Kernel Patch Revved For Syscall User Redirection To Help Newer Windows Games On Wine

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Kernel Patch Revved For Syscall User Redirection To Help Newer Windows Games On Wine

It looks like the syscall user redirection support could soon be mainlined to the kernel for this new Linux feature that was originally motivated by helping Windows games running on Wine...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Syscall-User-Redirection-V4

[jacob]

This most likely wouldn't be needed if Wine had a proper implementation of a binary translation technology.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_translation

What do you mean by that? Wine doesn't need binary translation, it's designed to run windows binaries for the same architecture as the host OS. Even if it used some kind of binary translation, it wouldn't help at all because the issue is not with the binary but with the kernel's syscall ABI. In other words it's a kernel personality problem. So far Wine assumed that apps used the userland syscall wrapper API and so it didn't need kernel personality emulation, but now it needs it and this patch will bring it.

[starshipeleven]

This most likely wouldn't be needed if Wine had a proper implementation of a binary translation technology.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_translation

Someone missed the memo that Wine Is Not an Emulator
The application is still x86 arch so what's the point of binary translation.

[oiaohm]

This most likely wouldn't be needed if Wine had a proper implementation of a binary translation technology.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_translation

Applications wine run can contain nice anti-debugging/copy protection/anti-cheat... All that get really upset when they detect modification. Yes this fairly much rules out using static binary translation as some of these like anti-cheat can be downloading new binary code while running and expect to run quickly. This means using dynamic binary translation like qemu usermode yes this is not without it fair share of over head and performance overheat can trip the anti-cheat/copy protection and anti-debugging.

Please note atomsymbol Microsoft does not recommend directly calling syscalls. The functions like _findclose that Microsoft says is syscalls if you use visual studio end up calling msvcrt of some form then syscalling. Of course since wine most replaces these libraries these syscalls does not happen. Yes wine is needing to trap syscalls because applications are doing direct syscalls that Microsoft does not recommend because Microsoft reserves the right to change the syscall function to number assignment at any time.

Applications doing direct syscalls under windows are the items like Anti-cheat/copyprotection/anti-debugging that don't give a rats if their program works in future. Some don't care if they have a 5 percent failure on real Windows users. Rock very hard place atomsymbol like it or not.

Now I other uses for this syscall stuff outside wine.

Lets say you want to run a very old Linux binary that is using a syscall that has been removed from current kernel the work they are doing would allow a loader to be made that is performing like a preload over syscalls to put emulations of that old syscalls back.

Lets say you were attempting to run android native applications using android only syscalls. Yes this would allow emulating these without having to emulate the complete lot.

Funny enough this would allow running freebsd and other unix binaries with syscalls on Linux as well.

[TemplarGR]

I can't wait for this and fsync2 ! Given that Vulkan drivers and DXVK/VKD3D improve all the time, it won't be long till we could be playing almost everything at good performance.

[ix900]

I can't wait for this and fsync2 ! Given that Vulkan drivers and DXVK/VKD3D improve all the time, it won't be long till we could be playing almost everything at good performance.

Its already there for me. Most of what I play already has good performance as-in its good enough. Anything else they get is a bonus. But, I haven't seen a performance issue that made me need Windows really for sometime now.

My biggest problem is dx12 and Ray Tracing which is non-existent here, some games that don't work, and the work in progress wmf and other Windows media playback that is taking some time. After that, I might not need Windows at all for games. Probably looking at a few more years at least though or another 10 or more depending lol.

[TemplarGR]

Its already there for me. Most of what I play already has good performance as-in its good enough. Anything else they get is a bonus. But, I haven't seen a performance issue that made me need Windows really for sometime now.

My biggest problem is dx12 and Ray Tracing which is non-existent here, some games that don't work, and the work in progress wmf and other Windows media playback that is taking some time. After that, I might not need Windows at all for games. Probably looking at a few more years at least though or another 10 or more depending lol.

You must not be playing the most recent AAA games then. There is a big performance penalty in many games on WINE. I have missed Windows many times. I could play Skyrim SE on my machine MAXED at 60fps, yet i can only do the same on medium settings on WINE, and with issues with the audio. And that's just one example. Even Deux Ex Human revolution runs very bad.

[tildearrow]

Just curious... When will they implement virtualization facilities? (for VMProtect)

[patstew]

Well, but binary translation is quite trivial to implement in the beginning

And what about after the beginning, when you have to deal with self modifying code due to JIT, anti-cheat, compressed executables, in place updates? How do you tell what's code and what's data in arbitrary applications that can do all kinds of weird stuff? How do you make it so that the program reads unmodified code and executes modified code? And do it all in userspace?

[pal666]

Well, but binary translation is quite trivial to implement in the beginning

also it's quite slower than no translation