my normal Fullscreen DSRx2 with the standard DX9.

 

Fingers crossed I can actually use it in the future. 

 

 

Edited August 3, 2022 by Reef

[Reef]

Here is a direct comparison between the aforementioned quality with DSR x2 (left image) and with DXVK (right image) I believe they are resized and possibly not a completely true replication of what I see on screen but if you right click on each image and "Open image in a new tab" you then get the option to view them full sized.

 

https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=651a7dc8-12e3-11ed-b5bb-6595d9b17862

Edited August 3, 2022 by Reef

[Reef]

Apparently my fix will arrive at Xmas, that's when the Wife said I can have a new 2k monitor. 

[Bekns]

11 hours ago, Reef said:

Apparently my fix will arrive at Xmas, that's when the Wife said I can have a new 2k monitor. 

Hi Reef

I know I mentioned this over at UKTS but I didnt explain in depth enough, I have this same issue where I can not select my native resolution in borderless mode.  As a work around I perform the steps below, my resolution is 3440 x 1440 but as you can see I can not select that resolution in borderless mode but I still play borderless at that resolution

 

1. Go to settings and change to Fullscreen

2. Change resolution to monitors native resolution

 

3. Save and restart Railworks

 

4. Go to settings and change to Borderless (VERY IMPORTANT: do not touch resolution drop down)

 

5. Save and restart Railworks and now it should run at borderless full screen for you but dont ever touch the resolution drop down or you will have to repeat the process 

 

Things to note - 

- When you save and restart Railworks form the settings menu it will restart in 32bit mode, you can then close and restart in 64bit mode if needed or you can even close and restart manually if wanted. Either way will achieve the same result

- The menus will have vertical letterbox lines on each side of the monitor but the sim will load game into fullscreen

- Getting a 2k monitor is not a bad idea, you will be able to actually read the writing that on the screen plus in game you are rendering far less pixels meaning more FPS

 

I hope this helps to get you going in borderless mode

 

Regards

Jareb

[Reef]

10 hours ago, Bekns said:

Hi Reef

I know I mentioned this over at UKTS but I didnt explain in depth enough, I have this same issue where I can not select my native resolution in borderless mode.  As a work around I perform the steps below, my resolution is 3440 x 1440 but as you can see I can not select that resolution in borderless mode but I still play borderless at that resolution

 

1. Go to settings and change to Fullscreen

2. Change resolution to monitors native resolution

 

3. Save and restart Railworks

 

4. Go to settings and change to Borderless (VERY IMPORTANT: do not touch resolution drop down)

 

5. Save and restart Railworks and now it should run at borderless full screen for you but dont ever touch the resolution drop down or you will have to repeat the process 

 

Things to note - 

- When you save and restart Railworks form the settings menu it will restart in 32bit mode, you can then close and restart in 64bit mode if needed or you can even close and restart manually if wanted. Either way will achieve the same result

- The menus will have vertical letterbox lines on each side of the monitor but the sim will load game into fullscreen

- Getting a 2k monitor is not a bad idea, you will be able to actually read the writing that on the screen plus in game you are rendering far less pixels meaning more FPS

 

I hope this helps to get you going in borderless mode

 

Regards

Jareb

Great tip, many thanks for the share, so much easier than my way hacking the PlayerProfiles.bin. 

 

Edit:

I have now played for a bit using DXVK and borderless your way and my image quality is much much better than when I was editing the PlayerProfiles.bin those extra few pixels (see my earlier post for the max I could set it) that I get doing it your way seem to make all the difference.

 

I now have everything set on max, Anti_Aliasing was always on FXAA + 3 x 2 SSAA now I have it on FXAA + 3 x 3 SSAA, Shadow Quality slider used to be on about 45% now it's at 100%, Water Quality I always have on 1 notch below full because I think the water looks better at that setting anyway.

On the next page Ambient Occlusion was off but now I'm trying it on high, might put it on dynamic just to try that later too.

So, on the JT Met Line I'm now getting around 40 FPS whereas I was getting 26 to 30 as I mentioned before, unbelievable difference and tbh I didn't really even miss my DSR x 2.

(Click HERE for fullsize version)

Still get slight issues with my mouse cursor not appearing but I've figured a workaround for now, when I first load it up and get to the menu I Alt + Tab and bring forward any other program to get my cursor to briefly show so I can position it over the button I wish to press, of course once I left click the focus returns to TS and I lose the cursor again but I can rinse and repeat the process until it loads in the scenario I want (which proves the stability of the DXVK because even though I Alt + Tab multiple times whilst setting up my drive I've not yet had a ctd or oom), and here's the thing, once RWE2 comes into play on the scenario and the overlay pops up I get (and keep) my mouse cursor for the duration of my scenario. Huzzah! 

Edited August 5, 2022 by Reef
Added more info

[Bekns]

15 hours ago, Reef said:

Great tip, many thanks for the share, so much easier than my way hacking the PlayerProfiles.bin. 

 

Edit:

I have now played for a bit using DXVK and borderless your way and my image quality is much much better than when I was editing the PlayerProfiles.bin those extra few pixels (see my earlier post for the max I could set it) that I get doing it your way seem to make all the difference.

 

I now have everything set on max, Anti_Aliasing was always on FXAA + 3 x 2 SSAA now I have it on FXAA + 3 x 3 SSAA, Shadow Quality slider used to be on about 45% now it's at 100%, Water Quality I always have on 1 notch below full because I think the water looks better at that setting anyway.

On the next page Ambient Occlusion was off but now I'm trying it on high, might put it on dynamic just to try that later too.

So, on the JT Met Line I'm now getting around 40 FPS whereas I was getting 26 to 30 as I mentioned before, unbelievable difference and tbh I didn't really even miss my DSR x 2.

(Click HERE for fullsize version)

Still get slight issues with my mouse cursor not appearing but I've figured a workaround for now, when I first load it up and get to the menu I Alt + Tab and bring forward any other program to get my cursor to briefly show so I can position it over the button I wish to press, of course once I left click the focus returns to TS and I lose the cursor again but I can rinse and repeat the process until it loads in the scenario I want (which proves the stability of the DXVK because even though I Alt + Tab multiple times whilst setting up my drive I've not yet had a ctd or oom), and here's the thing, once RWE2 comes into play on the scenario and the overlay pops up I get (and keep) my mouse cursor for the duration of my scenario. Huzzah! 

Great news , im glad it has improved no end for you.  Never had the mouse issue so Im no good on that one but yeah switching to desktop on borderless is heaps more stable.

What graphics card are you running?  I could only dream of going to 3x3 at 2k let alone 4k, I run currently at 2x2 but I try to keep the frames up above 30 as Gsync gets touchy underneath that

[Reef]

26 minutes ago, Bekns said:

Great news , im glad it has improved no end for you.  Never had the mouse issue so Im no good on that one but yeah switching to desktop on borderless is heaps more stable.

What graphics card are you running?  I could only dream of going to 3x3 at 2k let alone 4k, I run currently at 2x2 but I try to keep the frames up above 30 as Gsync gets touchy underneath that

It's the Asus RoG Strix 1080Ti 11gb a great card tbf.

[Bekns]

11 hours ago, Reef said:

It's the Asus RoG Strix 1080Ti 11gb a great card tbf.

I am running a Aorus water cooled 1080Ti but having just tried 3x3 again my FPS tanks to around mid 20's and that is not even in a built up area  . 

At 2x2 I get mid 40's and above, I'm not unhappy with the quality I can play at but it does raise the question why I cant achieve more with comparable hardware 

[Reef]

Maybe it's not just about the Gfx card (yours does slightly outperform mine on paper), I also run a liquid cooled i7 9700 @ 4.4 Ghz factory overclocked and I have 32Gb of Ram and TS is installed on it's own dedicated 500Gb M.2 NVMe SSD.

What are your other specs?

 

Edited August 6, 2022 by Reef

[Bekns]

Other specs -

CPU: 9600KF (liquid cooled with Aorus 360)

RAM: 32GB                                                                                                                                                                

Windows SSD: Seagate Barracuda 512GB NVMe

Train Sim SSD: 2 x Samsung 970 EVO 1TB NVMe (running in Raid striped) 

 

Do you run GSYNC at all?

I dont see a great deal of difference between our rigs but anyway, with this game I have learnt one thing, if it aint broke dont fix it so Im not going to spend too much time worrying about it as I am super happy with performance and now it feels even smoother.  Im glad your getting better mileage from it though

[Reef]

Only real difference from what you've said is I don't run in Raid (wouldn't even know how to tbh)

GSync is enabled for fullscreen but I'd not actually thought to change it to "Windowed and Fullscreen" (I've only ever run games in fullscreen before this DXVK thing), I'm reluctant to alter it now as well seeing as I'm getting good frames and no screen tear even in windowed borderless (same reason you gave above, "if it aint broke" lol).

[Bekns]

I hear you there

Raid is great, you get double the size (2 x 1TB drives = 1x 2TB drive) and you get double the performance because it writes to both drives simultaneously although this is more noticeable with larger files than smaller ones.  Once upon a time it was difficult but these days its built into windows and can be done with a few clicks.

Anyway I think we have derailed this topic enough for one day, I am getting really good results with the Vulkan renderer and cant wait to see what they do with it next

[Reef]

@Bekns I've now figured out how to have my cake and eat it lol. Instead of just setting TS screen resolution to 3620x1527 (DSR x2) I now have set my overall screen resolution to 3620x1527, this way I no longer need to downgrade TS to 2560x1080 to utilise borderless.

So I'm now running DXVK @ 3620x1527 windowed borderless.