14 DAY TRIAL // The highly anticipated Wine 3.0 open-source compatibility layer for installing and running Windows apps and games on Linux and UNIX-like operating systems just got its first Release Candidate today.
The Wine developers met at the end of October in Poland for the WineConf2017 annual Wine Conference to talk about the next major release, Wine 3.0, and it's awesome new features like Direct3D 11 and Android support, and promised to release Wine 3.0 to the world by the end of the year.
And today they took the first step towards that promise, releasing the first Release Candidate (RC) version, Wine 3.0 RC1, which enables Direct3D 11 by default for Intel and AMD Radeon GPUs, AES encryption support on macOS, the ability to export registry entries with the reg.exe tool, and Progman DDE support.
Additionally, it implements a task scheduler, adds various improvements to the OLE data cache and to the relay debugging, as well as an extra layer of event support in MSHTML, the proprietary HTML layout engine for the Microsoft Windows version of the Internet Explorer web browser.
"This is the first release candidate for the upcoming Wine 3.0. It marks the beginning of the code freeze period. There have been many last minute changes, so please give this release a good testing to help us make 3.0 as good as possible," wrote the Wine team in today's announcement.
The Witcher 3 and Metal Slug 2 get even more improvements
Wine 3.0 RC1 also comes with a total of 28 fixes, which improve support for various Windows games and apps, including The Witcher 3, Metal Slug 2 (GOG), World Of Tanks, SlingPlayer 1.5, MultiSpec 2.8.2016 32-bit, DigitalMicrograph, Anime Studio Professional 8, Temple+, Unigine: Heaven, and Sims 4.
The list of improved Windows apps and games in Wine 3.0 RC1 continues with Fallout 4 (Steam), Torchlight, Star Trek Online, .hack//G.U Last Recode, Final Fantasy XIV, Upwards, Lonely Robot, NieR:Automata, Oblivion Script Extender, pCon.planner, Dys-Vocal 2, Minecraft Java, and Soldiers of Anarchy.
Wine 3.0 Release Candidate 1 is available for download right now through our web portal if you fancy compiling it yourself on your favorite operating system, but you should keep in mind that it's still a pre-release version that might contain unresolved bugs. Final Wine 3.0 release should be out in the next few weeks.