lsfg-vk

This project brings Lossless Scaling's Frame Generation to Linux!

Note

This is a work-in-progress. While frame generation has worked in a few games, there's still a long way to go. Please review the wiki for support (the wiki is not written yet)

Building, Installing and Running

Caution

The build instructions have recently changed. Please review them.

In order to compile LSFG, make sure you have the following components installed on your system:

• Traditional build tools (+ sed, git)
• Clang compiler (this project does NOT compile easily with GCC)
• Vulkan header files
• CMake build system
• Meson build system (for DXVK)
• Ninja build system (backend for CMake)

Compiling lsfg-vk is relatively straight forward, as everything is neatly integrated into CMake:

$ cmake -B build -G Ninja \
    -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
    -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=~/.local \
    -DCMAKE_INTERPROCEDURAL_OPTIMIZATION=ON \
    -DCMAKE_CXX_CLANG_TIDY=""
$ cmake --build build
$ cmake --install build

This will install lsfg-vk to ~/.local/lib and ~/.local/share/vulkan.

Next, you'll need to download Lossless Scaling from Steam. Switch to the legacy_2.13 branch or download the corresponding depot. Copy or note down the path of "Lossless.dll" from the game files.

Finally, let's actually start a program with frame generation enabled. I'm going to be using vkcube for this example:

VK_INSTANCE_LAYERS="VK_LAYER_LS_frame_generation" LSFG_DLL_PATH="/home/pancake/games/Lossless Scaling/Lossless.dll" LSFG_MULTIPLIER=4 vkcube

Make sure you adjust the paths. Let's examine each one:

• LVK_INSTANCE_LAYERS: Specify VK_LAYER_LS_frame_generation here. This forces any Vulkan app to load the lsfg-vk layer.
• LSFG_DLL_PATH: Here you specify the Lossless.dll you downloaded from Steam. lsfg-vk will extract and translate the shaders from here.
• LSFG_MULTIPLIER: This is the multiplier you should be familiar with. Specify 2 for doubling the framerate, etc.
• VK_LAYER_PATH: If you did not install to ~/.local or /usr, you have to specify the explicit_layer.d folder here.

Warning

Unlike on Windows, LSFG_MULTIPLIER is heavily limited here (at the moment!). If your hardware can create 8 swapchain images, then setting LSFG_MULTIPLIER to 4 occupies 4 of those, leaving only 4 to the game. If the game requested 5 or more, it will crash.