When a game is developed for Windows, it usually uses technologies that are only available on Windows, such as DirectX. These technologies are usually not executable on other platforms, for example, Linux.
How can Windows games still be played on another platform?
Emulation.
Emulation is about emulating any platform. On a host system (e.g., Linux), a subsystem is created that emulates another system or environment. For example, such emulation can be used to emulate a platform such as Windows and thus play games from Windows on another system, in this case on Linux.
On Linux, this Windows emulation is called "Wine."
Wine is an open-source implementation of Microsoft Windows APIs and applications for Unix-like operating systems. Wine is not a virtualization program but rather an emulator. It is designed to allow users to run their Windows programs on Unix-like operating systems without having to install and use Windows directly.
So we can use Wine to create a Windows environment and run Windows games in that environment. The problem is that it is very difficult to work with Wine without any tools, so we can resort to some tools:
- Steam – most Linux gamers use Valve's native Steam client to play Windows games on Linux. This uses the "Proton" emulator, which was developed by Valve and is based on Wine. You must, however, manually enable Proton in the Steam settings.
- Lutris is an open gaming platform for Linux. Video games from all eras and for most gaming platforms can be installed and played using Lutris. It provides you with a central interface through which you can launch all your games, using and combining existing emulators, engine reimplementations, and compatibility layers.
- PlayOnLinux and Wine – with this combination, you can easily run your favorite Windows games and applications on Linux. PlayOnLinux has a database of Windows applications from which the user can install the desired application with just a few mouse clicks. It automatically installs your Wine prefix and downloads the necessary Windows libraries.
- CrossOver Linux is one of the best and most widely used Windows emulators for Linux. The Wine emulator is the basis of CrossOver Linux. It is one of the fastest emulators and one of the simplest to use. CrossOver Linux, on the other hand, has a one-time license fee of 74 bucks.
The first three options are free, and with them you can get many games running on Linux after a bit of legwork. If you want to save yourself a lot of time testing and tinkering, buy CrossOver Linux and get the best Windows emulation experience on Linux.
