Wine version 5.0 was released almost exactly a year ago, and today, the open-source project is back with another significant update to v6.0. It adds some major improvements to the Windows compatibility layer, including an experimental Vulkan renderer for WineD3D, sRGB support, better support for input methods, and an initial USB kernel driver.

In contrast to emulators or virtual machines, Wine (short for "Wine is not an emulator") doesn't contain Windows or any Windows programs. Instead, it basically directly translates Windows APIs to Unix-readable instructions. While that often gives you more severe compatibility issues than an emulated OS, you don't get the performance hits usually associated with those.

The changes introduced in version 6.0 should make some games run more smoothly, and sRGB support is a godsend for applications that previously couldn't run through Wine due to the lack of the color space. On the graphics front, we get some D3D11 and D3D9 features like alpha-to-coverage multi-sampling, dual-source blending, and pre-render-target blend states. Programs also gain the ability to draw arcs, ellipses, and rounded rectangles using the Direct2D API. That might make many UI elements feel more modern. Core modules are now built in the PE (Portable Executable) format, which helps work around copy protection measures that check if the DLL files on the disk match the in-memory contents. But we're just scratching the surface here — head to Wine's changelog for an in-depth exploration of what's new.

You can download Wine 6.0 for Android from APK Mirror or the open-source project's own website.

Source: Wine