Comment by mikkupikku
1 day ago
Crazy how, thanks to Wine/Proton, Linux is now more compatible with old Windows games than Windows itself. There are a lot of games from the 90s and even the 00s that require jumping through a lot of hoops to run on Windows, but through Steam they're click-to-play on Linux.
Wine works on windows too. It's used by the shorthorn project to get software for newer versions of windows to run under XP.
Whoa. Can it be used to run older software on newer Windows too?
Yep, for some games like Elden Ring it even fixes Windows-specific performance hiccups: https://youtu.be/vAooLiCy7rE
My gaming PC isn't compatible with windows 11, so it was the first to get upgraded to Linux. Immediate and significant improvement in experience.
Windows kept logging down the system trying to download a dozen different language versions of word (for which I didn't have a licence and didn't want regardless). Steam kept going into a crash restart cycle. Virus scanner was ... being difficult.
Everything just works on Linux except some games on proton have some sound issues that I still need to work out.
>> some sound issues
Is this 1998? Linux is forever having sound issues. Why is sound so hard?
Sound (oss, alsa, pulseaudio, pipewire...), bluetooth, WiFi are eternal problematic Linux paper cuts.
As always It is Not Linux Fault, but it is Linux Problem.
It's one of the reasons why I moved to OSX + Linux virtual machine. I get the best of both worlds. Plus, the hardware quality of a 128GB unified RAM MacBookPro M4 Max is way beyond anything else in the market.
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In some games I get a crackle in the audio which I don't get through any native application, nor some games run with proton. I don't know if that's what he means, but it hasn't bothered me enough to figure it out. I use bluetooth headphones anyway, I'm relatively insensitive to audio fidelity.
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Linux sound is fine at least for me. The problem is running Windows games in proton. Sound will suddenly stop, then come back delayed. Apparently a known issue on some systems.
Pipewire + lowlatency kernel fixes 99% sound issues
To be fair, you can have sound issues on windows too. It's not usually on issue on linux anymore either though.
The problem is games over Wine/Proton doing weird things with the sound. Not the sound itself on modern Linux. Heck, I have less issues using audio stuff, or just changing the audio volume on Linux than on the crappy Windows.
> There are a lot of games from the 90s and even the 00s that require jumping through a lot of hoops to run on Windows
What are some examples?
Pretty much all the Renderware based GTAs have issues these days that only community made patches can mitigate.
A recent example is that in San Andreas, the seaplane never spawns if you're running Windows 11 24H2 or newer. All of it due to a bug that's always been in the game, but only the recent changes in Windows caused it to show up. If anybody's interested, you can read the investigation on it here: https://cookieplmonster.github.io/2025/04/23/gta-san-andreas...
I remember seeing a thread about that bug here on HN a while ago, that was a fun read.
I remember not getting Close Combat 2 (from 1997) running on Windows 10 some years ago but I did getting it running under Wine, albeit with some tweaks.
Whether that was a Windows compatibility issue or potentially some display driver thing, I'm not sure. (90's Windows games may have used some DirectDraw features that just don't get that much attention nowadays, which I think may have been the issue, but my memory's a bit spotty.)
Red Alert 2. Then there's games like Dark Forces II that work but don't work with hardware rendering out of the box so they look like crap. I've also had games like Grid complain I didn't have enough VRAM (because I had more than 2GB), games that were tricky to get working because I used a 4K monitor (Sims 2, Crysis 2). And there's games where the original release is borked but a newer version on GoG is okay like Alpha Centauri.
The last time I tried to run Tachyon: The Fringe was Windows 10, and it failed. IIRC I could launch it and play, but there was a non-zero chance that a FMV cutscene would cause it to freeze.
I see there are guides on Steam forums on how to get it to run under Windows 11 [0], and they are quite involved for someone not overly familiar with computers outside of gaming.
0: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=29344...
Lemmings Revolutions. Apparently to run in something else that is not Windows 95/98/Me requires some unofficial .EXE patch that you could download from some shady website. The file is now nowehre to be found.
It's a great game, unfortunately right now I am not able to play it anymore :( even though I have the original CD.
Unfortunately, Wine is of no help here :(
Also original Commandos games.
Anything around DirectX 10 and older has issues with Windows, these days.
One more popular example is Grid 2, another is Morrowind. Both crash on launch, unless you tweak a lot of things, and even then it won't always succeed.
Need for Speed II: SE is "platinum" on Wine, and pretty much unable to be run at all on Windows 11.
Isn’t this because the wine db has those tweaks pre configured?
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Anything written with SafeDisk DRM e.g. medal of honor allied assault.
It kinda works both ways, just yesterday I tried to play the Linux native version of 8bit.runner and it didn't work, I had to install the Windows (beta) version and run it through proton.
Funny story: I use Anki (the flashcard program), and I run it on my NixOS laptop. There is a NixOS/nixpkgs package for Anki. It doesn't work. You know how I run Anki, which has a native GNU/Linux version and even an actual nixpkgs package, on my GNU/Linux NixOS laptop? Yeah, I run AnkiDroid, the Android version, through Waydroid. Because the Android version works.
Anki seems to be a habitual offender, I was never able to install it reproducibly and in an obvious way on several distros and always ended up building it from source.