Wine 7.16 improves compatibility of Windows games with Linux

In a nutshell: The Wine community has released a new version of the software of the same name, indispensable for gamers using Linux-based operating systems, as well as for Valve’s Steam Deck console. Wine 7.16 includes many fixes for game-related bugs and other issues, improving compatibility with software (and not just games) designed to run on Windows.

Wine 7.16 includes many bug fixes for software designed to run on Windows. Several issues with games have also been fixed, which will certainly please Linux users.

As the developers have previously pointed out, Wine is “not an emulator” but an open source compatibility layer for users who need to run Windows software on Linux and other Unix-like operating systems.

The trick is at the heart of the magic: Wine implements the Windows API using 100% non-Microsoft code, even though users can provide external DLLs – even those included with Windows.

Wine 7.16 release highlights include support for Wow64 (Microsoft’s 64-bit compatibility layer for 32-bit applications) in the X11 driver, session storage in MSHTML, Unicode regular expression fixes in MSXML, IME improvements in editing control, and “various bug fixes”. The full list of fixes is really huge, including the work of several Wine developers since the previous 7.15 release.

The most interesting bug fixes are, of course, related to the game: Wine fixes a crash issue in Saint’s Row, a Ragnarok Online anti-cheat false positive, a bug that made Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain playable in the past. the first chapter is not possible, and a hang error in the Star Citizen launcher.

Wine features include Win64, Win32, Win16 and DOS compatibility, DirectX support, printing, and a fully featured debugger. Wine is also an important component of Proton, the compatibility layer used by Valve in its Steam Deck (SteamOS) console operating system.