Hello Everyone,

This guide is mostly aimed at AMD CPU users. If you own an Intel CPU, please let me know if it works for you as well. :)

As some of you have probably noticed, enabling shadows in Dawn of War: Definitive Edition can cause noticeable FPS drops, even if your system is more than capable of running the game smoothly.

We can fix this by using DXVK — “a Vulkan-based translation layer for Direct3D 8-11 games” (source: pcgamingwiki.com).
However, simply implementing DXVK won’t make a big difference. We also need to force the game to utilize all CPU cores to improve overall performance.

For this purpose, we will use **dxvk-gplasync** — a special version of DXVK that helps eliminate shader compilation stutter caused by the Vulkan implementation.

**Disclaimer:** This solution is still being tested. Please share your feedback and results — it’s much appreciated.

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### 1. Download dxvk-gplasync
Link:
https://gitlab.com/Ph42oN/dxvk-gplasync/-/blob/main/releases/dxvk-gplasync-v2.7-1.tar.gz?ref_type=heads
*(2.7-1 is the latest version at the time of writing)*

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### 2. Install DXVK
- Unpack the archive.
- Copy the contents of the `x64` folder into the game’s main directory.
Example: `F:\STEAM\steamapps\common\Dawn of War Definitive Edition`

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### 3. Create a DXVK configuration file
- In the game’s main directory, create a file called **dxvk.conf**.
- Open it in Notepad and paste the following lines:

dxvk.enableAsync = true
dxvk.useRawSsbo = true
dxvk.asyncPresent = true


These commands enable asynchronous pipeline compilation and reduce stutter from shader compilation.

Save the file in the game’s main directory.

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### 4. Create a startup BAT file to force CPU core usage
- In the game’s main directory, create a text file called **Start_W40k.txt**.
- Paste the following lines into it:

@echo off
set DXVK_NUM_THREADS=8
start "" "F:\STEAM\steamapps\common\Dawn of War Definitive Edition\W40k.exe"

**Notes:**
- Replace `8` with the number of **CPU threads**, not physical cores.
(For example, an 8-core/16-thread CPU should use `16`.)
- Replace the path with your actual game directory.

- Save the file and rename it from `.txt` to `.bat`.

From now on, **always start the game using this BAT file**, not through Steam directly.

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### 5. Run the game
Launch the `.bat` file you just created.
You should now experience much smoother gameplay, even with shadows enabled.

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**Extra tip:**
If you still get minor stutter, try setting the `.bat` file to run as Administrator and enabling Windows "High Performance" power plan.