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Wine development is starting to heat up again, as Wine 2.2 is now officially available. Sounds like a good one too.

What's new
- Windows version set to Windows 7 for new prefixes.
- More steps towards the Direct3D command stream.
- Still more Shader Model 5 instructions.
- Initial support for double-buffered theme painting.
- 35 bug fixes.

It fixes bugs in Need For Speed Most Wanted, Venom Codename: Outbreak, Civilization II and more.

Even though Wine is a hot topic of conversation, I still think it's very important. There will always be games and applications that simply won't come to Linux for a variety of reasons. Having every option open to us is great.

Kudos to the Wine team! Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Wine
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[email protected] Feb 17, 2017
Wine IS one of those reasons.
Whitewolfe80 Feb 17, 2017
Wine is great DX9 support is pretty damn good right now native is def better but wine is not a terrible option.
MayeulC Feb 17, 2017
Quoting: Whitewolfe80Wine is great DX9 support is pretty damn good right now native is def better but wine is not a terrible option.
Heck, sometimes wine is better than native windows :P
The wine project itself is quite impressive...
Leopard Feb 17, 2017
Is there anyone knows how can we enable Gallium under native wine?Custom wine version is really needed?
Maelrane Feb 17, 2017
Quoting: [email protected]Wine IS one of those reasons.

Following down that rabbit hole, what would you expect if there was no Wine, more or less Linux adaption?

Personally I would expect far less of the software that comes to my beloved penguin via Wine. Many stuff is just running because there is Wine, with not even the slightest interest of the responsible ones to bring this to Linux otherwise.

Linux may dominate the world of computing, from servers to smartphones to the web and even my heart... but it does not dominate the desktop and I think that Wine is an as good as possible solution for a lot of usecases.
commodore256 Feb 17, 2017
Quoting: [email protected]Wine IS one of those reasons.


Well, Windows and DOS compatibility didn't help OS/2. That's why nobody really made OS/2 Apps. Devs were like "We'll make it both for Windows and OS/2 by only making a Windows version" or "We'll make it for all x86 platforms by making it for DOS, Windows can switch to DOS and NT and OS/2 Users have a DOS Subsystem".


Last edited by commodore256 on 17 February 2017 at 11:17 pm UTC
no_information_here Feb 17, 2017
Quoting: [email protected]Wine IS one of those reasons.
Do you really think that?

If the number of Linux desktop users is small, and the number of Linux gamers is smaller. What is the number of them who will buy a game just to manually run it on Wine? What if that game is already old and a percentage of us already own it from a bundle or a nostalgia sale?

A few of us do use Wine, but the "extra Windows sales" are minuscule for a developer. I may be wrong, but I have never heard a dev say "We don't need to port to Linux, those people will just buy it anyway and use Wine."

With that logic you should be against OpenMW because it lowers the chance that Bethesda will someday port Morrowind. Look forward, not back.
commodore256 Feb 17, 2017
Quoting: no_information_here
Quoting: [email protected]Wine IS one of those reasons.

With that logic you should be against OpenMW because it lowers the chance that Bethesda will someday port Morrowind. Look forward, not back.

They weren't even going to port Oblivion to newer consoles. Even the Oblivion build of the engine is so old, it's incompatible with current technology and they weren't going through the extra effort even for the console kiddies. If they weren't going to port Oblivion to consoles, they weren't even considering Morrowind to anything.
wojtek88 Feb 17, 2017
Quoting: liamdaweThere will always be games and applications that simply won't come to Linux for a variety of reasons.
Quoting: [email protected]Wine IS one of those reasons.
Sure, you're right, it is one of the reasons. But I have an impression that you don't want to see bigger picture here. I guess you refer to situations in which game or application is not ported because it is already available on Linux through Wine. Sure, it happens - I bet for example Bethesda may not be interested in porting some of it's games because some of them are available on Wine (Skyrim, Doom). But Wine IS one of the reasons, why people stop to dual boot. Wine IS one of the reasons why people can use applications from Windows library on their Linux machines.

Personally, I would love to have Wine ports of all the games that are rated from Platinum to silver on Steam. Even if they would have issues. They could have been marked with small Wine icon or tagged in some way. But there would be one serious information available for Valve - every Linux gamer would use Linux version of Steam. They wouldn't be recognized as Windows players, and therefore Linux gamers would be better counted in sourveys.
And what's important - Linux games library would contain some seriously cool games.

What's more - Wine has prooved with Doom, that even if developer won't decide to release Linux version of the game, if they will use Vulkan it will be much easier to have the game on the Linux. It may end in initial wrapped ports, growing market, bigger interest in the Linux market and more native games in the end.

To sum up - Better shape of Wine is good news. WINE IS GOOD NEWS.


Last edited by wojtek88 on 17 February 2017 at 11:36 pm UTC
TheRiddick Feb 17, 2017
Quoting: [email protected]Wine IS one of those reasons.

Wine has no influence on Developers coming to Linux what so ever unless they intend to use it for their ports, in that situation its unlikely the developer would even bother with a native given their willing to just use Wine for their port.

Only down-side to Wine, is programs ran through it are counted as Windows platform, or excluded all together which is what valve does now I believe.
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