KhanhDTP

Thank you so much! Read it right away!

I've tested niri, hyprland, sway and i3, all of them should work if properly configured.

Thank you for sharing these!

I failed to get a working OpenGL with libmali. A more performant GLES may give a more performant desktop, but won't make most games working.
Since the community have been doing excellent work bringing rk3588 to mainline, it makes no sense to stick to a 5.x vendor kernel for a closed-source library with flaws, at least in my use case.
 
The FEX's developer has explained the reason why memory usage is high under arm64, and I think box64 may also have similar problems.

https://github.com/ptitSeb/box64/issues/3146#issuecomment-3630691360
 
Optimize is on the way, just wait!

It's wierd that in native Windows environment. steamwebhelper will only cost about 500MB memroy

Another video you'd like to see.
 

I tried FEX-emu, but on our devices it's slower. It is optimised for snapdragon while box64 is more optimised for the lower-end SBC ARM-SOC.
Here a video I once made about it. Things have changed a lot, fex-emu has matured at lot in this time. I didn't know it was build for steam back then so didn't test that. Also have no steam games that would run.
 

Armbian 25.8.2 Noble XFCE (BSD Kernel: 6.1.115)
 + PanVk - mesa 26.0 (https://launchpad.net/~ernstp/+archive/ubuntu/mesaaco)
 + box64 3.9 (https://ryanfortner.github.io/box64-debs/)
 + proton-10.0-3-amd64-wow64 (https://github.com/Kron4ek/Wine-Builds/releases/download/proton-10.0-3/wine-proton-10.0-3-amd64-wow64.tar.xz)
+ DXVK-stripped v2.6.2
>=60fps@1080p
 
Yu-Gi-Oh LOTD Evolution
 

Thanks @KhanhDTP, this is great. I tried to stick with approaches that have made their way into official channels, but I'm happy to include because it's very cool to have a full working path identified (B2).

I think I understood your setup but please let me know if I missed anything.

Again, not sure where/how the best place to keep track of this is so in the absence of anything better I'll use the PR, but happy to migrate to another location.

Edit: I'm not sure how to format nicely here... so I updated the related PR. That said, this probably isn't the best reference location for this. In any case, posting in case helpful for anyone else. If it's useful for the project to better community (and potentially automate) some of this I'm happy to get involved, but here's what I've got for now:
 
There are fundamentally two driver paths for RK3588:
libMali path - Enables NPU for ML inference, basic GPU only Panthor path - Enables full GPU acceleration, no NPU
Within each path, you can choose headless or desktop (XFCE/GNOME), but:
libMali + desktop = slow rendering (software only) Panthor + desktop = smooth rendering (hardware accelerated)
Key insight: The NPU and GPU hardware are separate, but the software drivers conflict. You must choose which accelerator matters more for your use case.

Additional constraint:
Kernel matters - NPU only works on 6.1 vendor kernel. Mainline 6.12 has no NPU support but best GPU drivers.
 
This creates a matrix of ~6 viable configurations, each optimized for different workloads (production ML, ML development, desktop, latest kernel, etc).

More detailed breakdown: 
https://github.com/armbian/build/pull/8979#issuecomment-3587135022
 

Armbian Trixie XFCE (Edge kernel 6.18.0-rc3-edge-rockchip64)
 + Stable mesa 25.0.7-2
 + box64-rk3588  0.3.9+20251106.dcd3ba0-1 (https://ryanfortner.github.io/box64-debs/)
 + wine-10.18-staging-tkg-amd64-wow64 (https://github.com/Kron4ek/Wine-Builds/releases)
 + dxvk-sarek v1.11.0-sarek-async-writeaccessfix-malifix-5d21d2b (https://github.com/pythonlover02/DXVK-Sarek/actions)
 
Elin ~40fps@720p
 

Thank you @KhanhDTP. I think I have a pretty good handle on how (and your post on that thread was in particular very helpful, thank you). 

It looks like a lot of people here are desktop optimized. My plan is headless, so expectation is 25.11.1 / 6.1 and libMali route but with RKNN (XFCE only for occasional desktop, Gnome is too hungry, XFCE + X11 + software rendering is fine on rare occasions I'd need it). 

I think the question I was trying to ask is more along the lines of understanding what to expect for the default, and if it made sense to enable one of the drivers by default, but I'm realizing there are proprietary dependencies and enough obscure use cases that this gets more challenging.

Thanks to everyone for all of the thoughts, hard to imagine navigating all of this without your contributions.

Armbian 25.8.1 Noble XFCE (BSD Kernel: 6.1.115)
 + PanVk - mesa 25.3 (https://launchpad.net/~kisak/+archive/ubuntu/kisak-mesa)
 + box64 3.9 (https://ryanfortner.github.io/box64-debs/)
 + wine-10.19-staging-tkg-amd64-wow64 (https://github.com/Kron4ek/Wine-Builds/releases/tag/10.19)
 + DXVK-sarek-stripped v1.11.0 (https://github.com/pythonlover02/DXVK-Sarek/actions)
~60fps@1080p 
 
Cat Quest II

Armbian 25.8.1 Noble XFCE (BSD Kernel: 6.1.115)
 + PanVk - mesa 25.3 (https://launchpad.net/~kisak/+archive/ubuntu/kisak-mesa)
 + box64 3.9 (https://ryanfortner.github.io/box64-debs/)
 + wine-10.19-staging-tkg-amd64-wow64 (https://github.com/Kron4ek/Wine-Builds/releases/tag/10.19)
 + DXVK-sarek-stripped v1.11.0 (https://github.com/pythonlover02/DXVK-Sarek/actions)
~60fps@1080p 
 
Cat Quest II

Armbian 25.11.1 Noble XFCE (BSD Kernel: 6.1.115)
+ Stable mesa 25.0.7
Using a native vulkan game:
Serious Sam Classics VK: https://github.com/tx00100xt/SeriousSamClassic-VK
~60fps@1080p
 

I tried Dragon Quest 11S with stripped dxvk 1.11. It failed because the panvk driver does not support Geometry Shader. There's an on-going MR https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/merge_requests/38401 to support it.

Thank you very much! Very useful information.

Hello as this seems really fun I was also trying to get this to work but running into problems so it would be amazing if you could clarify a bit more please?

I have mainline Mesa but that comes with PanVK to level 1.4+
vulkaninfo --summary
Devices:
========
GPU0:
    apiVersion         = 1.4.328
    driverVersion      = 25.2.99
    vendorID           = 0x13b5
    deviceID           = 0xa8670000
    deviceType         = PHYSICAL_DEVICE_TYPE_INTEGRATED_GPU
    deviceName         = Mali-G610
    driverID           = DRIVER_ID_MESA_PANVK
    driverName         = panvk
    driverInfo         = Mesa 25.3.0-devel (git-099ac5be1a)
    conformanceVersion = 1.4.1.2
    deviceUUID         = b5130000-0000-67a8-0000-000000000000
    driverUUID         = ac34a6fa-924e-d4b0-3a47-66ccf4729ee5


I then build your dxvk repo
https://github.com/khanh-it

And install like,
export WINEPREFIX=/path/to/wineprefix
cp x64/*.dll $WINEPREFIX/drive_c/windows/system32
cp x32/*.dll $WINEPREFIX/drive_c/windows/syswow64
(its weird that the x64 files go in the system32 folder and opposite too)

I then did the 'Native' override to those libraries mentioned in winecfg.

I downloaded    https://github.com/pythonlover02/DXVK-Sarek/actions
and stuck the dll's in the games x64 folder 
 
But I keep getting a black window and the error that the game can't find a graphics device,
info:  Game: Hades.exe
info:  DXVK-Sarek: v1.11.0
info:  Built-in extension providers:
info:    Win32 WSI
info:    OpenVR
info:    OpenXR
info:  OpenVR: could not open registry key, status 2
info:  OpenVR: Failed to locate module
[BOX64] Using emulated /mnt/net_d/emu/PC/wine-10.15-staging-tkg-ntsync-amd64-wow64/lib/wine/x86_64-unix/winevulkan.so
[BOX64] Using native(wrapped) libvulkan.so.1
info:  Enabled instance extensions:
info:    VK_KHR_surface
info:    VK_KHR_win32_surface
info:  Mali-G610:
info:    Driver: 25.2.99
info:    Vulkan: 1.4.328
info:    Memory Heap[0]: 
info:      Size: 5950 MiB
info:      Flags: 0x1
info:      Memory Type[0]: Property Flags = 0x7
2025-10-22 15:35:50 [MainThread     ]         direct3d11.cpp:833   INFO| Created DXGI1.2 factory.
info:  D3D11CoreCreateDevice: Probing D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_11_1
info:  D3D11CoreCreateDevice: Probing D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_11_0
info:  D3D11CoreCreateDevice: Probing D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_10_1
info:  D3D11CoreCreateDevice: Probing D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_10_0
err:   D3D11CoreCreateDevice: Requested feature level not supported
info:  D3D11CoreCreateDevice: Probing D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_11_0
info:  D3D11CoreCreateDevice: Probing D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_10_1
info:  D3D11CoreCreateDevice: Probing D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_10_0
err:   D3D11CoreCreateDevice: Requested feature level not supported
info:  D3D11CoreCreateDevice: Probing D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_11_1
info:  D3D11CoreCreateDevice: Probing D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_11_0
info:  D3D11CoreCreateDevice: Probing D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_10_1
info:  D3D11CoreCreateDevice: Probing D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_10_0
err:   D3D11CoreCreateDevice: Requested feature level not supported
info:  D3D11CoreCreateDevice: Probing D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_11_0
info:  D3D11CoreCreateDevice: Probing D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_10_1
info:  D3D11CoreCreateDevice: Probing D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_10_0
err:   D3D11CoreCreateDevice: Requested feature level not supported
2025-10-22 15:35:50 [MainThread     ]         direct3d11.cpp:1012  INFO| gpuCount = 0
2025-10-22 15:35:50 [MainThread     ]            program.cpp:2117   ERR| Failed to initialize ForgeRenderer.
2025-10-22 15:35:50 [MainThread     ]            program.cpp:2118  INFO| Showing MessageBox: No Graphics Device
2025-10-22 15:35:53 [MainThread     ]             luaext.cpp:445   INFO| Lua interface destroyed



Would you please be able to elaborate a bit on the steps if you can see what I'm doing wrong?

Cheers!



UPDATE:  Oh wait! I got it to work now, I copied the 'stripped' x32 dll's from (https://github.com/khanh-it/dxvk/releases
Into the games x64 folder.  (I had previously copied the x64 dll's into the x64 folder. Silly me  obviously that's not how it works)

Cool!  
 

@djtecha6 
 
I have faced the same issue. And it's the Armbian 25.8.2 problem, use the Armbian 25.5.1 image indeed.

I followed the "mesa route" without any kind of problem. I cannot following the "libMail route" due to my window manager choice: I installed the Armbian Ubuntu Noble version, but I'm running X Window (not Wayland) in order to get the remote display of the Orange PI Plus running on a local monitor; I tried to do this using Wayland without success. I'im running lightdm and xfce4 now. So the /dev/mail0 is still useful or the mesa-vulkan-drivers are enough ? I read some documentation about the hardware acceleration but in my opinion it  is too contradictory.
But it is always possible that I'haven't understand anything.....

This is truly incredible. I had no idea Mali and Linux has come this far. Though it's a shame things aren't mainlined.

@MartinB
 
direct from the game's folder (no Steam)
 
no special arguments

Armbian 25.8.1 Noble XFCE (BSD Kernel: 6.1.115)
 + PanVk - mesa 23.0 (https://launchpad.net/~ernstp/+archive/ubuntu/mesaaco)
 + box64 3.9 (https://ryanfortner.github.io/box64-debs/)
 + wine-10.17-staging-tkg-amd64-wow64 (https://github.com/Kron4ek/Wine-Builds/releases/tag/10.17)
 + DXVK-stripped v1.8.1 (https://github.com/khanh-it/dxvk/releases)
~60fps@720p
 

 
@MartinB

Armbian 25.8.1 Noble XFCE (mainline Kernel: 6.16.6-edge-rockchip64)
 + PanVk - mesa 23.0 (https://launchpad.net/~ernstp/+archive/ubuntu/mesaaco)
 + box64 3.7 (https://ryanfortner.github.io/box64-debs/)
 + wine-10.15-staging-tkg-ntsync-amd64-wow64 (https://github.com/Kron4ek/Wine-Builds/releases/tag/10.15)
 + DXVK-stripped v2.7.1
~60fps@720p
 
Hades