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Wine, part of what makes Proton run so many Windows games on Linux, just had a very interesting release that will help game modding.

The main highlights of Wine 11.6 are:

  • Beginnings of a revival of the Android driver.
  • DLL load order heuristics to better support game mods.
  • More VBScript compatibility fixes.
  • Various bug fixes.

The interesting bit here is the change to how DLLs are loaded. Currently with Wine and Proton, you do at times need to do a bit of a workaround for games that need specific DLLs for their mods. With this change now in place and shipped in Wine, it means that if the DLL company name attached is not Microsoft (so a custom one supplied with the mod or game), Wine will automatically use it over the Wine version.

Hopefully, the end result will be a number of mods for Windows games on Linux / SteamOS will be easier to run, often out of the box with no extra changes or launch options. And, eventually, Valve will pull the changes into Proton so everyone using it with Steam will see the benefits of it.

Wine 11.6 also notes 28 bug fixes for various application and game behaviour.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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10 comments

ROllerozxa a day ago
Improving the loading of game mod DLLs sounds interesting but what got my attention was the firstmost line, Wine running on Android? 👀
whizse a day ago
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Quoting: ROllerozxaImproving the loading of game mod DLLs sounds interesting but what got my attention was the firstmost line, Wine running on Android? 👀
Yep, it was (somewhat) supported starting with the 3.0 release but ending with 7.0. I think the arm build was only able to run WinRT binaries (Windows apps for arm) so usefulness was pretty much limited to Android on x86. That will probably change now with FEX that emulates x86 on arm64.
kaktuspalme a day ago
Quoting: whizse
Quoting: ROllerozxaImproving the loading of game mod DLLs sounds interesting but what got my attention was the firstmost line, Wine running on Android? 👀
Yep, it was (somewhat) supported starting with the 3.0 release but ending with 7.0. I think the arm build was only able to run WinRT binaries (Windows apps for arm) so usefulness was pretty much limited to Android on x86. That will probably change now with FEX that emulates x86 on arm64.
I guess it already has changed. I saw so many Youtube Videos popping up on how to run Steam on Android on Ayn Odin and other devices. GameNative and other apps are mentioned.
elmapul 23 hours ago
Quoting: kaktuspalme
Quoting: whizse
Quoting: ROllerozxaImproving the loading of game mod DLLs sounds interesting but what got my attention was the firstmost line, Wine running on Android? 👀
Yep, it was (somewhat) supported starting with the 3.0 release but ending with 7.0. I think the arm build was only able to run WinRT binaries (Windows apps for arm) so usefulness was pretty much limited to Android on x86. That will probably change now with FEX that emulates x86 on arm64.
I guess it already has changed. I saw so many Youtube Videos popping up on how to run Steam on Android on Ayn Odin and other devices. GameNative and other apps are mentioned.
afaik they arent using wine but an fork of it, that might not even give credits or source code, im not sure if it does....

in any case now we will have support on the wine itself it seems
whizse 23 hours ago
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AFAICT GameNative et al seems to use proot to run x86 builds of Wine using Box64.

I have no idea of doing it slightly more native will be easier/faster?
mrdeathjr 22 hours ago
​This wine version in my case up 500mb (4.7gb) compared 11.5 (4.2gb) compiled

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​😀
PlayingOnLinuxphone 18 hours ago
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Quoting: ROllerozxabut what got my attention was the firstmost line, Wine running on Android? 👀
The least I am interested in since I left the smartphone ecosystem in favor of Linux phones. With FEX Windows games should run on these pocketcomputers just as on Linux desktops. The only remaining key is powerful hardware, which may comes with Liberux Nexx. But older games or low resource eating indie games could probably run on my device. So the DLL stuff is indeed more interesting to me.

But well, nothing against the Android driver.
Gerarderloper 18 hours ago
Is this Android Driver meant as a alternative to Valves FEX layer?
GoEsr 15 hours ago
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No, it's meant for getting Windows games to run on Android. It uses FEX for ARM compatibility.
Chinstrap 13 hours ago
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Does this mean the WINEDLLOVERRIDES command is no longer needed? That would make modding some games less of a headache.
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