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Some information on why Wine is not going to be using DXVK

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It seems things aren't all rosy between CodeWeavers and DXVK, as developer Henri Verbeet has written into the Wine Development mailing list to give more details.

The developers working on Wine seem to be going their own way with their Vulkan plans and most thought this was due to DXVK being written in C++, a different license and so on. Apparently, that's not the main issue as Verbeet notes and they didn't pull any punches:

In February 2018, we reached out to Philip Rebohle—the author of DXVK—to start a conversation around whether there were any areas we could cooperate on. One obvious area was the vkd3d shader compiler, which translates Direct3D shader byte code to SPIR-V (much like DXVK has to do), but there would have been other possibilities, like sharing the DXGI implementation, or using a scheme like vkd3d where Wine's d3d11 could have optionally loaded DXVK as a regular shared library. That e-mail went unanswered. Now, I appreciate that different people have different ideas about what's acceptable and what isn't, but personally I think that's extremely rude and uncivilised.

They continued:

Nevertheless, e-mail gets lost sometimes, sometimes people are busy, everyone gets a second chance. So a few months later, since I was organising WineConf 2018, I sent Philip a personal invitation to attend WineConf, and perhaps discuss things there. That invitation went unanswered too, at which point I was pretty much done with DXVK.

It is my understanding that since then both Jeremy White and CodeWeavers' partners at Valve have tried reaching out to Philip on the subject, but evidently with little success.

Personally, this all feels like it's getting a little too heated for me. Still, it shows that there's clearly some communication issues that need to be solved between all parties involved for the better of us all who use Wine, DXVK and so on.

Hopefully the situation can be resolved in an amicable way, calling someone out in such a way doesn't seem particularly fair though. I've picked up on emails months after they were sent before, it's very common when you're busy and working alone. I did speak to Philip Rebohle after this, who said they would rather stay out of "unnecessary drama in public".

The good news, is that they are working on an official wined3d Vulkan backend going by a codename of Damavand which will be interesting to see.

You can see the mailing list entry here.

Cheers, Phoronix.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Vulkan, Wine
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orochi_kyo Jan 25, 2019
Read the last sentence and stop being so PHillip Fanboys.

"It is my understanding that since then both Jeremy White and CodeWeavers' partners at Valve have tried reaching out to Philip on the subject, but evidently with little success."

Ive heard the most ridiculous things like, oh "sometimes I miss Whatsapp messages" when there is a BIG RED number telling you have unread messages on Whatsapp Logo on your phone. So if you telling me Phillip is missing Codeweavers and Valve mails and messages... OK.

The good thing is life goes on and they are working on something else, a little competition sometimes does good.
Liam Dawe Jan 25, 2019
Quoting: orochi_kyoRead the last sentence and stop being so PHillip Fanboys.

"It is my understanding that since then both Jeremy White and CodeWeavers' partners at Valve have tried reaching out to Philip on the subject, but evidently with little success."

Ive heard the most ridiculous things like, oh "sometimes I miss Whatsapp messages" when there is a BIG RED number telling you have unread messages on Whatsapp Logo on your phone. So if you telling me Phillip is missing Codeweavers and Valve mails and messages... OK.

The good thing is life goes on and they are working on something else, a little competition sometimes does good.
That's a pretty silly comment. This is a very one-sided argument right now and we really have no idea what is actually going on, we have the words of one person.
dpanter Jan 25, 2019
Quoting: liamdawewe really have no idea what is actually going on
...and we really have better things to bother with. All of us.
DoctorJunglist Jan 25, 2019
Quoting: orochi_kyoRead the last sentence and stop being so PHillip Fanboys.

"It is my understanding that since then both Jeremy White and CodeWeavers' partners at Valve have tried reaching out to Philip on the subject, but evidently with little success."

Ive heard the most ridiculous things like, oh "sometimes I miss Whatsapp messages" when there is a BIG RED number telling you have unread messages on Whatsapp Logo on your phone. So if you telling me Phillip is missing Codeweavers and Valve mails and messages... OK.

The good thing is life goes on and they are working on something else, a little competition sometimes does good.
It is simply not true that Philip is not in contact with Valve - he is in constant contact with Plagman.

Anyhow, he also uses Discord the most, so it's the best way to contact him.
MayeulC Jan 25, 2019
Usually in these cases, I just start writing a long and thoughtful reply, and continue to edit it until I'm satisfied with it. Sometimes, I get sidetracked along the way, which has often resulted in my not sending important emails or timely answers. Not saying that's what happened here, but communicating is hard, as a whole :)
(nowadays, I try to acknowledge receipt, and write a more comprehensive answer later)
gustavoyaraujo Jan 25, 2019
Well, We don't know who was right. But I think all of them are struggling to bring the best Vulkan/Wine experience on Linux. So, yes, It's sad that - for this moment - there wouldn't be any cooperation, but also it's nice to see another option to run Windows games using the Vulkan API. If they fight for better FPS rates, We will all win at the end.


Last edited by gustavoyaraujo on 25 January 2019 at 4:34 pm UTC
Mohandevir Jan 25, 2019
Let's hope that this public statement will force both (all) parties to establish the communication and get something positive out of it, for "the greater good". Else, it's not really of concern to us.
Mal Jan 25, 2019
  • Supporter
This reminds me of when my employer decided to save a few bucks and ditched Google services for Microsoft ones and spam started to clog my mail box. The cosmic balance had to be preserved somehow. So Outlook filter wisely decided to move some client emails into the spam folder. :D
Shmerl Jan 25, 2019
Sounds like communication issue which could be solved with some persistence. Simply opening a dxvk bug tracker issue about collaboration could have been effective even.
the3dfxdude Jan 25, 2019
Guys, this talk saying, "Henri should understand how email works" is just off-track, as there is obviously more happening than Henri saying he reached out and Philip didn't respond. Henri did what he could by emailing and waiting multiple times. There was even an invitation extended for wineconf, which likely made as formal and direct as could be. When that all fell through, he raised the issue to management which is now handling it. It is very likely, based on the message, there has been some kind of communication between Wine/Codeweavers and Valve/DXVK, but it is becoming more clear that there is not a direct communication line to Philip. But Philip and his Valve manager should know what has been said by this point. That is what Henri is explaining. If he cannot communicate directly by this point (remember things aren't just fire off an email and then rant next day if you have any credibility as an employee), and it's been raised through management, then there is really a roadblock set up here by Philip or his Valve manager not just on how to communicate, but on extending a response to begin talking. They can't get anything done if they won't respond. It's now up to these companies to work it out. Henri is right by concluding cooperation works only with both sides participating.
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