Intel Arc graphics gain up to 5% in DXVK games with Mesa 26.3 buffer compression
Intel graphics are getting another gaming performance improvement on Linux through the Mesa ANV Vulkan driver. A change merged for Mesa 26.3 enables buffer compression for DXVK workloads, with Intel reporting gains of up to 5.26% in its testing.
DXVK translates Direct3D 8, 9, 10 and 11 calls to Vulkan and is commonly used by Valve Proton and Steam Play. Intel had already enabled the same buffer compression feature for VKD3D, which handles Direct3D 12 games running through Vulkan.
Battlemage gains up to 5.26%
Intel tested the change on Arc Battlemage hardware and Panther Lake’s Xe3 graphics. Shadow of the Tomb Raider showed the largest reported improvement, gaining 5.26% on Battlemage and around 4.8% on Panther Lake.
© Phoronix The attached Battlemage test also shows a geometric mean improvement of 1.29% across the tested games. Several titles remained effectively unchanged, while Total War: Warhammer III and Shadow of the Tomb Raider showed the clearest gains.
The change enables Color Control Surface buffer compression in the Intel ANV driver. Intel originally restricted the option to selected workloads including VKD3D and Source 2. After confirming gains with DXVK, Mesa developers decided to remove the application-specific restriction and enable the feature by default.
The update has been merged into Mesa 26.3-devel. Mesa 26.3 is expected to reach stable status in November, while users running current Mesa Git builds can already access the change.
Source: Phoronix
