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Wine

Install Wine to play (almost) any Windows game on Linux. Foris a compatibility listlayer referwhich translates Windows system calls into comparable Linux equivalents. This allows (most) Windows applications to ProtonDB.run on Linux, including many games.

InstallWine Winecan be installed from the repositories:repositories. Recommended additional components:

    wine-gecko: Components for displaying web content wine-mono: Components for running .NET applications winetricks: Install various tools and libraries in a Wine prefix 
    sudo pacman -S wine wine-gecko wine-mono winetricks

    DXVK

    Game performance can be significantly improved by installing DXVK isin a Vulkan-basedWine translationprefix. layerDXVK fortranslates Direct3D calls from the DirectX 8/9/10/11 whichAPI allowsto runningVulkan to achieve improved 3D applicationsperformance oncompared Linuxto WineD3D.

    DXVK can be installed relatively easily in a Wine prefix using Wine.winetricks:

    Install DXVK from AUR:

    yay -S dxvk-bin

    NOTE: If youyou've set up Wine with a non-default prefix (i.e. your Wine "installation" does not reside under ~/.wine) you will need to supply itthe aspath ain temporaryan environment variable:

    WINEPREFIX=/path/to/your-prefix setup_dxvkwinetricks installdxvk

    WARNING: DXVK overrides the DirectX 10 and 11 DLLs, which may be considered cheating in online multiplayer games, and may get your account banned. Use at your own risk!

    winetricks dxvk

    It's also possible to install a specific DXVK version, if needed:

    winetricks dxvk1103

    Alternatively, DXVK can also be installed via the AUR:

    yay -S dxvk-bin

    Install DXVKvia librariesthe intoincluded yourhelper Wineprogram:

    prefix:

    NOTE: The same conditions about non-default prefix locations still apply:

    WINEPREFIX=/path/to/your-prefix setup_dxvk install --symlink
    setup_dxvk install --symlink

    This places symbolic links into the Wine prefix, which means when DXVK gets updated during system upgrades, all Wine prefixed are updated along with it.

    VKD3D-ProtonVKD3D

    VKD3D-ProtonVKD3D aims to implementis the fulltranslation layer for Direct3D 12 API on top ofto Vulkan. The latest version is installable through winetricks:

    InstallNOTE: The same conditions about non-default prefix locations still apply:

    WINEPREFIX=/path/to/your-prefix winetricks vkd3d
    winetricks vkd3d

    VKD3D is also available from the AUR:

    yay -S vkd3d-proton-bin

    NOTE: IfThe yousame setconditions up Wine with aabout non-default prefix (i.e.locations yourstill Wine "installation" does not reside under ~/.wine) you will need to supply it as a temporary environment variable:apply:

    WINEPREFIX=/path/to/your-prefix setup_vkd3d_proton install --symlink

    WARNING: VKD3D-Proton overrides the DirectX 12 DLLs, which may be considered cheating in online multiplayer games, and may get your account banned. Use at your own risk!

    Install VKD3D-Proton libraries into your Wine prefix:

    setup_vkd3d_proton install --symlink

    This way when you upgrade to a new version of VKD3D, every prefix automatically gets updated as well.

    Synchronization primitives

    Games heavily rely on Windows synchronization primitives for multi-threaded workloads. Since Linux kernel version 6.14 the NTSync kernel module is available, which more closely resembles Windows synchronization primitives. Wine 10.16 and later automatically use NTSync when it is detected to improve performance in CPU-bound scenarios.

    To load the kernel module at boot create a file in /etc/modules-load.d/ with the content ntsync:

    echo ntsync | sudo tee /etc/modules-load.d/ntsync.conf

    MIDI Playback

    Some Windows games still use MIDI playback for music. In order for this to work in Wine, a sequencer has to be installed, e.g. fluidsynth:

    NOTE: FluidSynth uses soundfonts to render MIDI music.

    pacman -S fluidsynth soundfont-fluid

    FluidSynth comes with a systemd user unit to run it in daemon mode. Edit the file /etc/conf.d/fluidsynth and uncomment the lines with the environment variables. Point the SOUND_FONT variable to a soundfont file in *.sf2 format (refer to DOSBox for a list of available soundfonts for installation). Furthermore, adjust the OTHER_OPTS variable to use the appropriate audio backend that you are using, e.g. set parameter -a pipewire if you're using PipeWire instead of PulseAudio:

    # Mandatory parameters (uncomment and edit)
SOUND_FONT=/usr/share/soundfonts/FluidR3_GM.sf2

# Additional optional parameters (may be useful, see 'man fluidsynth' for further info)
OTHER_OPTS='-a pipewire -m alsa_seq -p FluidSynth\ GM -r 48000'

    After you've set everything up, enable/start the systemd user unit with:

    ATTENTION: Enable/start the unit as regular user, i.e. do not use sudo!

    systemctl --user enable --now fluidsynth
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