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Wine 11 rewrites how Linux runs Windows games at kernel with massive speed gains

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Re: Wine 11 rewrites how Linux runs Windows games at kernel with massive speed gains

#92
post #42
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>These extreme gains are the result of benching against vanilla without fsync, which is what anyone gaming on linux uses Not for anyone using a kernel without these patches. Which would be most people.

Most people? What mainstream Linux distros ship without fsync or esync support?

I would assume most of them? I'd be surprised if distros like Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, etc. would ship non-mainline kernel features like that.

Sure, gaming-focused distros, or distros like Arch or Gentoo might (optionally or otherwise), but mainstream? Probably not.

Of course, esync doesn't require kernel patches, so I imagine that was more broadly out there. But it sounds like fsync got you performance pretty close to what ntsync can do, but esync was quite a bit behind both? With vanilla being quite a bit behind esync?

(Also, jeez, fsync, what a terrible name. fsync is a syscall that has to do with filesystem data. So confusing.)

Re: Wine 11 rewrites how Linux runs Windows games at kernel with massive speed gains

#93
post #77

It seems like it would be possible to implement this in userspace using shared memory to store the data structures and using just one eventfd per thread to park/unpark (or a futex if not waiting for anything else), which should be fully correct and have similar or faster performance, at the cost of not being secure or robust against process crashes (which isn't a big problem for more Wine usage). It seems that neithe…

I don't know the technical details, but the kernel docs say "It exists because implementation in user-space, using existing tools, cannot match Windows performance while offering accurate semantics." https://docs.kernel.org/userspace-api/ntsync.html

Re: Wine 11 rewrites how Linux runs Windows games at kernel with massive speed gains

#94
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlikely. Games need a stable ABI and Win32 is the only stable ABI on Linux.

People who keep parroting this clearly have no experience of gaming on linux.

Please elaborate.

Re: Wine 11 rewrites how Linux runs Windows games at kernel with massive speed gains

#95

Wine might be oddly self-defeating. Broad game support on Linux increases the viability of Linux as a desktop, which increases market share, which may result in developers creating Linux ports as a 1st class concern, which don't need Wine to run.

I don't think this is a big concern. There will still be plenty of demand for Wine even with a decent catalog of Linux-native games. People use Wine for things other than games, and even if tomorrow every single new game had a native Linux port, people would still be playing older Windows-only games for at least another 20 years, probably more.

Also the Windows ABI is still more stable than the Linux ABI. Even if Linux (non-SteamDeck) gaming share went up to like 50% or more, it still would probably be less of a hassle to build for Windows only, the performance difference on Linux+Wine isn't enough to matter.

Re: Wine 11 rewrites how Linux runs Windows games at kernel with massive speed gains

#96
post #16

Wine is a project that I've grown a near-infinite level of respect for. I don't know for sure, but I suspect that a lot of the work for Wine is boring and thankless. Digging through and trying to get exact parity with both the documented and undocumented behavior of Windows for the past 30 years doesn't sound fun, but it's finding every little weird edge case that makes Wine a viable product. The fact that Wine runs…

Yes, Wine is truly a miracle. Once full support for Office is achieved, we should expect huge uptick in Linux adoption.

Ny that time office will be cloud only.

Re: Wine 11 rewrites how Linux runs Windows games at kernel with massive speed gains

#97
post #16

Wine is a project that I've grown a near-infinite level of respect for. I don't know for sure, but I suspect that a lot of the work for Wine is boring and thankless. Digging through and trying to get exact parity with both the documented and undocumented behavior of Windows for the past 30 years doesn't sound fun, but it's finding every little weird edge case that makes Wine a viable product. The fact that Wine runs…

Yes, Wine is truly a miracle. Once full support for Office is achieved, we should expect huge uptick in Linux adoption.

> full support for office

does microsoft still sell office?

Re: Wine 11 rewrites how Linux runs Windows games at kernel with massive speed gains

#99
post #16

Wine is a project that I've grown a near-infinite level of respect for. I don't know for sure, but I suspect that a lot of the work for Wine is boring and thankless. Digging through and trying to get exact parity with both the documented and undocumented behavior of Windows for the past 30 years doesn't sound fun, but it's finding every little weird edge case that makes Wine a viable product. The fact that Wine runs…

Yes, Wine is truly a miracle. Once full support for Office is achieved, we should expect huge uptick in Linux adoption.

I wouldn't put it past Microsoft to suddenly add "features" that break said support.

Re: Wine 11 rewrites how Linux runs Windows games at kernel with massive speed gains

#100
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlikely. Games need a stable ABI and Win32 is the only stable ABI on Linux.

People who keep parroting this clearly have no experience of gaming on linux.

I am playing both modern and old games on Linux. Games outside a super narrow enthusiast realm are always closed-source (even indie ones) and it's going to stay like that in the foreseeable future, that's just a fact of life and gamedev incentives and specifics.
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