CrossOver, the Wine-based compatibility layer for running Windows software on Mac and Linux, just released its first 64-bit ARM version. It allows games like Cyberpunk 2077, Hades II, and Ghost of Tsushima to run on Linux ARM computers without installing additional emulators or translation layers.
CrossOver is based on the same open-source Wine foundation as Valve’s Proton compatibility layer, and the two companies have made impressive strides in running Windows games on desktop Linux. However, that work is mostly limited to traditional x86 systems. ARM-based computers like Apple Silicon Mac desktops, Linux phones, the System76 Thelio Astra, or Raspberry Pi computers needed additional emulation layers and other tricks to run most Windows software.
That’s finally changing, as CrossOver has revealed a preview release with Linux ARM64 support. Even though the underlying Wine project added 64-bit ARM support earlier this year, it still requires an additional component to translate 32-bit and 64-bit x86 bytecode to ARM instructions—otherwise, you’re limited to ARM-native Windows software. CrossOver integrated the FEX emulator for that final part.
A blog post explained, “After years of hard work, we really wanted to see what our code was capable of, and what better way to do that than to start playing some of our favorite games? Our QA team got to work testing on our System76 Thelio Astra powered by an Ampere Altra 128 core 3Ghz processor and NVIDIA RTX 4060 Ti, running Ubuntu 24.04 with NTSync support. We are grateful to Ampere and System76 for providing us with Ampere desktops and servers to assist our development and testing efforts. While there were many games that aren’t yet running flawlessly, we saw many demanding games running with great performance.”
The System76 Thelio Astra with CrossOver could play Cyberpunk 2077 at 120FPS on average, though the exact resolution and other graphics settings weren’t mentioned. The developers also reported Hades II averaging at 60FPS, Path of Exile 2 at 60FPS, and Ghost of Tsushima at 50FPS.
This probably doesn’t mean you’ll be playing a typical AAA PC game on your Raspberry Pi anytime soon, but it is an exciting upgrade for the Linux ecosystem. Desktops and laptops with ARM processors are becoming more common, and proper ports of CrossOver (or other Wine variants) can help fill in the gaps in software support. The work by CodeWeavers and other developers could also be a step towards more ARM-based Linux gaming hardware, like a future iteration of the Steam Deck or the rumored standalone Valve VR headset.
CrossOver also said in the announcement, “While gaming is exciting and a great way to show off the performance of CrossOver Linux ARM64, there are many more possibilities. For example, we envisage CrossOver as a viable solution for migrating enterprise Windows workloads to Linux for improved security and reduced bloat. There’s also more work to be done to bring CrossOver to even more platforms.”
CrossOver is a paid product, and if you have an active subscription, you can try out the ARM Linux port from the source link below. The developers are also interested in bug reports, if you try it out on your own devices.
Source: CodeWeavers Blog
