Trackmania 2020 runs much slower than native Windows

[ColonelPhantom]

On some maps, Trackmania 2020 using DXVK runs much slower than with the AMD Windows driver. This issue occurs both on Linux and Windows. wined3d seems to run with good performance, but some rendering bugs.

(I also sometimes got good performance on Linux by switching to wined3d, running the game, and then switching back to DXVK? Very mysterious.)

Software information

Trackmania 2020 version 202311071747-202311241734 from Ubisoft Connect Resolution: 2560x1440, full-screen, full V-Sync, immediate GPU-CPU synchronization. Antialiasing: MSAA 2x/FXAA. Cars customization: 3d models + 2d skins Texture filtering: Aniso 16x Shaders: low Shadows: medium Textures: low Reflections: vehicles low, water low, other off. Bloom: medium Motion blur: off Slow-mo blur: on

System information

• GPU: Radeon RX 580 4GB
• Driver: AMD Windows 23.9.2 / Mesa RADV (unsure which version, will recheck later once I'm back on Linux)
• Wine version: n/a, will recheck later
• DXVK version: 2.3

Apitrace file(s)

Unfortunately I did't manage to capture an apitrace, because the game itself seems to be 64-bit but the Ubisoft Connect/Uplay DRM is 32-bit, causing apitrace to bail out (?). Guidance here would be appreciated.

Otherwise, the issue can be found in the free-to-play part of the game, campaign map Fall 2023 - 02. The framerate with DXVK here is around half that of native Windows. (The opening cutscene of Track of the Day December 2023 - 11 is also heavily affected).

Log files

Please attach Proton or Wine logs as a text file:

• When using Proton, set the Steam launch options for your game to PROTON_LOG=1 %command% and attach the corresponding steam-xxxxx.log file in your home directory.
• When using regular Wine, use wine game.exe > game.log 2>&1 and attach the resulting game.log file.

Will also attach later when on Linux again. I assume here the output from Lutris under "Show logs" would also be good?

[mbriar]

Is it running out of vram? You can check with the dxvk hud, mangohud or something else.

[ColonelPhantom]

Is it running out of vram? You can check with the dxvk hud, mangohud or something else.

It does seem to be running out of VRAM in some scenarios, which were definitely the worst performance-wise. But even after closing most VRAM-consuming programs, it seems quite some maps (like Fall 2023 - 02) are still getting worse performance and nvtop+radeontop don't look like I'm running out.

Is Vulkan just inherently worse at handling VRAM pressure compared to DX11 or something? Because it's strange that DXVK would have issues with it while AMD's driver is fine with it.

[doitsujin]

DXVK has had issues with VRAM pressure for 6 years at this point, but it's also designed in such a bad way that it is impossible to improve this. TL;DR if this is indeed the problem then yeah, can't really do much.