First of all, it is important to remember what Wine is, or rather, what it is not, namely an emulator. Unlike classic emulators which reproduce the operation of old hardware or systems, Wine adopts a much more subtle approach: the tool acts as a translator in real time. In reality, Wine reads instructions designed for Windows and reinterprets them so that they can be executed natively under Linux, and this distinction is not just a technical detail, since it allows Wine to avoid the legal issues linked to the direct reproduction of technologies Microsoft owners. The main problem in practice is that Wine directly complicated the work of developers, because running software designed for an ecosystem optimized for decades (namely Windows and its omnipresent DirectX) without having the same foundations was a constant headache.
NTSYNC: the 6 magic letters
In doing so, it was quite logical that Wine would take small steps for years. Then, in 2018, Valve unveiled Proton, its Wine-based compatibility layer for Steam and, later, the Steam Deck. Suddenly, playing under Linux ceases to be a simple technical challenge reserved for enthusiasts, and the practice becomes professional. Here we are now a few years later, and Wine 11 is about to change everything thanks to 6 letters: NTSYNC. To be clear, this technology introduces a synchronization system designed from the start to effectively reproduce the behavior expected by Windows games. In other words, Wine now becomes a conductor finally able to follow the score perfectly, which immediately improves the performances.
The benefits are immediate: for example, a Resident Evil 2 Remake becomes truly playable, going from 25 frames per second previously to 70, just like that. So, unlike fsync, NTSYNC is integrated directly into the Linux 6.14 kernel. To make it short, this means that its benefits will no longer be reserved for tinkerers: all distributions will be able to benefit from it natively, from Ubuntu to Fedora, without obviously forgetting SteamOS. Valve has already integrated the technology into the beta version of SteamOS 3.7.20, paving the way for automatic improvement for Steam Deck, but also in the future for Steam Machines. And more generally, the entire gaming ecosystem is improving on Linux.
However, this is not to suggest that Linux becomes more efficient than Windows overnight. On the other hand, the performances are now close enough to those allowed by the competition to justify the transition a little more. Especially since the timing couldn’t be better: recently, with the gradual end of Windows 10 and the current component crisis, Linux appears to be an ever more serious alternative, particularly for machines swallowed up by the hardware requirements of Windows 11. Lighter, secure and durable, Linux becomes even more of a choice thoughtful, especially for players.
