Microsoft Has Another Go At Their DirectX Linux Kernel Driver

[Quackdoc]

Pretty excited for this to get mainlined, can't wait to finally get a decent VM under windows when I need to use it. can't wait to test this 10 years from now when Microsoft decides to make a semi decent patch series.

Time to abandon this dx 🗑️ and concentrate on vulkan.

actually this could be used for vulkan support. but that would require supporting open technologies, so its an intentional choice to work on d3d12 instead of vulkan because fuck us.

[microcode]

Seems weird that they would care; isn't this like any other paravirt-only device driver?\

I look forward to this working, because it will make porting games to Linux a lot easier, since they can get all the platform stuff out of the way first (filesystems, networking, etc.) before or while addressing the renderer (which, if it's not worth a native port, may be a matter of tacking on DXVK or similar).

[Quackdoc]

Seems weird that they would care; isn't this like any other paravirt-only device driver?\

I look forward to this working, because it will make porting games to Linux a lot easier, since they can get all the platform stuff out of the way first (filesystems, networking, etc.) before or while addressing the renderer (which, if it's not worth a native port, may be a matter of tacking on DXVK or similar).

not sure what is being referred to for the first part lol.

the linux kernel generally doesn't accept stuff with only closed source uses. which is why vmware has an open source gallium driver for their solution. (vbox use it too) and of course virtio-gpu is an open standard with qemu, crosvm, and more hypervisors using it.

before dxg was only useful when paired with a proprietary library that converted d3d12 calls to their generic api whatever that might be (I think it's direct gpu calls? just a guess). now it has other open source uses supposedly

won't really help many games outside of initial bring up I don't think. some sure. but doing d3d -> opengl (via wined3d)-> d3d12 generally will cause some issues (same for vk whenever it exists) all while in a hyper-v vm. Im sure it might help some but... who knows.

[microcode]

not sure what is being referred to for the first part lol.

the linux kernel generally doesn't accept stuff with only closed source uses.

Isn't the userspace open though? IIRC libd3d12 is out there..

edit: apparently it isn't; that was the source of my confusion.

[WorBlux]

Pretty excited for this to get mainlined, can't wait to finally get a decent VM under windows when I need to use it. can't wait to test this 10 years from now when Microsoft decides to make a semi decent patch series.



actually this could be used for vulkan support. but that would require supporting open technologies, so its an intentional choice to work on d3d12 instead of vulkan because fuck us.

Looks that are working on some sort of provision for non-DX paravirtualization/VAIL support

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...9-23ea6538ceb4

how well it actually works is another question.

More on VAIL - http://lpc.events/event/9/contribut...ons_in_WSL.pdf

[torsionbar28]

DirectX sucks, kill it with fire.

Ig they contribute developers to DXVK and Wine's one to the point of extremely high compatibility, then I'm OK with it.

Otherwise, this Linux kidnapping inside Windows ecosystem is shameful.

Agree 100%, where is the Linus middle finger gif when you need it? We should all be giving a collective "FU" to Microsoft for trying to create Linux features that ONLY work under WSL. This has a foul EEE odor coming off it.

[Quackdoc]

Agree 100%, where is the Linus middle finger gif when you need it? We should all be giving a collective "FU" to Microsoft for trying to create Linux features that ONLY work under WSL. This has a foul EEE odor coming off it.

this is for hyper-v too. Linux has historically not cared what it runs on. proprietary stuff is fine. userspace however does matter to them. there is kernel code that is only useful when run on proprietary vmware too. but no one cries about that. Linus has made it clear that linux is for everyone, people who use linux on a VM are included.

Looks that are working on some sort of provision for non-DX paravirtualization/VAIL support

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...9-23ea6538ceb4

how well it actually works is another question.

More on VAIL - http://lpc.events/event/9/contribut...ons_in_WSL.pdf

Haven't read it yet, but vail is just a generic term for virtualized apps. similar to seemless Win7 virtualization, or steam on chromeOS

last I checked the vulkan stuff hasn't gone anywhere and microsoft has instead opted for VK -> D3D12 solution.

Isn't the userspace open though? IIRC libd3d12 is out there..

edit: apparently it isn't; that was the source of my confusion.

there is an open source stripped libd3d for the opensource APIs like intel's oneapi (I think that was it?). this is why they are going ahead with the patches now. because there is now an opensource userland

[muncrief]

It sounds like Christoph Hellwig is saying that MS has to make DirectX operate under native Linux or it's a non-starter for mainline inclusion. And that seems reasonable to me. I'd prefer an all-Vulkan world but it's not going to happen overnight, so if MS wants to make DirectX work under native Linux that's fine.

[Amaranth]

It sounds like Christoph Hellwig is saying that MS has to make DirectX operate under native Linux or it's a non-starter for mainline inclusion. And that seems reasonable to me. I'd prefer an all-Vulkan world but it's not going to happen overnight, so if MS wants to make DirectX work under native Linux that's fine.

They did make it work under Linux (when using Hyper-V) but only with a closed source driver. That's why it gets shut down. If this still only worked with Hyper-V but libd3d12.so was open source it would be acceptable, that's the same setup as VMWare's GPU driver.

[Developer12]

This makes me wonder why microsoft doesn't just emulate an existing virtual GPU implementation. We now have existing mainline drivers for both opengl and vulkan ones. Then all the nastiness for converting to directx can just live in windows-land where nobody has to deal with it.