New project brings strong Linux compatibility to more classic Windows games

These additional options should be welcome news for fans looking for new ways to play PC games from a certain era. The PC Gaming Wiki contains more than 400 titles written using the D3D7 APIs, and while most of these games were released between 2000 and 2004, a handful of new D3D7 games have still been released through 2022.

The list of D3D7 games predictably includes a lot of licensed shovelware, but there are also well-remembered games like Escape from Monkey Island, The fatal hearthand the original Hitman: Codename 47. WinterSnowfall writes that the project was inspired by the desire to play games like Sacrifice And Disciples II on top of the existing dxvk framework.

Despite some known issues with certain D3D7 titlesWinterSnowfall writes that recent tuning means that “things are now somewhere between decent and great in most supported games.” Still, the project’s author warns that the project will likely never achieve full compatibility, as “D3D7 is a land of highly cursed API interoperability.”

Also don’t expect this project to expand to include support for even older DirectX APIs, WinterSnowfall warns. “D3D7 is already challenging and a mess,” the author writes. “The further we stray from D3D9, the further we stray from the divine.”