VKD3D-Proton, the Direct3D 12 to Vulkan translation layer used in Proton, has been released in version v3.1.

This is the last stable release before the bump to 3.2, for which the developer announces a lot of important changes. New are VK_EXT_descriptor_heap (opt-in, not enabled by default yet), Shader Model 6.9 (currently NVIDIA only), DXR 1.2 and AgilitySDK 619. The Steam Frame is now a supported platform, including aarch64 builds. View instancing is now enabled by default.

Features:

• Adds VK_EXT_descriptor_heap support, opt-in and not enabled by default due to driver quality concerns.
• Adds KHR_opacity_micromap support, removes the old EXT path, and exposes DXR 1.2 when supported.
• Adds Shader Model 6.9 support (shader execution reordering and long vectors), currently only active on NVIDIA.
• Adds various NVAPI intrinsics in dxil-spirv.
• Exposes AgilitySDK 619 features.
• Enables view instancing by default, with an opt-out for certain games.

Performance:

• Optimized ClearUAV path using vkCmdClearColorImage or vkCmdFillBuffer when possible.
• Optimized some COPY → RESOURCE → COPY barrier patterns.
• Reduced compositor roundtrips in Present() related to occlusion checks.
• Batches more RTAS build commands before inserting barriers, greatly improving RT performance in some cases.

Fixes:

• Steam Frame is now a supported platform, with QCOM-related fixes and aarch64 builds.
• D24 ↔ buffer copies are handled correctly on AMD GPUs that emulate D24 as D32.
• Various low_latency2 fixes from NVIDIA to match spec version 3.
• Fixes undefined behavior around udiv/umod/sdiv/srem that NVIDIA compilers exploited.
• Fixes undocumented render pass resolve behavior.
• Updates tight alignment behavior to match AgilitySDK 619.5.
• Simplifies the AMD_anti_lag implementation and fixes frame attribution bugs.
• Many smaller dxil-spirv fixes.

Workarounds:

• Workarounds for AMD GCN and QCOM hardware in games that assume Wave32 support.
• More detailed UE5 and RE Engine detection to help Mesa drivers apply workarounds.
• Works around broken root SRV/UAV behavior on NVIDIA GPUs.
• Rewrites the use-after-free workarounds, which helps with the FSR4 UE plugin.
• Many other game-specific workarounds.

Source: GitHub