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Google plans their own version of Wine to run Windows games on Stadia

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Stadia is something we don't really talk about here too much now, as Google has let it slide considerably from the original aim but it's still going and it seems Google still has some interesting plans for it.

There's an upcoming Google For Games Dev Summit on March 15, which includes Android and Stadia. For the Stadia service that runs on Debian Linux, Google has a few talks including "Play Testing Made Easy on Stadia", "Stadia Adventures in slow server code on Unity" and "Profiling on Stadia" but the perhaps bigger one is titled "How to write a Windows emulator for Linux from scratch?" that notes:

Detailed overview of the technology behind Google's solution for running unmodified Windows games on Stadia. This is a deep technical walkthrough of some of the core concepts with the goal to allow curious programmers to better understand such technologies and potentially to build their own.

We don't know yet if it will be open source but the bigger question perhaps is why they didn't go with all the existing code that has already proven itself? We are of course talking about Wine / Proton, DXVK and VKD3D-Proton which powers Windows games on Linux desktop and the Steam Deck. It's already shown to have great performance.

It's an obvious move for Stadia though to help increase the game library, the same reason Valve created Proton from Wine to bring more games to Linux systems. We'll be taking a look over the talk on March 15 and will make some notes for you.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Shmerl Mar 10, 2022
Quoting: Nociferit's a given fact nowadays that for the foreseeable future "gaming on Linux" = "gaming on Proton/Wine". Forget native ports, let alone native development from scratch, no one is willing to invest in that (I wouldn't either).

I disagree. Look at Godot. They are investing into Linux development of their engine fine and it will enable more native games.
anewson Mar 11, 2022
Quoting: RichardYaoWine originally stood for WINdows Emulator ...

I didn't know this history behind the acronym and always wondered why it "is not" an emulator, so thanks for this.

EDIT: reading further down on the thread I'm back to being confused about it


Last edited by anewson on 11 March 2022 at 2:47 am UTC
Shmerl Mar 11, 2022
Quoting: anewsonreading further down on the thread I'm back to being confused about it

Wine emulates Windows, so it is an emulator of it. But some can't understand the term except in the context of emulating hardware, so they probably insisted that "Wine is not an emulator [of hardware]". I don't really care about their issue and have no problem with calling Wine an emulator [of software, namely Windows].


Last edited by Shmerl on 11 March 2022 at 2:57 am UTC
x_wing Mar 11, 2022
Quoting: Shmerl
Quoting: anewsonreading further down on the thread I'm back to being confused about it

Wine emulates Windows, so it is an emulator of it. But some can't understand the term except in the context of emulating hardware, so they probably insisted that "Wine is not an emulator [of hardware]". I don't really care about their issue and have no problem with calling Wine an emulator [of software, namely Windows].

So, should we say that Linux is a system V emulator as well?
Shmerl Mar 11, 2022
Quoting: x_wingSo, should we say that Linux is a system V emulator as well?

Not really, since it directly implements interfaces to be used as system ones. Wine emulates Windows interfaces through Linux ones.


Last edited by Shmerl on 11 March 2022 at 4:16 am UTC
x_wing Mar 11, 2022
Quoting: Shmerl
Quoting: x_wingSo, should we say that Linux is a system V emulator as well?

Not really, since it directly implements interfaces to be used as system ones. Wine emulates Windows interfaces through Linux ones.

Emulates vs implements. That's the discussion, and Wine also implements WinAPI a windows subsystems on Linux. My point is that you are using a very broad definition for emulation, and by it you should also call virtual machines (or even docker) emulators.
Shmerl Mar 11, 2022
I don't see a discussion in this really and any issue with using a broad meaning of emulates. No one said emulates only can refer to hardware, except for some who decided to limit the meaning for some weird reason.
mr-victory Mar 11, 2022
I inferred from the article that Google is really going to emulate Windows with virtual machine technologies instead of something like Wine.
Eike Mar 11, 2022
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Quoting: ShmerlI don't see a discussion in this really and any issue with using a broad meaning of emulates. No one said emulates only can refer to hardware, except for some who decided to limit the meaning for some weird reason.

Nobody said anything about hardware except you.

Quoting: F.UltraAnd no WINE is not a OS emulator, it's a reimplementation of the Windows API. Not really sure how a emulator for a modern OS would look like but perhaps this one from Google is. Perhaps they emulate it down to how e.g the Windows Scheduler works to make games get the 100% Windows experience that WINE can never do.

This. A Windows emulator would have to behave like Windows in more ways than offering its API. Because Windows is more than an API.
Shmerl Mar 11, 2022
Quoting: EikeNobody said anything about hardware except you.

Not true. All those who got hung up on "Wine is not an emulator" were busy defining emulator as something that has to emulate CPU architecture and such. While the meaning of the word emulate never had to be limited to what they wanted.
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