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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

#501

Post by dfe »

bombcar wrote: post #216
usrusr wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So that's what's keeping Microsoft from just running WINE on an MS-flavored Linux or perhaps a clean slate kernel as their next OS. I've been wondering for a while, this is by far the best explanation.

The Windows Kernel (and arguably the Windows APIs) are the only good part of Windows; they should dump everything else and run Linux above it; wait they did do that and then changed it to a boring VM.

I was disappointed when Microsoft dropped original WSL.

I'll admit I wasn't a Windows user at the time, nor since for that matter. But I had been before.

I knew the history of the "Windows Services for UNIX" and thought that it was incredibly interesting to have the Windows kernel, full driver support, NTFS, and the ability to just use Windows normally, but also be able to just do UNIX-type stuff more or less normally.

Which is what I've been doing on my Mac since the early 2000s.

Then Microsoft had to make Windows a complete shit-show. Not like it hasn't happened before, but they really got themselves in deep this time.

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

#502

Post by da_chicken »

Quothling wrote: post #287
da_chicken wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, people forget that MS Office, and Excel and Outlook in particular, are the real foundation of Microsoft's vendor lock-in on the desktop.

Having worked in non-swe enterprise for two decades I would argue that this is less true today than it was 10 years ago. It used to be that new hires would come with a basic knowledge of windows and office, but that's no longer the case. At the same time, you have things like Smartsheets and so on, which are more popular, at least with our employees, than Excel and everyone seems to hate Outlook these days. I don't t…

> Which is what Microsoft really sells... risk-mitigation. Sure their licenses are expensive, but is it really more expensive than losing your entire IT staff?

There's an old saying in IT that was pretty popular in the 70s and 80s: "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM."

You'll notice that nobody says it anymore.

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

#503

Post by Ferret7446 »

duttish wrote: post #435
ACS_Solver wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valve's Proton (so Wine + DXVK + some other additions) revolutionized gaming on Linux. I play games both for fun and work, and for a solid 3+ years now, gaming on Linux has been an "it just works" experience for me, and should be for most games that don't use kernel-level anticheat.

It's reached the level where a game not working is a suprise. Space Marine 2 was the latest one for me, but Steam is great at refunds if you do it quickly enough.

Space Marine 2 works, at least on steam deck

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

#504

Post by anon291 »

tombert wrote: 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…

I spent my entire college career doing consulting for a company that worked on Wine since Wine was part of its commercial offering.

The work is not boring (it's fascinating!) but completely thankless. The documentation on MSDN was (and I'm guessing still is) complete shit, and most of the APIs are undocumented. Random fixes would have knock on effects. I contributed a bit to some cases on a bug open since the 90s, and since I'm still on the list, I still get messages about it!

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

#505

Post by anon291 »

zadikian wrote: post #289
xattt wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hype/performance mismatch was significant in the 2000s for Wine. I’m not sure if there was any actual use case aside from running obscure business software. Yes, there was “the list” but there was no context and it was hard to replicate settings. I think everyone tried running a contemporary version of Office and Photoshop, saw the installer spit out cryptic messages and just gave up. Enough time has passed with…

I remember it being surprisingly decent for games back then. Then a lot of games moved to Steam, which made it way harder to run them in Wine. Of course there was later Proton for that, but not on Mac.

Games are one of the easier things to emulate since gaming mechanics are usually entirely a compute problem (and thus not super reliant on kernel APIs / system libraries). Most games contain the logic for their entire world and their UI. The main interface is via graphics APIs, which are better standardized and described, since they are attempting to expose GPU features.

I worked on many improvements to wine's Direct3d layers over a decade ago... it's shockingly "simple" to understand what's happening -- it's mostly a direct translation.

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

#506

Post by anon291 »

RachelF wrote: post #119
tombert wrote: 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…

It is a superb project, and a hard thing to do. It is a pity that the apps most business people use everyday, like Word and Excel and Outlook don't work in it (Excel 2010 is the last version that has Platinum status). It is interesting that these are harder to get working than games.

Games really only usually rely on standardized libraries and APIs, whereas application software relies on system libraries to do things like paint their UI.

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

#507

Post by rkagerer »

This is awesome news. One application I'd love to see run in Linux is Solidworks. Is there any interest in this, what would be the most effective way to support it financially, and how big a donation do you think it would take to achieve extremely good results? (Or will it forever be stuck in VM's using passthrough GPU's?)

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

#509

Post by vegetable »

I predict a massive uptick in linux switchover as soon as installation and activation of some newer ms-office versions (2019, 2021 or 2024) become possible. I think 2019 was the first that shipped with a full fledged power query.

In my experience, as of now the one that works best and seamlessly is the 20 year old office 2007.

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

#510

Post by MrDrMcCoy »

BatteryMountain wrote: post #385
tstenner wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buy a steam deck. It sends a strong signal to Valve to continue supporting Wine and you get a Steam Deck

I'm in Africa, when I go to the steam deck page, it says it is not available in my country. Not interested in buying from a third party importer. So until then..

What about buying from a fellow Hacker News nerd? I'm willing to handle shipping a new unit for you, based in USA. :-)

I also have a used 1st-gen model, upgraded with hall-effect joysticks and a 2TB SSD with a glass screen protector that I am willing to part with. Apart from a few barely-visible scuffs on the plastic housing, it's in great condition. If you're interested, let me know how to get in touch!

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