Windows games on Linux just got better, thanks to CrossOver

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Dialectic-Compiler@reddit

proprietary

I could not be paid to care.

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muffinstatewide32@reddit

Fwiw the proprietary part of crossover is its ui

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visualglitch91@reddit

Wait, this can run x86 on arm without emulation?

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Felt389@reddit

It does still very much rely on emulation, however it's baked directly into the compatibility layer instead of requiring an external program for emulation like traditional WINE does.

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Correct. Funnily enough, WINE stands for "WINE Is Not an Emulator". What WINE does is simply translating a program's system calls to the Windows kernel to something the Linux kernel can understand. This is not emulation.

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ZunoJ@reddit

Are you a bot? You're like talking shit, somebody points it out and you're going "correct ...". At least you didn't say "Great catch!" Lol

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Felt389@reddit

Great catch!

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visualglitch91@reddit

Hummm I don't think I'm smart enough to understand this but I think it's cool

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x0wl@reddit

What they did is integrate FEX into their codebase (you can achieve a similar effect yourself by just using FEX with proton, but they'll have much better UX and if you pay, you support Wine development anyway).

The thing about FEX is that it's an HLE, that is, it can emulate x86 on ARM when needed, but it also can detect calls to widely used libraries (like Vulkan or OpenGL) in the x86 code and redirect them to the ARM versions of those libraries. This means that only the code of your game runs in emulation, but a lot of supporting libraries run natively.

This helps with performance a lot.

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CondiMesmer@reddit

I think wine compatibility for arm is actually huge. There's so many arm handheld devices (like Anbernic) out there that have really restricted library right now. Also android handheld devices as well. This can unlock your entire Steam and PC gaming library for those devices.

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Diogenes_Jeans@reddit

For those complaining about subscriptions, check their website.

I'm fairly certain it's not subscription for the service, it's subscription to support.

As in, you pay $74 and get a year of support. Or $494 and get lifetime support.

Both options you own the license and can use it on as many devices as you please.

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no-sleep-only-code@reddit

Support AND updates. They don’t disable your current install, but it’ll pretty quickly become obsolete.

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Pineapple-Muncher@reddit

LOL what? my Licence covers both Linux + Mac since I own both...I can confirm it all works

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no-sleep-only-code@reddit

They’re listed as separate products on the website, I’ll check with their sales team because if that’s the case I’ll buy a license.

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frijheid@reddit

So me. please kindly share the information if you have got it, sir.

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frijheid@reddit

so me

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lirannl@reddit

I think that's fair. Development of crossover isn't cheap. As long as you get to keep what you bought, it's a legitimate business practice.

I don't plan on paying $74 a year for crossover because I don't personally need it, but if I did? Hell yeah

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Pineapple-Muncher@reddit

I get it on black friday deals every year, much cheaper

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PageKind1074@reddit

It's also like $20 on sale, which happens every(?) year

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HiPhish@reddit

Codewavers does the subscription model really well. You pay once and you get to keep the software you paid for forever. Want updates? That's extra work, so it's fair that they charge money for that. If you don't want updates and are perfectly happy with the software you get to keep it forever. And if you want to pay once for perpetual updates there is even an option for that.

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LousyMeatStew@reddit

Full disclosure: I own a lifetime license for CrossOver for Mac.

For folks in /r/linux, it is worth noting that CodeWeavers provides CrossOver for both Linux and Macs. So purchasing a license means some money may end up going towards stuff like Apple's GPTK, improvements to MoltenVK, etc.

So if you want to support Wine but don't want to support Apple, consider donating directly to the Wine Development Fund instead.

At the end of the day, there's nothing CrossOver does that you can't do on your own with Wine, Winetricks, FEX (for ARM), DXVK, etc. The proprietary part of CrossOver is the frontend app that wraps all of this together for convenience.

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kaszak696@reddit

Also, with that money they sponsor the Wine project and employ some of Wine developers, and also had a hand in making Proton with Valve. So subscription isn't the usual corporate quasi-parasitism, it's one of the ways of supporting Wine.

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IgorFerreiraMoraes@reddit

If you enter their website, you can either get a 14 days trial or start a subscription. If we have to get a subscription, then cancel it, there isn't really a difference

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Diogenes_Jeans@reddit

It's... Not really a "subscription" though.

You by the software and receive support and updates for a year. At the end of that period you can buy another year of updates and support.

Or, you can just buy the software and receive support for a year and never again.

It's not a subscription because you do not lose the software at the end of the support period.

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LeChantaux@reddit

Well, is a paid product with a subscription scheme 🤮

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Itz_Eddie_Valiant@reddit

Yeah fuck Codeweavers for trying to sustain themselves as a company instead of relying on donations for grinding out work on wine/proton, how disgusting!

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LeChantaux@reddit

Yeah subscriptions are disgusting.

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PaddiM8@reddit

Well welcome to the real world were continuous updates cost money. Don't be so spoiled

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silenceimpaired@reddit

I’m okay with paying, but subscriptions are anti-consumer by nature. The consumer pays for access to something that may have no improvements or a lack of desired improvements. There is no monetary signal the consumer can send to the business that they are working on the wrong thing. You can complain on a forum, but that is not as impactful or as relevant as people who stop buying your product… and if you cannot continue to offer new value then you shouldn’t be taking money. Adobe is a prime example of this in action.

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TRKlausss@reddit

Meh. I like subscription models like JetBrains: if you are subscribed, you get new software. If not: that’s alright, you already paid for it and can use older versions as much as you want.

That would be a better model, but with the state of open-source development, I won’t blame them

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sCeege@reddit

That’s how CrossOver works? My “subscription” expired a years ago but I still have access and can download the last version I “bought”.

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TRKlausss@reddit

Then why are people complaining??? What you pay for subscription is literally developers money…

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SEI_JAKU@reddit

Simple: these people don't know what they're talking about, and are looking for something foolish to complain about. Happens far too often on the internet.

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sCeege@reddit

Tbh I still think Linux gamers are kinda niche. Obviously the era of handhelds is bringing in a lot of newcomers, but most people won’t have ever purchased from CodeWeavers so they wouldn’t have the first hand experience.

Plus a lot of us had suffered the abuse from all the other subscription services that were just instantly assuming the worst.

What CW or JB is doing is in the minority. I’m trying to think of others, Sublime Text/Merge comes to mind; I’ve also purchased from Topaz before but they bury their archive downloads so deep, and there’s no way to disable the bag screen.

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Diogenes_Jeans@reddit

For Crossover, during the window of support, you get all the downloads and updates. After your "subscription" ends, you own that version forever, you just don't get support or updates for old versions.

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TheDavii@reddit

Having paid both the subscription and the "lifetime" model, CodeWeaver's subscription isn't like Adobe or Microsoft subscriptions. You don't lose access to the software after the entitlement ends. You can continue to use the software. You just won't get updates, which might not be a problem "today," but might be in the future when you upgrade your Linux distro or Mac and the newer OS needs an updated Wine.

I did the math and bought the lifetime license. That way, I both funded development of Wine upstream and get use of its improvements.

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Diogenes_Jeans@reddit

You own the version you get during the year. So, say they have a new version in the 11th month of your year, you download that, you own that forever.

You just don't have support or updates beyond that.

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AshuraBaron@reddit

You've never used Crossover have you? Because that's not how it works. Save the soapbox for topics you know about.

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Itz_Eddie_Valiant@reddit

They have a pay once price for the software too, which is quite a bit and admittedly I won't be buying it as outside of gaming I endeavour to use all native software. FOSS and paid.

However it looks like the primary benefits of paying is access to their support team. So for a business this is probably not as egregious as it would appear to the average joe, who can just use wine anyway and eventually get the majority of the advancements of crossover fed back into wine.

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AmarildoJr@reddit

I know, right? How dare people charge for their work!

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LeChantaux@reddit

I guess you love Adobe's subscriptions schemes.

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AmarildoJr@reddit

Oh no, Adobe can rot. It is morally acceptable to pirate from them.

But from an OSS company that does the overwhelming majority of funding and code contributions to Wine, Proton, VLDK, etc? Hell nah.

If today we can say that "90% of Windows games run on Linux" it's mostly because of CodeWeavers.

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PageKind1074@reddit

Honestly, I disagree. Most of those games can only run thanks to DXVK. I mean Wine is an incredible project, and obviously did all the rest of the work, but pre-DXVK games would be a total crapshoot, and Wine development never really focused too much on much of them, so if you wanted to play something made in an engine that wasn't already well supported or needed more obscure codecs/calls/whatever to run pre 2018-ish, it just wasn't gonna happen.

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LeChantaux@reddit

I thought proton was founded by valve via steam sales.

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AmarildoJr@reddit

The vast majority of Proton's code comes from WINE, which is basically funded and maintained by CodeWeavers themselves.

My understanding is that VALVe hires CodeWeaves to work on Proton, so the majority of Proton's code comes from CodeWeavers themselves. So in a sense you're correct, Proton is [somewhat] funded by VALVe.

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FattyDrake@reddit

Yeah, Valve pays Codeweavers for work on it.

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SEI_JAKU@reddit

Imagine actually equating CrossOver with Adobe like this. Even without the lifetime option, this would still be an awful comparison.

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Alenicia@reddit

CrossOver isn't really a "subscription" either.

It's that you pay for a version of it and they offer support for a year .. and then if you wanted more support after that year is over (such as for newer patches/fixes for certain applications and games) you could renew the support if you wanted to, but you can get way with a years-old version just because what you want to play doesn't need a newer version.

If you wanted to go about it the more manual way, you still have WINE .. since CrossOver is their solution (the people who made WINE) to making it super-easy to install and setup applications and games.

If anything, you can say it's the equivalent to paying someone to have done so much of the legwork for you (for example, installing a doorframe) when the supplies are at the local hardware store too. The "subscription" is just the fact that if you really wanted to keep up with the newest version you're going to be paying every year unless you want to do it yourself.

And at the end of the day, it helps push WINE and Proton along too since it's all made by the same people anyways.

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0riginal-Syn@reddit

May want to learn how Wine is funded. With paid products like CrossOver from Codeweavers, which is the primary financial backer, and commercial contracts with the likes of Valve, Wine doesn't exist anywhere close to its current state.

Being for FOSS does not mean in any way, shape, or form devoid of cost. If you don't like subscriptions, they do have a one-time payment option. Subscriptions help the ongoing development of Wine as much as CrossOver.

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FLMKane@reddit

Remember the story about RMS charging for EMACS source code tapes?

300 dollars! IN THE 80s !!!

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cAtloVeR9998@reddit

May be wrong, but a quick search reveals that it was for 150 USD. Equivalent to \~440 USD now

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FLMKane@reddit

Ah I see. I stand corrected

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deviled-tux@reddit

Being for FOSS does not mean in any way, shape, or form devoid of cost.

We lost this battle when people got used to pawning their own data to big tech companies in exchange for free services.

I had an idea to create some kind of unified merch store for FOSS projects as I think people seem more likely to pay for merch than they are to pay for software.

Trying to convince people to pay for software with actual money at this point of the game seems like a waste of time.

But somehow people got used to supporting YouTubers through merch drops and patreons. We should leverage that habit for sustainability of FOSS.

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LousyMeatStew@reddit

I had an idea to create some kind of unified merch store for FOSS projects as I think people seem more likely to pay for merch than they are to pay for software.

https://www.freewear.org

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RagingAnemone@reddit

Yup, I pay.

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lirannl@reddit

Also you get to keep the updates that happened within your support window. You're not going to get perpetual free updates, but you can keep using that version.

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ComprehensiveYak4399@reddit

crossover is open source afaik and they fund most of wine with it.

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Felt389@reddit

Not open source, it's a proprietary program. Can't really charge money for it otherwise

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ComprehensiveYak4399@reddit

is this not it?

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Felt389@reddit

These are only the FOSS parts of the project, there are many proprietary aspects in the actual project that dont have their source code available.

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ComprehensiveYak4399@reddit

ohh i didnt realize that

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Potential_Penalty_31@reddit

Free software doesn’t meas “no cost” software

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thefakeITguy58008@reddit

Developers shouldn't eat. /s

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LeChantaux@reddit

I'm a developer , mate is not about not being paid. Is about the fucking subscription schemes.

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Itz_Eddie_Valiant@reddit

Just pay once for a lifetime license then which is their other option

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LeChantaux@reddit

Ok then that's fine. It's the subscriptions schemes that I'm not onboard with.

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cAtloVeR9998@reddit

And with that money they gasp fund most of Wine’s development

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allocallocalloc@reddit

Supports one-time purchase with your soul.

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stipo42@reddit

Is this something that proton can't do?

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TheOGDoomer@reddit

Nope. And proton works far better.

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LordyPandaz@reddit

I can just run everything in Proton, why does this matter?

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expandingmuhbrain@reddit

I’m curious if this will allow me to run some of my audio programs like Ableton. That’s basically the only thing missing from my current production setup

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XOmniverse@reddit

Would be cool to see this on Android. The existing tools are kind of shit for game compatibility.

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Aware-Bath7518@reddit

GameHub/WinlatorCMOD are using same setup for a while already.

Shit compatibility comes from poor driver quality rather than emulation.

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Mister__Mediocre@reddit

Is this serving the same purpose as Rosetta for Macs? (x86 -> ARM)

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Aware-Bath7518@reddit

No.

Rosetta does full x86 emulation, FEX runs as an XtAJIT replacement in the NT environment - thus only x64 code is emulated, just like on WoA.

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TONKAHANAH@reddit

That's cool. I guess this will make box-64 obsolete then?

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Aware-Bath7518@reddit

Yes, running native wine with an optional emulation module is better than emulating a whole x86 wine environment.

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Felt389@reddit

Absolutely not, CrossFire is paid, proprietary software, Box64 is free and open source.

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Aware-Bath7518@reddit

The proper comparison will be FEX vs box64, CrossOver only provides an OOTB ready wine-arm64 setup.

I did same year ago.

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TONKAHANAH@reddit

The crossover team makes wine, their work on crossover typically ends up in the wine project which I expect will also happen here.

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Felt389@reddit

The CrossOver developers aren't directly in charge of the WINE project, however they do contribute to the project when it comes to donations or code.

I seriously doubt WINE will accept code for emulation into their codebase, as that's not what the project is for. Afterall, WINE Is Not an Emulator.

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TONKAHANAH@reddit

From wiki:

CodeWeavers is the principal corporate sponsor of the Wine project, hosts Wine's website, helps sponsor the Wine conference, employs many Wine developers, and is a major code contributor to Wine. CodeWeavers claims that two-thirds of all commits to Wine come from their developers.[2] The company also employs Wine's primary maintainer, Alexandre Julliard, as its CTO

Code weavers effectively IS wine the same way Red Hat is also Fedora.

Just because they have a paid product version doesn't make them any less the lead and head development of wine.

Considering valve has been heavily funding them for open wine projects to improve proton, and many rumors point to valves new headset being ARM based. I expect to we'll see an open version of this sooner or later.

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Felt389@reddit

I stand corrected on most of this, thank you for enlightening me. However this part:

Considering valve has been heavily funding them for open wine projects to improve proton, and many rumors point to valves new headset being ARM based. I expect to we'll see an open version of this sooner or later.

While I do agree, I still find it highly unlikely that this will be part of WINE directly. "WINE" is literally an abbreviation of "WINE Is Not an Emulator", merging an emulator to the WINE codebase would likely cause massive controversy and drama between contributors.

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TONKAHANAH@reddit

A goofy acrynom is hardly a reason to not merge new advancements in technology. Also it sounds like this doesn't change wine not being an emulator, it's making use of a different system that is an emulator, that doesn't change wine not being one..

But again, it hardly matters. If this makes wine better for everyone then who cares?

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no-sleep-only-code@reddit

Fuck, lifetime was $70 last month now it’s $500

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ourobo-ros@reddit

Fuck, lifetime was $70 last month now it’s $500

Life expectancy has gone up

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SEI_JAKU@reddit

No, lifetime has been around $500 or so for many years.

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Accurate_Estimate811@reddit

Rip

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Alenicia@reddit

I was also so puzzled at why there was a specialized macOS version of this but not one for Linux. I'm pretty excited because this hopefully means that we'll see further progress on WINE going forward if people who migrated to Linux aren't too afraid of contributing to the people who are making the applications they want to use possible and viable as well.

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MessyKerbal@reddit

I’ve been thinking of buying crossover (for Mac, proton has been fine for my usage on Linux) but at the same time it’s a bit pricey and Cities Skylines II compatibility isn’t great to say the least

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Deissued@reddit

This is awesome hopefully it becomes even more widespread. I wanna switch back to Linux but can’t justify all the things that still don’t work but this is a good step

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Felt389@reddit

This only matters if you're using an ARM64 device (e.g., a Raspberry Pi or Android phone) though.

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RubyHaruko@reddit

CrossOver is a paid product, and if you have an active subscription, you can try out the ARM Linux port from the source link below. The developers are also interested in bug reports, if you try it out on your own devices.

For a niche processor with gaming and paying (74$), do we need really this? Don't think so.

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HomsarWasRight@reddit

The folks at CodeWeavers who make CrossOver have contributed A LOT to Wine and Proton and vkv3d. I have no doubt this tech will be contributed to OS tools. We owe them a lot in the Linux gaming world.

And you can say it’s niche now, but more and more Arm computers are coming and I want to be able to run Linux and game on them.

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itzjackybro@reddit

aren't codeweavers the primary maintainers of Wine?

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AshuraBaron@reddit

Yep. They are the overwhelming majority of contributions to Wine. They helped create Proton and the Apple game porting toolkit. Anyone who uses Wine should be either donating to Crossover or subscribing. Or they can just build it themselves from scratch.

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