Linux Gaming News Archives

D7VK is the open-source project that began as a Direct3D 7 implementation atop the Vulkan API for Linux gamers and with time expanded to support all the way back to Direct3D 3. Out today is D7VK 1.6 with continuing to enhance this D3D compatibility layer atop Vulkan for enhancing retro/vintage gaming on Linux.

SuperTux 0.7 officially released overnight for this nostalgic open-source game now seeing its first new release since December 2021. SuperTux 0.7 brings many significant improvements for this open-source game inspired by Super Mario.

The open-source D7VK project began to implement Direct3D 7 over Vulkan similar to DXVK and VKD3D-Proton providing support for newer Direct3D APIs atop Vulkan. With succeeding releases D7VK was extended to Direct3D 6 too and then Direct3D 5 support. Now with today's D7VK 1.5 release, Direct3D 3 is implemented for faster acceleration using Vulkan.

FEX 2603 as the Valve-sponsored open-source project allowing Linux x86/x86_64 binaries to run on AArch64 Linux -- including the likes of Steam and various games as will become important with the Steam Frame -- is now out with its newest monthly release.

Lutris 0.5.21 is now available as the latest version of this open-source Linux game manager. With Lutris 0.5.21 comes some new runners for executing games in different environments.

D7VK is the open-source project that began implementing the Direct3D 7 APIs atop Vulkan and with time the scope expanded to include Direct3D 6 support as well as Direct3D 5 support. Out today is D7VK 1.4 for continuing to enhance the support for these older D3D versions on Vulkan under Linux.

For fans of Lutris as the open-source desktop client for installing and playing many games on Linux, Lutris 0.5.20 is out today with new features that further enhance the integration with different emulators and compatibility layers.

One of the latest exciting developments for the open-source Godot game engine is beginning to lay out support for Vulkan ray-tracing.

CodeWeavers just announced CrossOver 26, the newest version of their commercial software built atop Wine for running Windows games and applications under Apple macOS and Linux.

D7VK is a fork of the DXVK project that is an important part of Valve's Steam Play (Proton) for Direct3D 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 support atop Vulkan. With D7VK the original goal was a Direct3D 7 implementation on Vulkan. D7VK 1.1 brought experimental Direct3D 6 support and now with today's release of D7VK 1.3 is support for Direct3D 5.

Well, here's an unexpected combination... Toyota's Toyota Connected North America unit is developing a console-grade open-source game engine. Making it even more unusual is their engineering choices of building around the Flutter toolkit and in turn the Dart programming language. This new game engine creation is called Fluorite.

Godot 4.6 is officially out today as the newest feature release for this leading open-source, cross-platform game engine.

DXVK-NVAPI 0.9.1 is out today as this NVIDIA NVAPI implementation that is used by Valve's Steam Play (Proton) with DXVK and VKD3D-Proton. This is the important piece of the Steam Play puzzle to allow for NVIDIA DLSS, NVIDIA Reflex, PhysX, and other features for Windows games running on Linux.

Started last year was D7VK as a project bringing Direct3D 7 implemented over the Vulkan API for enjoying better performance and support for legacy Windows games on Linux, akin to DXVK and VKD3D-Proton for newer versions of Direct3D over Vulkan that is used by Valve's Steam Play (Proton). Back in December D7VK added a Direct3D 6 front-end for allowing even older game titles to be accelerated using the modern Vulkan API. Today D7VK 1.2 is out for furthering the D3D6 support.

While Fex-Emu has been getting a lot of attention lately for being Valve-sponsored and powering the upcoming Steam Frame, Box64 continues making progress as another great open-source project for running x86_64 Linux binaries on AArch64 Linux as well as an eye on other architectures like RISC-V.

Kicking off the new year for Linux gaming and cross-platform gaming at large is the release of the SDL 3.4 library. SDL is part of the Steam runtime and continues to be widely-used for abstracting software/hardware for creating more portable games and other applications.

While the Godot Engine receives a lot of attention as a prominent open-source game engine, it's far from the only one in this space. Another open-source game engine capping out 2025 with a new release is the Crown Engine.

Longtime Linux users likely have fond memories of SuperTux as the open-source jump-n-run game that used to be included on some early Linux live CD/DVDs for this Super Mario Bros inspired game. There hasn't been a new release of SuperTux in over four years but out today is the beta of SuperTux 0.7 as a major overhaul to the free software, family-friendly game title.

Between the DXVK and VKD3D(-Proton) projects there is good support for Direct3D 8 through Direct3D 12 implementations atop the Vulkan API for Linux gaming usage. For those preferring more retro classic gaming, D7VK came about more recently for Direct3D 7 as a DXVK fork. Out today is D7VK 1.1 and besides delivering fixes for its D3D7 implementation has also now tacked on an experimental D3D6 front-end.

The Simple DirectMedia Library that is widely-used by many cross-platform games and part of the Steam Runtime now has better support for handling more mouse button events under Wayland.

Besides Valve funding FEX-Emu for x86_64 binaries to run on AArch64 Linux as part of their Steam Play (Proton) efforts in being able to get Windows x86/x64 games running on AArch64 SteamOS for the Snapdragon-powered Steam Frame, there is also work happening in kernel-space to help this emulated gaming experience on AArch64.

The D7VK project recently started as the Direct3D 7 API implemented atop the Vulkan API akin to DXVK and VKD3D-Proton with newer versions of Microsoft Direct3D. Today marks the D7VK 1.0 release for this project in now declaring itself "production ready" for Linux gamers.

FEX 2512 is out today as the newest monthly update for this software that enables running x86/x86_64 Linux binaries on ARM64 Linux, including the likes of Wine and Valve's Steam Play (Proton) for being able to run Windows games on 64-bit ARM Linux devices.

Sent out today were a set of input subsystem fixes for the near-final Linux 6.18 kernel. A bit of a notable addition via this "fixes" pull is getting both touchscreens working on the AYANEO Flip DS, a dual-screen gaming handheld device that can be loaded up with Linux.

Just hours ago Valve announced the new Steam Controller along with the Steam Frame VR headset and new Steam Machine. While these new Steam hardware products won't be available until early 2026, Valve has just-now upstreamed support for the new Steam Controller to the SDL3 library.

DXVK is an important piece of Steam Play (Proton) that over time expanded to supporting Direct3D 9 / 10 / 11 and even D3D8 too. Meanwhile VKD3D-Proton delivers Direct3D 12 atop Vulkan. Now there is a fork of the DXVK project working to bring Direct3D 7 support atop Vulkan.

Stride 4.2.1.2485 is now available as the latest feature release for this open-source and cross-platform game engine written in C# while still having first-rate Linux support. Stride is formerly known as Xenko and offers realistic rendering and virtual reality (VR) support.

Derek Clark who has been leading the efforts around Lenovo Legion gaming drivers for Linux and ensuring good support for the Lenovo Legion Go handheld on Linux sent out a new Linux patch series this weekend.

Over the weekend we wrote about the visually-impressive Tellusim Core SDK being posted to GitHub as a C++ SDK for high-end graphics and compute. The downside was that the Tellusim Core SKD was rather restrictive in only being free for education, free for companies with less than $200k USD in annual revenue, and evaluation purposes. Or you needed to obtain a negotiated license for the software. As a pleasant surprise, OSI-approved open-source projects not backed by for-profit organizations can now openly use this superb graphics SDK.

It's been four years now since the Open 3D Engine was born out of Amazon's Lumberyard project and hosted by the Linux Foundation. Today marks the release of the Open 3D Engine "O3DE" 25.10 release with the newest features and fixes for this cross-platform game/graphics engine.

Box64 0.3.8 is now available for this x86_64 user-space emulator for Linux that allows ARM64 and RISC-V 64-bit and LoongArch 64-bit systems to enjoy running x86_64 games and applications. Box64 along with the likes of FEX-Emu are the leading options for those needing to run x86_64 programs on ARM64 and elsewhere.

When it comes to open-source games, Unvanquished remains one of the most promising and interesting open-source FPS games from a technical perspective. With its next release, Unvanquished has been ported to the SDL3 library and is working well natively on Wayland.

In addition to the patches providing haptic touchpad support for Linux 6.18, another notable HID addition queued into the "hid-next" tree ahead of the imminent Linux 6.18 merge window is proper audio jack handling with the Sony PlayStation DualSense controller.

Godot 4.5 is out today as the latest update to this leading open-source and cross platform game engine.

It looks like the Simple DirectMedia Layer (SDL) library widely used by cross-platform games for software/hardware abstractions isn't done enhancing its support for running on the X.Org/X11 Server. Similarly, Valve is still committing resources to enhancing the support.

The SDL3 library that is widely-used by cross-platform games has landed new code for revising how it selects the high performance GPU in multi-GPU systems.

While most Linux gamers are content using Valve's Steam Play (Proton) these days for Linux gaming, a new release of CodeWeavers' CrossOver is now available for enjoying other Windows applications and games on Linux as well as macOS. CrossOver 25.1 enhances the stability of the Microsoft Office office suite on Linux among other changes.

GNU/Hurd has made it as an official platform target within SDL that is the open-source library widely-used by cross-platform games and other applications for software/hardware abstractions across operating systems.

For Linux gamers relying on the X.Org Server, the SDL3 library that is widely-used by cross-platform games has landed support for precision/pixel scrolling.

Ayn is a Chinese brand of handheld gaming devices that have included Arm-based devices shipping Android as well as AMD Ryzen powered handhelds with Windows 11 or even the option of installing Ubuntu. Better support for the Ayn x86 gaming handheld devices is on the way with patches posted for a new Ayn platform driver for the Linux kernel.

FEX 2507 is now available for this open-source emulator that allows running x86/x86_64 games and applications atop 64-bit ARM Linux devices whether they be AArch64 servers or ARM64 single board computers and other devices.

Being worked on for a number of months now has been the Lenovo Gaming Series WMI Drivers for Linux to expose additional power/performance settings for Lenovo gaming series hardware like the Lenovo Legion Go S gaming handheld with Steam OS. With the upcoming Linux 6.17 kernel, the Lenovo WMI Gaming Series Drivers are expected to be finally upstreamed.

DXVK 2.7 released today as a major feature update for this translation layer for enabling Direct3D 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 based games and applications to run atop the Vulkan API. DXVK is a critical piece of Valve's Steam Play (Proton) software stack for enabling Windows games on Linux.

Sent in today for the ongoing Linux 6.16 kernel cycle as part of the input subsystem fixes is enabling support for the Acer Nitro Gaming Controller (NGR200).

The first beta release of the Godot 4.5 open-source game engine is now available for testing. Notable for Linux users is the continued quest toward Wayland support at parity to X11.

Version 25.05 of the Open 3D Engine "O3DE" was released today for this open-source project born out of Amazon's Lumberyard engine nearly four years ago. With O3DE 25.05, this open-source game/simulation engine continues to be advanced by Amazon/AWS, Meta, Huawei, and other organizations.

DXVK 2.6.2 was released this morning as the newest update to this Direct3D 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 over Vulkan API implementation. DXVK continues to be most notably used by Valve's Steam Play (Proton) for running countless Windows games well on Linux.

FEX 2506 released today as the newest version of this open-source emulator for running x86/x86_64 binaries on AArch64 (ARM64) Linux systems.

Valve engineer Pierre-Loup A. Griffais contributed ByoWave Proteus controller support to the Linux kernel. ByoWave Proteus are some modular controller designs that can be adapted based upon the needs of the gamer and even what title you may be playing at the moment. The triggers and buttons are all repositionable for a very customized controller experience. The only downside is the modular gaming controller kit retails for $299 USD, but at least now works off the mainline Linux kernel.

While there has been the Sony PlayStation 5 DualSense controller support for Linux going back several years and has been improved upon with more recent versions of the Linux kernel, there's been some shortcomings around the audio jack handling with the DualSense controller. A new patch series out today aims to enhance that capability.