Wine 8.16 Restarts Work On Implementing Microsoft's Deprecated DirectMusic API

Wine 8.16 is out as the newest bi-weekly development release for this open-source software to enjoy Windows games and applications under Linux and other platforms.

Interestingly with Wine 8.16 it contains a few dozen patches beginning to restart work on implementing support for Microsoft's deprecated DirectMusic API that started out in the late 90's as part of DirectX. Microsoft DirectMusic is a DirectX component for music and sound effects. DirectMusic has also served as a higher-level interface to the DirectSound component. DirectMusic though has been deprecated going back to the Windows Vista era. But there's still lots of old Windows software out there and interested Wine users/developers with an itch to scratch, so alas in 2023 there is new Wine activity around DirectMusic support.

In addition to this early work on reviving DirectMusic for Wine, there are many improvements to Wine's regression tests and an assortment of bug fixes. This update is heavy on bug fixes with 33 known fixes. There are many fixes to address Windows 11 compatibility problems, poor Roblox performance, and many low-level random fixes throughout the codebase.

Downloads and more details on Wine 8.16 via WineHQ.org.