Wine is a free and open source tool that makes it possible to run many Windows apps and games on Linux and other operating systems including Android, macOS, and FreeBSD. And the latest version brings a number of significant new features and improvements.

Updates in Wine 7.0 include improved support for theming, improved graphics, support for using multiple displays while playing games or running apps that make use of Direct3D, and thousands of other changes.

While multi-display support sounds like a big deal, the release notes point out that “in practice, this tends to mean the ability to choose which monitor a Direct3D application will use for full-screen mode,” which is important, but maybe not quite as exciting as being able to span across multiple displays.

The latest version of Wine also adds support Direct3D graphics on newer graphics cards including:

  • AMD Radeon RX 5500M, 6800, 6800 XT, and 6900 XT
  • AMD Van Gogh
  • Intel UHD 630
  • NVIDIA GeForce GT 1030

Wine has also added better support for Macs with Apple Silicon, with support for running x86-64 Windows apps under Rosetta 2 and an improved Internet Explorer 11 compatibility mode for networking (which could come in handy for accessing legacy websites, apps, or services that rely on it even as Microsoft prepares to put the final nail in the coffin of IE11).

Many of the other changes are under-the-hood tweaks that may be less visible, but which should lead to better performance. You can find more details, as well as download links for the source code and binary packages in the release announcement.

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6 replies on “Wine 7.0 released with support for more GPUs, gaming with multiple displays, and more”

  1. “Wine 7.0 adds support for running 32-bit Windows apps on 64-bit Unix host systems”

    Someone obviously hasn’t been using Wine or they’d never have said this… 32-bit Wine has happily run on 64-bit Linux for its entire existence.

    The problem is running 64-bit windows apps on 32-bit Linux.

    1. I’ll update the article, but honestly, this bit in the release notes was a bit above my paygrade to decipher:

      *** WoW64

      • The 64-bit Windows-on-Windows (WoW64) architecture is implemented, and
        supports running a 32-bit Windows application inside a 64-bit Unix host
        process, using thunks to map 32-bit NT system calls to the 64-bit NTDLL.

      • WoW64 thunks are implemented for most Unix libraries, enabling a 32-bit PE
        module to call a 64-bit Unix library. Once the remaining modules are
        converted to PE, this will make it possible to run 32-bit applications
        without installing 32-bit Unix libraries.

      1. Being able to skip the installation of 32-bit libraries is still kind of a big deal. Having to have them to run old 32-bit Windows software was a big reason a number of users were so upset about Ubuntu dropping all 32-bit functionality (as opposed to merely not running on 32-bit CPUs). And in my most recent experience, installing them is the trickiest part of installing WINE.
        However, it’s not QUITE there yet, as they still need to convert some bits and pieces of WINE to a new format. Once they are done, it won’t matter as much if your distro refuses to provide any 32-bit functionality.

    1. You can, and always have been able to, run 32-bit windows apps on 64-bit linux just fine. So long as they run on 32-bit Wine then you’re good to go.

      sudo apt install wine:i386

    2. Whenever I’ve had to use Wine on a Mint system, I would go straight to the Wine web page and get the instructions to add their PPA and install from there, as the Mint repo was always way behind. I never had to deal with it until I decided to get Cuphead running back in 2017, but it was worth doing, so if you want to get a more recent version running, you should take a look.

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