zgauthier2000/fsr4-shader-performance-overrides timing-kit-2026-11-14

Timing kits 2026-11-14: Vulkan tests, a progress bar, three new songs

on GitHub

Timing kits, version 2026-11-14 (experimental). Windows: download fsr4-timing-kit-windows-2026-11-14.zip, unpack it and run fsr4time.exe. Linux and Steam Deck: download fsr4-timing-kit-linux-2026-11-14.tar.gz, unpack it, and in a terminal in that folder run bash run.sh. The kit downloads its test builds itself on the first start (about 74 MB on Windows, 66 MB on Linux): you don't need the .pack or music-*.zip files below.

For the best results, run it with the processor and graphics in performance mode: a laptop plugged in, not on battery, battery saver or a power-saving mode.

New in this version:

• FSR 4 for Vulkan games. Two new tests are timed through Vulkan instead of Direct3D 12: vk-amd-412-reference, AMD's FSR 4.1.2 Vulkan DLL from its FidelityFX SDK 2.4.0, and vk-exact-r3-test, a test build of it with this project's faster exact network steps (the same picture byte for byte; the kit checks it on your PC). They run on RX 6000 / RX 7000 cards and the built-in graphics of the same families, on Windows and under Proton on Linux (Vulkan 1.3 needed). Windows reports are the ones that tell whether the Vulkan build is faster there. Not in any release yet.
• A progress bar with the time left, and the Up / Down arrows now set the music volume.
• Fewer wasted minutes when a test DLL hangs: when one does not finish in time, the other test DLLs of the same kind are skipped and listed as not run.
• Vulkan runs are lighter on the processor while they check the pictures.
• New test builds: lt143-test / lt144-test, the current 4.1.2l-lossy with one memory location moved so it no longer overlaps the network's output (the cause of a flickering band at the top of the screen in one report; same picture on our test machine, the kit compares them with lt131 / lt129), and n-lossy-<flavor>-n16, the current lossy with one more rule for skipped frames (bright moving lights; the kit compares its speed with n-lossy-<flavor>). The RX 6000 pass 11 layout test is gone: answered, same speed.
• Three new songs (14 in all), with timed lyrics like the others.
• Kits from 2026-11-11 keep working and say this new version exists; the new tests need this version. Older kits get the new songs too.
• Reports from every card are welcome; RX 6000 / RX 7000 on Windows are most wanted for the Vulkan tests.

On Windows, it will warn about an unknown program, because the file is not signed; the source is in the repository (timing-kit/windows/fsr4time.c, vkrun.c, fsr4update.inc, music.inc, timing-kit/linux/run.sh). The Vulkan loader amd_fidelityfx_loader_vk.dll and the Vulkan DLLs come from AMD's FidelityFX SDK 2.4.0 (MIT; credited in the kit's NOTICE.md). Checksums: SHA256SUMS.

Songs: written for this project. Songs 1-11 are sung with Piper text-to-speech and the "alba" voice (Edinburgh alba speech corpus, CC BY 4.0). The three new ones: words, music and arrangement written as code by cyboman with Claude (an AI assistant); instruments, wind, rain and thunder synthesized in numpy; voice: Qwen3-TTS (Apache 2.0), sung onto the melody with WORLD / Praat and Seed-VC (GPL-3.0). music/music.txt in the kit has the full credits.