D7VK is the open-source project that began as a Direct3D 7 implementation atop the Vulkan API for Linux gamers and with time expanded to support all the way back to Direct3D 3 . Out today is D7VK 1.6 with continuing to enhance this D3D compatibility layer atop Vulkan for enhancing retro/vintage gaming on Linux.

The D7VK 1.6 release overhauls its interaction with DXVK's Direct3D 9 back-end. With improved vertex processing, D7VK 1.6 should improve GPU bound performance -- except that with modern hardware it's quite hard to be GPU-bound with Direct3D 7 era and older titles. Today's v1.6 release announcement describes the impact in turn as just helping " a potato level GPU and is only really noticeable in benchmarking ."

D7VK 1.6 also fixes a few regressions for Direct3D 5 game titles and various other fixes and enhancements.

Downloads and more details on today's D7Vk 1.6 release via GitHub .