Silent Hill 2 Remake: DX11 vs. Vulkan (DX12 crashes). No FSR2/FSR3?

[Artas1984]

Ryzen 7 5700X3D with Radeon RX 7800XT here on Windows 10 22H2.

I am not able to play Silent Hill 2 Remake on default DX12 - the game crashes on launch screen! I am using a target line "-dx11" in the launcher shortcut executable instead, but i am also aware that you can force this game to run on Vulkan API, as all you have to do is download some specific dll files and place them in the root folder of your game launcher executable; this is what i did.

With my brand new PC hardware (specifically build a desktop PC this December to play some newer high demanding games) and with DX11 enabled i have no trouble running Silent Hill 2 Remake with no up-scaling at 1920X1200 on highest settings with constant 60+ FPS. To my surprise i do not even get any micro stutters (at least in the opening car parking area running around for a minute). Enabling TSR (normal) increases the FPS at 20 %. Now, as i said i did try Vulkan and to my surprise it punishes my PC with a heavy FPS drop - from 74 FPS (DX11) to 54 FPS (Vulkan). Enabling TSR on Vulkan only increases FPS by 10 %.

As you can see TSR (normal) in both DX11 and Vulkan makes the hair more blurry compared to no up-scaling, but otherwise it almost looks as good.

NR. 1 QUESTION: why would anyone use Vulkan instead of DX11? Is there anything that i am missing in the longer run? Any graphical effects or features not present with DX11 that Vulkan gives? Any glitches present with DX11, but absent with Vulkan? Because if anything Vulkan is 37 % slower than DX11 and drops the FPS below 60 on my specific hardware...

NR. 2 QUESTION: where the fuck is FSR2/FSR3? I only see FSR1 and it looks like GARBAGE - i won't even bother to paste a screenshot. Is FSR2/FSR3 a unique DX12 feature, not supported with DX11?

 

[Macro Device]

Is FSR2/FSR3 a unique DX12 feature, not supported with DX11?

It is, can't run those on DX11.

why would anyone use Vulkan instead of DX11?

Probably because RX 7800 XT is not the only GPU out here. Might be faster to play Vulkan than it is to play DX11 on GPUs from NV/Intel (never checked, just speculating here).

 

[Princess Garnet]

What is the crash you are getting on launch? The fact that DirectX 11 works for you but DirectX12 crashes, makes me think it's worth investigating if your system (CPU) is entirely stable, because the one difference with DirectX 11 is no shader compilation. And that is something that happens at launch.

Are you undervolting the CPU? Are you using RAM profile speeds? If either is yes, try the other way.

This game was causing a lot of crashes for Raptor Lake users (for obvious reasons) after the patch that added the "compiling shaders" screen at launch (and even before) and most of them reported that using DirectX 11 stopped the crashes for them too. But I have seen one AM4 user and one 9900K user also having the same crash and disabling RAM profile speeds helped the former. So generally, crashing during shader compilation or otherwise during play/when closing the game seems to likely equal the CPU might not be entirely stable.

That being said, I haven't played the game in the last month (I played it heavily at launch) and it's received a pair of updates since then, so I can't comment on if the recent updates added other crash prone conditions. I also have a 7800 XT and a 5800X3D and the game's was flawless for me when I played it. Some traversal stutter, yes, but not enough to bother me. I did read that recent-ish AMD drivers may have been causing crashes with the game too. I can't comment as I'm still on 23.11.1 but it might be worth investigating.

By the way, TSR had graphics side effects for me, as did FSR, so I used XeSS instead. 1920 x 1200 is easy to reach 60 FPS on but then there's aliasing. 2560 x 1600+ is too performance demanding native and needed scaling.

 

[Onasi]

It is, can't run those on DX11.

In this particular game, you mean. Because FSR2 runs on DX11 just fine otherwise. Overwatch 2, for example, is a DX11 title and has FSR 2.2. Not sure about 3, that one might be DX12 only, though I am not sure why that would be the case.

 

[nguyen]

Running the game in DX11 API you lose Nanite texture and possibly software Lumen, basically forcing the game to run at very low settings, not sure why you would need to buy new hardwares for outdated visuals

 

[Artas1984]

What is the crash you are getting on launch?

"An Unreal process has crashed: UE-SHProto"

I do not get this message when launching Silent Hill 2 Remake on my laptop, which has the same Windows 10 Pro 22H2. But apparently the game also runs in DX11 mode on my laptop even though i did not tweak anything - MSI Afterburner displays DX11 and i do not see FSR2/FSR3 in the selection. The problem is that my laptop with it's now weakling GTX 1660 Ti and totally useless Core i7 10750H CPU runs the game below 30 FPS on high settings even with TSR enabled and noticeable stuttering as well, so no deal.

Are you undervolting the CPU? Are you using RAM profile speeds? If either is yes, try the other way.

I am on B450 motherboard, so no overclock or undervolt. But why would i even undervolt my CPU? Care to explain? Even on BOX AMD cooler (temporarily) i am getting no more than 80 degree Celsius when running Cinebench R23. RAM does not have profiles, it is standard JEDEC - in fact i am using ECC RAM (termporarily). What else? GPU is being used default as well.

Running the game in DX11 API you lose Nanite texture and possibly software Lumen, basically forcing the game to run at very low settings, not sure why you would need to buy new hardwares for outdated visuals

One does not buy new hardware to compromise himself and play a game on outdated visuals. You could not understand that i had no intention to play the game on DX11? I bought new CPU and GPU to max the game out on DX12. Was i supposed to know it would not work on PC when running DX12? As i have mentioned, i tested the game on my laptop before where it worked fine. Also, i bought new hardware for other games as well: Alan Wake 2, The Last of Us 1 Remaster, Dead Space Remaster. Surely you did not expect one would buy a PC just for a single game!

 

[Princess Garnet]

"An Unreal process has crashed: UE-SHProto"

I am on B450 motherboard, so no overclock or undervolt. But why would i even undervolt my CPU? Care to explain? Even on BOX AMD cooler (temporarily) i am getting no more than 80 degree Celsius when running Cinebench R23. RAM does not have profiles, it is standard JEDEC - in fact i am using ECC RAM (termporarily). What else? GPU is being used default as well.

What's the full message?

Some people undervolt because it allows them to run cooler (which is a natural side effect of them drawing less power), and since most modern chips base their boost frequency on thermals, undervolting can ironically be a form of slight overclocking as well. Most of the X3D CPUs are rather stable when undervolted (the 5800X3D reliably did -30, the maximum, on most if not all of the cores, but I'm not sure if the 5700X3D is binned to the same level), but there's always the chance it's not stable when undervolted, so I wanted to cover that as a possibility in case you were undervolting.

If it's all stock, there's still a chance it's not stable, but if everything else indicates it's stable then I'm not sure.

It mainly comes down to what specifically the error message says; if it mentions something about failing during shader compilation, I'd definitely be looking at the CPU. If it's something else, it might be some other reason. As I said, I've been absent from the game so I'm not up to date on things, but the last few game updates have seemed to result in more people reporting those crashes so it might be the game.

 

[Artas1984]

I do not get this message when launching Silent Hill 2 Remake on my laptop, however, which has the same Windows 10 Pro 22H2.

I just double checked my laptop that had no error messages - MSI Afterburner displays that the game is actually running in DX11 mode on default. I also only get FSR1 and TSR, which kinda confirms it is DX11. WTF? HOW? WHY? Is not this game supposed to run on DX12 by default in Windows 10?

I did read that recent-ish AMD drivers may have been causing crashes with the game too. I can't comment as I'm still on 23.11.1 but it might be worth investigating.

Where did you read this? And what side effects did you notice with TSR?

Some people undervolt because it allows them to run cooler (which is a natural side effect of them drawing less power), and since most modern chips base their boost frequency on thermals, undervolting can ironically be a form of slight overclocking as well.

Ye man, i know all about it. I myself did some heavy testing on this matter with my former AMD RX Vega 56. It is just that there has never been such a problem with AMD CPU.

 

[Princess Garnet]

A lot of people see reduced temperatures and/or slightly higher boost frequencies I guess, so that's why they do it.

I can't remember where I read it, but I wanted to mention it in case it was a possible variable that might lead to some improvements.

With TSR, I think I was having either ghosting blur/after-image pixels, especially noticeable around James when moving the camera.