This is a release which focuses on performance and bug-fixes.

Performance

• Improve swapchain latency and frame pacing by up to one frame.
• Optimize lookup of format info.
• Avoid potential pipeline compilation stutter in certain scenarios.
• Rewrite how we handle image layouts for color and depth-stencil targets.
  Allows us to remove a lot of dumb
  barriers giving significant GPU-bound performance improvements.
  ~15%-20% GPU bound uplift in Horizon Zero Dawn,
  ~10% in Death Stranding,
  and 5%-10% improvements in many other titles.

Features

• Enable support for sparse 3D textures (tiled resources tier 3).

Bug fixes and workarounds

• Various bug fixes in DXIL.
• Fix weird bug where sun would pop through walls in RE: Village.
• Workaround game bug in Cyberpunk 2077 where certain locales would render a black screen.
• Fix various bugs (in benchmark and in vkd3d-proton) allowing GravityMark to run.
• Improve robustness against certain app bugs related to NULL descriptors.
• Fix bug with constant FP64 vector handling in DXBC.
• Fix bug where Cyberpunk 2077 inventory screen could spuriously hang GPU on RADV.
• Add workaround for Necromunda: Hired Gun where character models would render random garbage on RADV.
• Fix bug in Necromunda: Hired Gun causing random screen flicker.
• Fix windowed mode tracking when leaving fullscreen. Fix Alt-Tab handling in Horizon Zero Dawn.
• Temporary workaround for SRV ResourceMinLODClamp. Fix black ground rendering in DIRT 5.
  The overbright HDR rendering in DIRT 5 sadly persists however :(
• Implement fallback maximum swapchain latency correctly.

Development features

Various features which are useful for developers were added to aid debugging.

• Descriptor QA can instrument shaders in runtime for GPU-assisted validation.
  Performance is good enough (> 40 FPS) that games are actually playable in this mode.
  See README for details.
• Allow forcing off CONCURRENT queue, and using EXCLUSIVE queue.
  Not valid, but can be useful as a speed hack on Polaris when single_queue is not an option
  and for testing driver behavior differences.