On latest driver 595.58.03 this game no longer plays at all, regardless of whether WineDetectionEnabled:False is given or ray tracing is on/off.

EDIT: Removing all args allows the game to run without /WineDetectionEnabled:False, but still crashes with the arg.

Same thing with Pragmata (full version). Crashes on loading screen after logos. Would post a log but it's 1 GB with 1.2 million lines.

I can no longer speak on 40 series, but I'm still experiencing this on 50 series with driver 610.43.02.

On a 5080, still happens as of Nvidia driver 615.17.09.

I was experiencing the exact same issue on my RTX 4090 and may have found a workaround using Pyroveil.

System:

OS: NixOS, Linux 7.2.9

GPU: RTX 4090

NVIDIA driver: 615.71.09 (open kernel modules)

Proton: GE-Proton (also tested Experimental Bleeding Edge)

Resolution: 3840x2160

With /WineDetectionEnabled:False, enabling ray tracing consistently caused the game to freeze at the main menu. Every freeze produced an NVIDIA Xid 109 (CTX SWITCH TIMEOUT) in the kernel logs.

Without the Wine detection override, the game ran normally, but ray tracing was unavailable.

What finally worked:

I built Pyroveil from the current master branch and configured it to round-trip compute shaders through GLSL while also disabling VK_NV_raw_access_chains.

My pyroveil.json:

{
  "version": 2,
  "type": "pyroveil",
  "matches": [
    {
      "spirvExecutionModel": 5,
      "action": {
        "glsl-roundtrip": true
      }
    }
  ],
  "disabledExtensions": [
    "VK_NV_raw_access_chains"
  ],
  "roundtripCache": "cache"
}

Steam launch options (adjust the config path):

PYROVEIL=1 PYROVEIL_CONFIG=/home/user/src/pyroveil/hacks/dd2-nv/pyroveil.json %command% /WineDetectionEnabled:False

The Proton log confirms Pyroveil is loading and applying the configuration:

pyroveil: Found config in /home/user/src/pyroveil/hacks/dd2-nv/pyroveil.json!
pyroveil: Adding match for spirvExecutionModel: 5 (GLCompute).
pyroveil: Adding GLSL roundtrip via SPIRV-Cross for match.
pyroveil: Disabling extension VK_NV_raw_access_chains.

With this configuration, the game finally runs with ray tracing enabled instead of immediately freezing. This is my first successful test, so I haven't established long-term stability yet.

Since disabling VK_NV_raw_access_chains alone didn't fix the issue, the shader round-trip appears to be important.

Hopefully this helps narrow down the underlying issue.

Update on this since my original workaround ended up causing some other issues.

I switched from GE-Proton to Proton-CachyOS because of cutscene issues. I'd been dealing with some really bad shadow flickering that persisted across Proton versions, regardless of whether RT was enabled. I ended up installing the DD2 Graphics Enhancement mod and enabling full path tracing, which actually fixed the shadows completely.

Unfortunately, after that the game would run perfectly on the first launch, then immediately crash whenever I tried launching it again.

Eventually I caught this in the Proton log:

Exception 0xc0000005
libnvidia-glvkspirv.so.615.71.09 + 0x124c02
err:vulkan:vkCreateComputePipelines Exception 0xc0000005 in Unix call.

I went back to PyroVeil and tried removing the GLSL compute shader roundtripping from my original config, leaving just the extension workaround:

{
  "version": 2,
  "type": "pyroveil",
  "matches": [],
  "disabledExtensions": [
    "VK_NV_raw_access_chains"
  ]
}

And somehow that worked. The game now launches without crashing and seems stable.

What's strange is that I had already tried VKD3D_DISABLE_EXTENSIONS=VK_NV_raw_access_chains without PyroVeil, and that didn't fix the original RT freeze.

The original shadow flickering is still present without full path tracing, so that issue isn't actually fixed. But with Graphics Enhancement handling the shadows and this new PyroVeil config preventing the crashes, everything seems to be working properly for now.

Figured I'd update this since I originally thought the GLSL roundtrip was necessary.

RTX 5080 / NVIDIA 615.71.09 (open modules), Bazzite 44, Proton-CachyOS 11.0-20261005-slr; DD2 build 25290080, VKD3D revision 44cf7c2042168f3.

With /WineDetectionEnabled:False and extension-only PyroVeil hiding VK_NV_raw_access_chains, the main menu froze with Xid 109 / CTX SWITCH TIMEOUT.

Compute-shader GLSL round-tripping also crashed; the traced retry faulted reading 0x4 at libnvidia-glvkspirv.so.615.71.09+0x124c02. Compute rewriting is OFF in the usable setup.

Adding VKD3D_CONFIG=descriptor_heap to extension-only PyroVeil let the menu complete and an existing save load. The log confirms VK_EXT_descriptor_heap activation and DXR support; RT is ON in-game/config.

Remaining issue: intermittent cloth vertex stretching appeared with heap. Uncapped was severe; at a 120 FPS cap it occurs very rarely and briefly; at 60 I have never observed it. DLSS Quality, frame generation OFF.

Last update, I downgraded from NVIDIA 615.71.09 to 580.178.04 on my RTX 4090 (NixOS), and it resolved all the issues I was experiencing with DD2.

RT now works with /WineDetectionEnabled:False without PyroVeil or any VKD3D workarounds. The Xid 109 crashes and severe shadow flickering are gone, and performance is noticeably better too. I'm still on Proton Cachy-OS latest.

I can also reproduce this on RX 3070 with 615.71.09, so I narrowed it down a bit further based on the breadcrumbs trace. The following Pyroveil config also works around it.

{
	"version": 2,
	"type": "pyroveil",
	"matches": [
        { "opStringSearch": "3e9553b3498c8fa8", "action": { "glsl-roundtrip": true } },
		{ "opStringSearch": "0ded7fd50ecc1eac", "action": { "glsl-roundtrip": true } }
	],
	"disabledExtensions": [ "VK_NV_raw_access_chains" ]
}

I tried both shaders in isolation, but got GPU hangs in those cases. Another thing is that the breadcrumbs trace indicates a hang in be77614844092a99 (shadeRay_main), but Aftermath points to 3e9553b3498c8fa8 (sortRay_main).

DD2_breadcrumbs_shaders_aftermath_RTX3070.zip

Happening on latest update RTX 5080 (Xid 109 error) again. On Nvidia 615.78.08.