Total War: Troy - Significantly lower performance with DXVK

[ms178]

I use this game extensively for benchmarking on Windows and Linux. I've always wondered why the Linux performance showed significantly less performance than the Windows DX11 native version (around 20% and more, depending on which of the three benchmark scenes gets chosen).

To rule out differences in the driver stack or a Kernel issue, I've tested the same DXVK DLL that I use on Linux with Windows and the official AMD Windows driver stack and that revealed that this is not RADV-related or a Linux Kernel issue but due to using DXVK as the performance went down to the same levels as seen on Linux with that machine. I cannot tell if the seen performance delta is expected due to the overhead DXVK comes with or if it points to a defect in DXVK. This issue is meant to make you aware of that high performance delta.

Software information

Total War: Troy, 1440p, Ultra

System information

• CPU: Intel 14700KF
• GPU: AMD Radeon 6950 XT
• Driver: Mesa-git (Linux) and 32.0.12011.1031 (Windows)
• Proton version: Proton-CachyOS from 2024-08-31
• DXVK version: 2.4 release version from this Github repo and a self-compiled 2.3 with Clang 18/PGO
• Windows version: 26100.1742
• Linux Kernel version: 6.10.8

[ms178]

To give you a specific example, with the mentioned settings, we are talking about a difference from 150 fps avg (DXVK) vs 186 fps avg (Windows native) in the first benchmark scene.