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Wine 11 rewrites how Linux runs Windows games at the kernel level, and the speed gains are massive (www.xda-developers.com)
submitted 5 days ago by monica_b1998@lemmy.world to c/linux_gaming@lemmy.world
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[-] INeedMana@piefed.zip 184 points 5 days ago

What is often overlooked

Those benchmarks compare Wine NTSYNC against upstream vanilla Wine, which means there's no fsync or esync either. Gamers who use fsync are not going to see such a leap in performance in most games.

Ntsync is great and there will be performance improvement. But not exactly massive

[-] PlasticExistence@lemmy.world 38 points 5 days ago

What’s massive is the need for clicks

[-] homes@piefed.world 7 points 5 days ago

Well said

[-] TwilitSky@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago

That's not the only thing that's massive.
How about their gigantic ego?

[-] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 25 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Gamers who use fsync are not going to see such a leap in performance in most games.

I don't think that's overlooked at all. 99.9% of people using WINE/Proton aren't going to have any idea what fsync is, and almost nobody not using proton-cachyos is going to use it. fsync, itself a workaround, is niche within what's already a niche.

[-] SmoochyPit@lemmy.ca 27 points 5 days ago

From what I found online, Steam enables esync by default, and fsync if your kernel supports it.

Lutris has both options nowadays in the runner settings. Idk if they’re both enabled by default, but in my case they’re enabled. ymmv there.

source

[-] kieron115@startrek.website 2 points 4 days ago

In short, LXDE was the measured as the fastest desktop environment for gaming, while XFCE with compositor disabled came in second fastest out of the ones tested. If you need the maximum performance XFCE may be a good compromise between looks vs performance. You can use the “Disable desktop effects” option in Lutris which may reduce the overhead of the desktop environment further.

any idea how this would compare to starting steam directly from a display manager using gamescope as the compositor?

[-] SmoochyPit@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 days ago

I’m imagine gamescope is the best-case, since there’s no other apps or visual effects.

[-] grue@lemmy.world 6 points 5 days ago

What are the kernel requirements? Is it something any random Debian user is likely to have, or do you need to be compiling it yourself?

[-] SmoochyPit@lemmy.ca 10 points 5 days ago

From the article:

Futex2, often referred to interchangeably with fsync, did make it to Linux kernel 5.16 as futex_waitv, but the original implementation of fsync isn't that. Fsync used futex_wait_multiple, and Futex2 used futex_waitv. Applications such as Lutris still refer to it as Fsync, though. It's still kind of fsync, but it's not the original fsync.

So since Jan 2022, it’s been in the stable Linux kernel. For Debian and its derivatives, it would be included beginning with Bookworm.

[-] grue@lemmy.world 14 points 5 days ago

So basically, both esync and fsync are enabled by default for almost everybody.

[-] SmoochyPit@lemmy.ca 7 points 5 days ago

Assuming that most non-technical users (who wouldn’t research and enable it) are probably using Wine/Proton through Steam: yeah.

[-] christian@lemmy.ml 7 points 5 days ago

99.9% of people using WINE/Proton aren’t going to have any idea what fsync is

Speaking, although I've heard the term thrown around a lot. Can I get a layman's overview?

[-] INeedMana@piefed.zip 8 points 5 days ago

I think it's pretty well described in the article of the post

[-] christian@lemmy.ml 18 points 5 days ago

You're right, it is.

You can try all you want, but you will never get me to read the articles before commenting.

[-] kieron115@startrek.website 5 points 5 days ago

i use ntsync whenever i can, but i've only had linux (cachyos) on my gaming rig since like august. that said, i believe one of their recent updates made ntsync the default for proton-cachyos

[-] INeedMana@piefed.zip 5 points 5 days ago

Fsync maybe not but AFAIK esync is widely used. On some protondb pages there's a hint to disable esync, not the other way round. And while esync is not as performant as fsync, it is still much better than vanilla

[-] Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world 12 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

It's worth noting that the new sync implementation shouldn't cause any of the compatibility problems esync and fsync ran into, so it's a worthwhile upgrade from a stability viewpoint even if a user won't see huge performance gains.

[-] Tywele@piefed.social 7 points 5 days ago

The numbers are wild. In developer benchmarks, Dirt 3 went from 110.6 FPS to 860.7 FPS, which is an impressive 678% improvement. Resident Evil 2 jumped from 26 FPS to 77 FPS. Call of Juarez went from 99.8 FPS to 224.1 FPS. Tiny Tina's Wonderlands saw gains from 130 FPS to 360 FPS. As well, Call of Duty: Black Ops I is now actually playable on Linux, too.

These don't sound massive to you?

[-] INeedMana@piefed.zip 3 points 5 days ago

You won't see those because most probably you are already using one of other *sync

[-] Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz 9 points 5 days ago

It should still fix minor stuttering that some gets get on Linux, which will be pretty huge.

[-] Lojcs@piefed.social 2 points 5 days ago

I remember hearing that Ntsync isn't even faster than fsync in general use, just in some rare corner cases

[-] kogasa@programming.dev 5 points 5 days ago

This is true and expected, the point of NTSYNC was to be a more faithful emulation of Windows synchronization primitives, so increased compatibility and correctness. If it's ever faster than esync or fsync it's just a bonus. It's on par generally, though.

[-] zewm@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago

Wine Is Not an Emulator.

[-] kogasa@programming.dev 4 points 5 days ago

Okay. Parts of WINE emulate parts of Windows in order to function. The NTSYNC driver emulates NT synchronization primitives.

[-] zewm@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago

People on Lemmy are fucking dumb, wow. The word WINE literally stands for “Wine Is Not an Emulator”. It’s a translation layer.

[-] kogasa@programming.dev 9 points 5 days ago

I'm aware. You seem to be equivocating on the word "emulate." Nobody called WINE an emulator. The design and behavior of NTSYNC is meant to mimic that of NT synchronization primitives.

[-] HouseWolf@pawb.social 3 points 5 days ago

It fixed the lag spikes I experienced playing some of the older Call of Duty titles so it's overall been a huge upgrade for me.

this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2026
886 points (100.0% liked)

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