For years now, Valve has been slowly improving the capabilities of the Proton compatibility layer that lets thousands of Windows games work seamlessly on the Linux-based SteamOS. But Valve’s Windows-to-Linux compatibility layer generally only extends back to games written for Direct3D 8, the proprietary Windows graphics API Microsoft released in late 2000.
Now, a new open source project is seeking to extend Linux interoperability further back into PC gaming history. The d7vk project describes itself as “a Vulkan-based translation layer for Direct3D 7 [D3D7], which allows running 3D applications on Linux using Wine.”
More options are always welcome
The new project isn’t the first attempt to get Direct3D 7 games running on Linux. Wine‘s own built-in WineD3D compatibility layer has supported D3D7 in some form or another for at least two decades now. But the new d7vk project instead branches off the existing dxvk compatibility layer, which is already used by Valve’s Proton for SteamOS and which reportedly offers better performance than WineD3D on many games.
D7vk project author WinterSnowfall writes that while they don’t expect this new project to be upstreamed into the main dxvk in the future, the new version should have “the same level of per application/targeted configuration profiles and fixes that you’re used to seeing in dxvk proper.” And though d7vk might not perform universally better than the existing alternatives, WinterSnowfall writes that “having more options on the table is a good thing in my book at least.”
Those additional options should be welcome news for fans looking for new ways to play PC games of a certain era. The PC Gaming Wiki lists over 400 titles written with the D3D7 APIs, and while most of those games were released between 2000 and 2004, a handful of new D3D7 games have continued to be released through 2022.
The D3D7 games list predictably includes a lot of licensed shovelware, but there are also well-remembered games like Escape from Monkey Island, Arx Fatalis, and the original Hitman: Codename 47. WinterSnowfall writes that the project was inspired by a desire to play games like Sacrifice and Disciples II on top of the existing dxvk framework.
Despite some known issues with certain D3D7 titles, WinterSnowfall writes that recent tuning means “things are now anywhere between decent to stellar in most of the supported games.” Still, the project author warns that the project will likely never reach full compatibility since “D3D7 is a land of highly cursed API interoperability.”
Don’t expect this project to expand to include support for even older DirectX APIs, either, WinterSnowfall warns. “D3D7 is enough of a challenge and a mess as it is,” the author writes. “The further we stray from D3D9, the further we stray from the divine.”
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