The developers at Wine are currently focused on achieving compatibility for the 1997 game “Nuclear Strike” with Linux by the year 2024. Elizabeth Figura from CodeWeavers is leading the efforts to enable the game to run on Wine, but has faced challenges due to the game’s reliance on direct VGA access, which presents a unique issue as Wine interacts with video memory in a different manner.

To tackle this problem, Figura has engaged with the upstream Linux kernel developers to brainstorm on ways to enhance SGDT (Store Global Descriptor Table) emulation for Wine. While SGDT emulation has been made easier for newer Intel and AMD processors with User Mode Instruction Prevention (UMIP) support, there is a need to explore better methods for handling SGDT emulation for older processors without UMIP support, which is crucial for enabling support for the 1997 game on Linux under Wine.

One proposed solution for older processors is to investigate direct interaction with Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM). However, concerns have been raised about the practicality of this approach and potential performance implications. Past attempts to utilize virtualization support with Wine were found to be unacceptably slow, leading to doubts about the feasibility of running Wine inside KVM.

Despite these challenges, there is optimism for users with newer AMD (Zen 2+) and Intel processors with UMIP support, as there is progress in improving SGDT emulation, which brings the potential for running the classic “Nuclear Strike” game on Linux in 2024.

Adapting legacy games for modern systems is clearly a complex task. The ongoing discussions among the developers demonstrate the intricacies involved in achieving this objective. As the developers continue their work, it will be intriguing to observe how they navigate the technical complexities of SGDT emulation and bring the beloved 1997 game to the Linux platform.

For those interested in following the ongoing discussions on this topic, updates can be found on the Linux kernel mailing list via lore.kernel.org. The efforts of the Wine developers in this endeavor highlight the dedication and technical expertise required to adapt older software for contemporary operating systems, and their work is certainly commendable.