Wine 11 Rewrites How Linux Runs Windows Games At the Kernel Level (xda-developers.com) 55
Linux gamers are seeing massive performance gains with Wine's new NTSYNC support, "which is a feature that has been years in the making and rewrites how Wine handles one of the most performance-sensitive operations in modern gaming," reports XDA Developers. Not every game will see a night-and-day difference, but for the games that do benefit from these changes, "the improvements range from noticeable to absurd." Combined with improvements to Wayland, graphics, and compatibility, as well as a major WoW64 architecture overhaul, the release looks less like an incremental update and more like one of Wine's most important upgrades in years. From the report: The numbers are wild. In developer benchmarks, Dirt 3 went from 110.6 FPS to 860.7 FPS, which is an impressive 678% improvement. Resident Evil 2 jumped from 26 FPS to 77 FPS. Call of Juarez went from 99.8 FPS to 224.1 FPS. Tiny Tina's Wonderlands saw gains from 130 FPS to 360 FPS. As well, Call of Duty: Black Ops I is now actually playable on Linux, too. Those benchmarks compare Wine NTSYNC against upstream vanilla Wine, which means there's no fsync or esync either. Gamers who use fsync are not going to see such a leap in performance in most games.
The games that benefit most from NTSYNC are the ones that were struggling before, such as titles with heavy multi-threaded workloads where the synchronization overhead was a genuine bottleneck. For those games, the difference is night and day. And unlike fsync, NTSYNC is in the mainline kernel, meaning you don't need any custom patches or out-of-tree modules for it work. Any distro shipping kernel 6.14 or later, which at this point includes Fedora 42, Ubuntu 25.04, and more recent releases, will support it. Valve has already added the NTSYNC kernel driver to SteamOS 3.7.20 beta, loading the module by default, and an unofficial Proton fork, Proton GE, already has it enabled. When Valve's official Proton rebases on Wine 11, every Steam Deck owner gets this for free.
All of this is what makes NTSYNC such a big deal, as it's not simply a run-of-the-mill performance patch. Instead, it's something much bigger: this is the first time Wine's synchronization has been correct at the kernel level, implemented in the mainline Linux kernel, and available to everyone without jumping through hoops.
The games that benefit most from NTSYNC are the ones that were struggling before, such as titles with heavy multi-threaded workloads where the synchronization overhead was a genuine bottleneck. For those games, the difference is night and day. And unlike fsync, NTSYNC is in the mainline kernel, meaning you don't need any custom patches or out-of-tree modules for it work. Any distro shipping kernel 6.14 or later, which at this point includes Fedora 42, Ubuntu 25.04, and more recent releases, will support it. Valve has already added the NTSYNC kernel driver to SteamOS 3.7.20 beta, loading the module by default, and an unofficial Proton fork, Proton GE, already has it enabled. When Valve's official Proton rebases on Wine 11, every Steam Deck owner gets this for free.
All of this is what makes NTSYNC such a big deal, as it's not simply a run-of-the-mill performance patch. Instead, it's something much bigger: this is the first time Wine's synchronization has been correct at the kernel level, implemented in the mainline Linux kernel, and available to everyone without jumping through hoops.
Wine 11 (Score:5, Funny)
Well at least someone can get their 11th version of something running correctly.
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Apple only had cooperative multitasking until the the first UNIX based Mac OS in 1999. Look how far we've come. /s
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what? Win32 has been preemptive multitasking from the beginning - NT 3.1 in in 1993 and Chicago in 1995.
MacOS was insanely brittle to write software for too, even by MS-DOS standards. The popular MS-DOS compilers had enough checks built-in to debug builds that if you had a pointer problem your program would just crash into the debugger, it was remarkable. 16-bit windows was pretty resilient too - if you had an out of bounds error and you had used GlobalAlloc your program would again just crash (allocations
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I did read somewhere that color was a massive kludge on it as well, due the original being very hard coded for B&W
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Slow down, sometimes it takes a few years, or 32 years in this case, to get something right.
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Well, we technically skilled Windows 9 (the version after Windows 8 was Windows 10), so...
Then again, if you want to toss in the fact that the Windows NT line started at 3.5, or add in the various versions of Windows from MS-DOS and NT....
If anything will do it (Score:5, Insightful)
If anything will get people to move to Linux, increases in gaming performance will. I know a couple of people who moved to Linux and virtually every game they play runs faster on Linux than on Windows. Also, some oddball USB stuff that wouldn't work under Windows works perfectly under Linux. They're not going back; they're more than happy using Linux as their daily driver.
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True, but that's already not what the hardcore gamers do. They build and tweak their own systems for optimal game performance. Obviously installing and learning Linux isn't out of the question in their quest for max FPS.
Re: If anything will do it (Score:3)
Re: If anything will do it (Score:4, Interesting)
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And frustratingly single player games or a relatively small part of the industry now.
If anything moves people to Linux it's going to be America turning into a fascist hellscape. Europe is not going to be
Re:If anything will do it (Score:5, Insightful)
Depends what you mean by "very few"
https://areweanticheatyet.com/ [areweanticheatyet.com]
Check the list, see what your collection looks like.
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But this is the start of the network effect, once more get compatible, more will want to in order to sell
True but there's a lot of old games on there (Score:2)
The problem with it when they're just able to run is that at any time your account could get banned for cheating even if you're just playing under Linux. So not su
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Depends what you mean by "very few"
I think the label is legit. "Very few" may not be correct in absolute numbers, but in terms of player hours and popularity it really is. If you want to play some less popular games then sure you'll be fine, but looking at the list the red ones seem to also be the who's who of popular online titles.
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Four of the top five and five of the top ten games on Are We Anti-Cheat Yet's list are marked "Denied", which it defines as "Games where the developers have explicitly stated that they will not enable the anti-cheat solution to work on Linux or have denied the possibility of Linux support".
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>"The problem is multiplayer. Very few games run under Linux with multiplayer because of the anti-cheat software."
If people start flocking to Linux, there will be so much pressure to drop anti-cheat or to have it use Linux-friendly methods, it won't last or be a barrier.
>"If anything moves people to Linux it's going to be America turning into a fascist hellscape"
Yawn. There is little difference from that perspective of now compared to a few years ago. Or a dozen years before that. The word "fascis
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Since Microsoft blocked the email of the head of the International Court of Justice, the wind is blowing differently. See https://www.opendesk.eu/ [opendesk.eu] for instance.
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If people start flocking to Linux, there will be so much pressure to drop anti-cheat or to have it use Linux-friendly methods, it won't last or be a barrier.
I fear the opposite: if people start flocking to Linux, laws will be passed requiring Linux to implement support for this anti-cheat in the name of "think of the children".
Thought terminating cliche (Score:4, Informative)
Fascism is extremely well defined. You can look up the definition your self on Google.
It is best exemplified by the phrase, fascism requires an in group which the law protects but does not bind and in out group which the law binds but does not protect. But there is a much more formal definition. Specifically it is the blending of corporate and state power to preserve an oligarchy and is composed of multiple points and tactics that you can find listed out pretty easily.
None of this matters to you because you have already used your thought terminating cliche so you don't have to think about any of this. You have your armor of God as it were. The tools you use to avoid thinking all those nasty thoughts that would make you go through the painful process of deconstruction.
Eventually the leopards are going to eat your face but by then it's too late.
So you get what you voted for basically (Score:1)
The Epstein class fascists have taken over the country
https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
At least as long as Donald Trump is in the white house. I think we all know the American news media is captured by right wing, pro billionaire, pro Epstein class sources. It's just some of us seem to be okay with that because of reasons... It seems like about 40% of the country has just given up on objective reality. Eventually there will be consequences for that for them, at least the ones who aren't so old they're going
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"If people start flocking to Linux"
Will this be the year of Linux on the desktop?!?
Re: If anything will do it (Score:1)
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>"If anything will get people to move to Linux, increases in gaming performance will."
Maybe? I know few people, personally, who have much interest in gaming at all. Even fewer who are seriously into gaming. Gaming is an important market, for sure. But there are tons of people who don't game under MS-Windows. They use it because that is what they know, that is what was loaded, or that is what is required for package XYZ to run needed by work, school, or hobby.
As long as it is easy, "free"/included (i
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I know a couple of people who moved to Linux and virtually every game they play runs faster on Linux than on Windows.
Then you have a sampling bias in your knowledge. Linux vs Windows is a performance mixed bag. There are some cases where Linux games run faster (in some cases very significantly), there are some where Windows games run faster (in some cases very significantly). It's a total crapshoot to the point where it makes no sense to pick one platform over another unless you're demanding performance from one specific game.
On thing that seems to be less of a crapshoot thought is games that are primarily Vulkan based. T
Re: If anything will do it (Score:1)
I have been using Linux in many contexts basically forever, and pretty much only had windos for gaming.
Not anymore. I can now run modern titles like ArcRaiders just fine on Ubuntu LTS, and couldnt be happier how flawless and stable it all works out of the box.
Linux has been great on the desktop for a long time for many things, but since a few years now with proton it is fantastic for gaming as well, even before ntsync support! So adding this will only make it pull further ahead and further improve Linux gam
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Yup. I'm not a Windows gamer but if I was I'd be researching Linux distros right now.
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If anything will get people to move to Linux, increases in gaming performance will. I know a couple of people who moved to Linux and virtually every game they play runs faster on Linux than on Windows. Also, some oddball USB stuff that wouldn't work under Windows works perfectly under Linux. They're not going back; they're more than happy using Linux as their daily driver.
The biggest problem for me was not performance in FPS, but the fact that no game worked out of the box on pop!os or bazzite. I want to install and play; not install, crash, rifle through the internet for 15 suggested fixes, implement them all, cry a bit, play, crash, and then give up. Until that problem is fixed I will sit tight on win10 for my gaming.
Will this finally make ReactOS useful? (Score:2)
Re:Will this finally make ReactOS useful? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Will this finally make ReactOS useful? (Score:5, Insightful)
>"Would be nice to be able to use it for actual work."
Would it? How would it be better than existing Linux distros with tons of high-performance native apps AND the ability to mimick whatever GUI the user is familiar with AND use WINE to do better at running MS-Windows programs?
ReactOS development has been going on for decades and still doesn't have much to show for itself. I see ReactOS as a kludge to try and make a free and open version of inferior technology. We already have a free and open OS with superior technology and with a tremendously larger installed user and developer base.
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Yeah, I found that statement odd too. Waiting around for ReactOS is akin to waiting for the next release of Duke Nukem. Any ... year ... now...
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Or, perhaps, the first release of Gnu Hurd.
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ReactOS' so far unique job is to support Windows drivers. It would be great for supporting hardware with embedded Windows after EOL if it worked. Of course, it barely does...
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THEY'RE STILL WORKING ON REACTOS?!
Next you'll tell me Haiku is still an option.
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Would be nice to be able to use it for actual work.
Given the saga of that project, the best thing anyone can do is to fork it, and then continue development. In another thread on ReactOS a couple of days ago, I suggested that there be 2 projects - a 32-bit one which aims to preserve backwards compatibility, and is Wintel only, and a 64-bit one, which only requires API compatibility w/ win64 and is ported to Arm, RISC-V and if possible, even MIPS-IV/V and DEC Alpha. Then we can stop Microslop forcing whatever it feels like down our collective throat
WinBoat (Score:2)
WoW? Wow! (Score:2)
I never thought to look it up before, since I've been running World of Warcraft on my trusty old Win10 for decades now. But this got me curious.
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux... [reddit.com]
Well, look like no problems. I'm sure there's a decent web browser available, and if I could get all my saved Outlook email transferred over ... interesting, very interesting.
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Getting mail out of lookout is possible but irritating. But you only have to manage it once...
Switching to Wayland? (Score:4, Interesting)
FTA: "If you've been holding off on switching from X11 to Wayland because of Wine compatibility concerns,"
Oh yeah, *thats* the main reason people don't want to switch to wayland, nothing to do with all the myriad other issues:
https://gist.github.com/probon... [github.com]
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Only thing in that link is a bunch of whiny crybabies who would rather sit there and polish turds instead of doing something useful.
Does it run Adobe Creative Cloud? (Score:2)
That's the only thing keeping me on Windows.
Applicable to macOS? (Score:1)
Since this is a kernel level optimization, this is specific to Linux, but is the technique portable? Can crossover do something similar for macOS?
Re:Applicable to macOS? Or BSD? (Score:2)
Good question. Actually, I was wondering something a bit different - is wine the same b/w Linux, BSD and everything else, or is there a customized wine for ever kernel out there? Like the recent improvements in Proton wine by Steam - is that something that FreeBSD can use as well?
I recall some years back when I saw a video on the PC-BSD unix channel on how to run Steam games on PC-BSD. They recommended using wine, as opposed to Linux jails. I wonder whether that has changed now? If it is the latter,
Wine Setup and Use a Bit Complicated on Mint (Score:2)
With Wine, I mostly have the 2 applications I really need that are missing in Linux: Full copy of 7Zip ( File Ro