Just drop the apitrace d3d9.dll into the game/installer directory and it should create an apitrace.

@K0bin The installer is in a random location every time the title is launched, but I was able to grab the commandline from WMIC (WMIC path win32_process get Caption,Processid,Commandline) and manually re-run the install through APITrace.

apitrace.exe trace --d3d9 "C:\Users\jason\AppData\Local\Temp\I1628854820\Windows\resource\jre\bin\javaw.exe" -Xms16777216 -Xmx50331648 -Djava.specification.version=1.6 -Xmx512m -Dlax.locales=TRUE -Dlax.debug.level=4 -Dlax.debug.all=true -classpath "C:\Users\jason\AppData\Local\Temp\I1628854820\InstallerData\IAClasses.zip;C:\Users\jason\AppData\Local\Temp\I1628854820\InstallerData\Execute.zip;C:\Users\jason\AppData\Local\Temp\I1628854820\Windows\InstallerData\Execute.zip;C:\Users\jason\AppData\Local\Temp\I1628854820\InstallerData\Resource1.zip;C:\Users\jason\AppData\Local\Temp\I1628854820\Windows\InstallerData\Resource1.zip;C:\Users\jason\AppData\Local\Temp\I1628854820\InstallerData;C:\Users\jason\AppData\Local\Temp\I1628854820\Windows\InstallerData;" com.zerog.lax.LAX "C:/Users/jason/AppData/Local/Temp/I1628854820/Windows/setup.lax" "C:/Users/jason/AppData/Local/Temp/lax251A.tmp" -D$USER_INSTALL_DIR$="D:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Zenimax Online"

I confirm the trace plays back correctly and exhibits the issue if DXVK is used.

Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uvHLN27sSfMirDjnxDgZv1GfmYOrwPic/view?usp=sharing

Same issue in windows 11 with medieval 2, With the indicated version 1.5.1 it is mitigated. Windows users also use DX9 for better performance.
Black screenshots and triangular vector problems persist in new versions (like artifacts).

@ZereoX can you try if d3d9.noExplicitFrontBuffer = True changes something?

@ZereoX can you try if d3d9.noExplicitFrontBuffer = True changes something?

Hi @DadSchoorse,
Unfortunately the same behaviour is observed with that option:

d3d9.noExplicitFrontBuffer

In case someone else is having the same issue, all you have to do is use these launch options:

PROTON_SET_GAME_DRIVE=1 PROTON_USE_WINED3D=1 %command%

(PROTON_SET_GAME_DRIVE is needed because otherwise the installer tries to write to Z: and complains that it can't)
Install the launcher, then remove the launch options and the game runs just fine with DXVK.
Also, enable the new multi-threaded renderer option in the game. It improves the performance massively!

Is this the installer downloaded through the website which creates a temp folder where javaw.exe is located? Tho i'm guessing it's the setup.exe in the temp folder that calls java.
d3d9.shaderModel = 1 fixes it but i'm unsure how to add a built in dxvk config to this.

Is this the installer downloaded through the website which creates a temp folder where javaw.exe is located? Tho i'm guessing it's the setup.exe in the temp folder that calls java. d3d9.shaderModel = 1 fixes it but i'm unsure how to add a built in dxvk config to this.

Last I checked this was being triggered by the Steam install of the game during First-Time Setup (not a standalone installer).

Ah oke.
I don't have the game so i searched online and saw it mentioned you could download the installer from their website when you have bought it and logged in.
Someone in their forum linked to the one i tried. Didn't find one with the same name on steamdb.

@Blisto91 that does sound like the same installer as what steam uses. I haven't played this in a while, but I do remember there being a javaw.exe in a temp folder. It all gets extracted at runtime. It's annoying because the temp folder in in a different path each time, so you can't just keep a dxvk.conf in there. Also all the installer executables use very generic names, so you can't really apply rules based on their names.