Similar story: I managed to run a Windows XP-era game to run on Ubuntu but not Windows 11. The issue is that the game uses some sort of Direct3D which doesn't work on Windows 10 or later. I don't want to install Windows XP/7/8 on the a machine, and virtual machines have bad support for graphics acceleration. But somehow it can run in Wine on a "real" Ubuntu installation after a bit of poking around and getting the correct files.
And what's even funnier? I installed Wine in Ubuntu running in WSL on a Windows 11 machine, and the game runs in that environment! Never thought I would run an old game in such a convoluted way.
> I installed Wine in Ubuntu running in WSL on a Windows 11 machine, and the game runs in that environment! Never thought I would run an old game in such a convoluted way.
Just drop them in the game folder and the game should load them instead of the real directx.
There's also other implementations of old APIs to keep old video games running, some of them are even used by linux users who use wine, like dgVoodoo :
https://github.com/FunkyFr3sh/cnc-ddraw (fixes all issues you can have with DirectDraw, an old 2d API, can have its use for both windows users and people who use wine on linux)
This, along with Windows's own compatibility mode tweaks, should run almost any game that has ever been released on Windows, without having the heavy overheard of a VM (as far as I know, WSL doesn't even know how to free memory it has claimed).
This does not surprise me at all. WINE under Linux through Yabridge runs perfectly some very old (20+ years) but still excellent audio plugins from the Win98/XP era that have problems or don't work at all on newer Windows versions. Gaming also benefits from this incredibly faithful level of emulation (WINE Is Not an Emulator), and as of today many Windows games, including newer ones, can be installed in a transparent way under Linux using WINE.
The Steam Deck runs Linux, and I can get many games that shit the bed on Windows 7, 8, or 10 but run perfectly fine under 98 and XP to run under Proton.
And what's even funnier? I installed Wine in Ubuntu running in WSL on a Windows 11 machine, and the game runs in that environment! Never thought I would run an old game in such a convoluted way.