Wine development release 8.16 is now available for Linux FreeBSD and macOS

The Wine development release 8.16 is now available.

What's new in this release:

• Beginnings of a DirectMusic revival.
• Many fixes and improvements in the regression tests.
• Various bug fixes.

The source is available now. Binary packages are in the process of being built, and will appear soon at their respective download locations.

Bugs fixed in 8.16 (total 33):

 - #42809  GPS Track Editor: arrows not shown
 - #51561  Wine's built-in gdiplus.dll lags in Paint.NET compared to native (Win 7) gdiplus.dll
 - #51995  Roblox's bad performance on Wine
 - #52196  BENNING PC-Win ST 750-760 Designer crashes on start, needs GdipSetPenCompoundArray implementation
 - #53435  user32:msg - test_SendMessage_other_thread() sometimes gets a wrong status on Windows
 - #54202  mscoree:mscoree breaks user32:msg - subtest_hvredraw() fails on most Windows 7 test configurations
 - #54331  Game "Antecrypt": Black screen after launch
 - #54368  ::DrawGeometry doesn't respect stroke style
 - #54655  user32:msg - test_InSendMessage() sometimes gets unexpected flags on Windows
 - #54683  shlwapi:ordinal - test_SHFormatDateTimeA() fails due to daylight saving time on Windows
 - #54944  ntdll:exception - test_extended_context() crashes on Window 11
 - #54945  ntdll:exception - test_virtual_unwind() fails on Windows 11
 - #54998  DnsQuery(DNS_TYPE_SRV) fails to parse some of the server answers
 - #55225  kernel32:thread - The 32-bit test_stack() gets an unexpected values for -2 & -3 indexes on Windows
 - #55227  wtsapi32:wtsapi - The 32-bit check_wts_process_info() fails to get the user token on Windows 7 & 8
 - #55237  oleaut32:usrmarshal - The 64-bit test_marshal_VARIANT() gets bad values for wv[5&6] on Windows 8+
 - #55238  ntdll:exception - The 64-bit test_nested_exception() fails on Windows 11
 - #55244  mshtml:misc - test_HTMLStorage() crashes in Wine
 - #55246  ntdll:om - The 64-bit test_object_types() crashes on Windows 8+
 - #55317  user32:msg - test_hotkey() finds no free WinKey+letter on Windows 11
 - #55354  user32:msg - test_dialog_messages() sometimes gets a bad sequence on Windows 7
 - #55366  The GitLab CI sometimes tries to link winscard with libpcsclite on macOS
 - #55459  Softerra LDAP Browser fails to turn off LDAP_OPT_ENCRYPT, LDAP_OPT_ROOTDSE_CACHE, and LDAP_OPT_SIGN
 - #55501  PS Core (pwsh.exe) fails to start:Call to unimplemented function wldp.dll.WldpGetLockdownPolicy
 - #55505  Vitis 2020.1 needs support for `if exist ""` in batch file
 - #55507  Softerra LDAP Browser needs LDAP_OPT_CLIENT_CERTIFICATE
 - #55508  Wine 8.15: compiles successfully in Flatpak but fails during runtime with a SIGSEGV
 - #55531  combase:roapi - test_ActivationFactories() fails on Windows and Wine
 - #55532  kernel32:actctx - test_two_dlls_at_same_time() crashes on Windows 7+ and Wine
 - #55533  setupapi:devinst & setupapi:install - test_class_installer() fails on Windows 7+ and Wine
 - #55534  ucrtbase:thread - test_thread_library_reference() fails on Windows 7+ and Wine
 - #55535  The dinput:hid test summary line fails to take skip messages into account on Windows 7
 - #55539  user32:msg test_hvredraw fails in win1709 with unexpected region

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Wine development release 8.15 is now available for Linux FreeBSD and macOS

The Wine development release 8.15 is now available.

What's new in this release:

• Support for TEXT print processor.
• Cycle Collection support in MSHTML.
• Cross-process memory notifications in Wow64.
• Various bug fixes.

The source is available now. Binary packages are in the process of being built, and will appear soon at their respective download locations.

Bugs fixed in 8.15 (total 19):

 - #43822  TrackMania Nations Forever (Steam) car music doesn't play
 - #45273  Chessbase 11 cannot draw arrows
 - #54064  ntdll:threadpool - test_tp_io() sometimes fails & crashes in Wine (GitLab CI)
 - #54718  msvcr90:msvcr90 - test__get_current_locale() sometimes gets an unexpected refcount on w10pro64
 - #54756  Multiple games crash on unimplemented concrt140.dll.??0_Cancellation_beacon@details@Concurrency@@QEAA@XZ (Forza Horizon 4, The Legend of Sisyphus (Andromeda Software Development))
 - #55259  TranscendPang has corrupted graphics in-game
 - #55286  msvcrt:file - The 64-bit test_invalid_stdin_child() sometimes gets a bad stdin handle on Windows 10
 - #55287  msvcrt:file - The 32-bit test_pipes() fails in the new WoW mode
 - #55333  ws2_32:sock - test_connect_events() sometimes fails in Wine
 - #55341  Colin McRae Rally 2.0 black screen
 - #55351  gdiplus:graphicspath - test_flatten2() fails on Windows 7 - 11
 - #55402  CMD '!var!' not working in 'if' statement
 - #55414  Ultimate Spider-Man: Widescreen Fix shifts HUD too much to the right
 - #55443  Wine crashes when an image is dragged onto notepad.exe and games
 - #55450  Softerra LDAP Browser needs LDAP_OPT_AUTO_RECONNECT
 - #55457  Robot Battle 1.4 crashes on startup after commit 08dc691d
 - #55471  nGlide wrapper produces black screen in games using the D3D backend
 - #55475  Respondus LockDown Browser crashes on unimplemented function KERNEL32.dll.DiscardVirtualMemory
 - #55500  Launching new processes in Virtual Desktops is slow and stutters the system

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DirectX 12 support comes to CrossOver on Mac

Codeweavers took to its official forums today to announce the release of CrossOver 23.0.0, the new version of its software that aims to make emulating Windows software and games easier on macOS, Linux, and ChromeOS systems.

CrossOver 23 has updated to Wine 8.0.1, and it's loaded with improvements across all its platforms. The most notable, though, is the addition of DirectX 12 support under macOS via VKD3D and MoltenVK. This marks the first time most Mac users have had access to software that relies on DirectX 12; previously, only DirectX 11 was supported, and that went for other software solutions like Parallels, too.

This new release adds "initial support" for geometry shaders and transforms feedback on macOS Ventura. Codeweavers claims that will address a lot of problems with "missing graphics or black screens in-game" in titles like MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, Street Fighter V, Tekken 7, and Octopath Traveler.

All that said, steer clear if you're running the macOS Sonoma beta; the forum post says that while CrossOver 23 technically runs in Sonoma, "there are definitely known issues." It's worth mentioning that the public release of Sonoma later this year will include new tools for porting games to the Mac that could make additional apps like CrossOver unnecessary in some specific instances.

On the Linux side, Codeweavers said it resolved the Xwayland bug, leading to better performance for applications like those in the Microsoft 365 suite. The EA desktop app now works on macOS and Linux, too.

Those are the major improvements in compatibility, but there are a plethora of bug fixes that affect a wide range of apps like Quicken or Steam. Codeweavers says there are more than 5,000 changes in this update. You can now uninstall applications much more easily in the CrossOver GUI, too.

These updates are available to existing users who have active entitlements to the software and to new users who want to fork out $74 to get some Windows applications and games running in emulation on their machines.

Testing it out

The forum post notes that Diablo II Resurrected and Diablo IV work on macOS Ventura with DirectX 12. Before writing this article, I briefly tested Diablo IV via CrossOver 23 on an M1 Max-equipped MacBook Pro and found that it worked on medium to high settings at 1080p with some stuttering.

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5 years ago Valve released Proton forever changing Linux gaming

Has it really been that long? Apparently so. Valve originally announced their rebranding of Steam Play with Proton back on August 21st, 2018. Seems like a good time for a quick reflection being halfway to a decade old now.

The problem: before, during and just after the original Steam Machine push developers just weren't porting many games to Linux, and on the whole really when you look back Linux gaming was in a period of mostly stagnation. Nothing much was happening. A lot of the early porting work that came along was slowly dying off since the Steam Machines didn't provide the boost Valve and Linux gamers were hoping for. 

Originally, “Steam Play” simply meant you could buy a game on Steam and get access to all versions of it. So if you purchased a game on Windows, you could play it on Linux if it had a Native Linux version (same again for macOS). Clearly though, that wasn't enough for what Valve had planned. So if Valve wanted to make Linux a better platform for people to actually use it, they needed something more.

Popular games needed to be able to run on Linux if more people were to use it, because what good is a platform for gaming if tons of the most played games weren’t compatible? As Valve saw with the Steam Machines (not the only reason of course) it doesn’t end well.

I remember being sat in my office at the time, going over my TODO list of various articles and games to cover, planning the week ahead. Ready to then probably go to bed and then BAM — out of nowhere this announcement comes along from Valve that basically said “you're going to be hella busy, better get a lot of coffee”. Valve had partnered up with CodeWeavers and Proton was the answer. 

Proton being the name Valve gave to their fork of Wine with a bunch of added extras, and it has changed Linux gaming forever. Steam Play is more than just Proton though, be sure to read my full Steam Play Proton guide. Side-note: John Carmack (id Software / Oculus VR / Keen Technologies) even thought Wine was the solution back in 2013.

Of course Proton wouldn't have been possible without all the many years of work that went into the Wine project in the first place, and everyone who contributed to Wine should be applauded for their effort. Valve has funded a lot of extra work though to get things like DXVK and VKD3D-Proton for the translation from Direct3D to Vulkan into a state where performance can be really great! Valve also funds work on Linux graphics drivers, Linux kernel work and the list goes on.

Just how much has Proton changed things though? Well, we certainly wouldn't have the Steam Deck if it wasn't for Proton. There's no way Valve would have released their handheld without as many games as possible, clearly learning their lesson on the failure of the Steam Machines. But as we all know, the Steam Machines burned so Proton and the Steam Deck could rise from the ashes.

Proton just makes a lot of sense. It didn't take long for Valve to expand Proton to go initially from a few select Valve-approved titles, to being able to run anything we choose to try with it. From there, Linux gaming just seemingly exploded. And then eventually we saw why Valve made Proton with the Steam Deck announcement coming less than three years later in July 2021.

When you look at the crowd-sourced reports on ProtonDB over 11,000 titles are reported to work by multiple people. It's a small fraction of Steam's overall game count but ProtonDB relies on people actually going and writing a report.

Valve's own Deck Verified rating system just for the Steam Deck hit plenty of milestones since the Steam Deck's release too, now having over 10,000 titles rated to be Playable or Verified. Although both ProtonDB and Deck Verified include a mixture of Native Linux releases and Windows games run with Proton. The point is - being on Linux now for a gamer means quite often a huge amount of your games do actually "just work". It's almost magical.

The real number of games playable on Linux will never be truly known though, because on Steam there's many tens of thousands of games and a lot of them will likely "just work" with Proton if they don’t have a Native Linux build available…and many more are releasing every week. This is a truly incredible place to be in. When you think about Linux and Steam Deck together having just less than a 2% user share on Steam overall — these are some insane numbers for game compatibility for a niche platform.

Thanks to Proton, I've been able to discover a ton of new favorite games, some I would never have played before. Games like Deep Rock Galactic, God of War, Death Stranding, Baldur’s Gate 3, Brotato, Beat Saber and so on. You get the idea, there’s a truly ridiculous selection of games available and at times it’s a little paralysing scrolling through my Steam Library deciding what to play — a delightfully annoying problem to have huh?

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