WineDirectALSA

An ultra-low-latency ASIO driver for Wine/Proton that connects Windows ASIO directly to Linux ALSA. It is mainly designed for Linux rhythm game players.

Installation (for end users)

Dependencies

Required

1. Python 3.x
2. umu-launcher
3. The vdf Python package

On Arch Linux, install them as follows. (multilib is required.)

sudo pacman -S python python-vdf umu-launcher

Optional

1. RealtimeKit (rtkit-daemon) (Recommended)

Installation steps

Caution

This project only supports Wine/Proton 11.0 or later.

1. Download the latest tarball from the Releases page.
2. Extract the downloaded tarball.
3. Copy the x86_64-{unix|windows} directories to one of the following locations:
   • /opt/WineDirectALSA/ (requires root privileges)
   • $HOME/.local/lib/wine/
4. Run the included wda-install script and follow its instructions.
5. In the game's Steam properties, set the launch options as follows:

   WINEDLLPATH=/opt/WineDirectALSA %command% # or WINEDLLPATH=~/.local/lib/wine/ %command%

6. Launch the game!

Limitations

WineDirectALSA accesses the selected ALSA hw: device directly and does not perform sample-format conversion or resampling. The device must therefore natively support stereo, 48 kHz, signed 32-bit little-endian PCM (SND_PCM_FORMAT_S32_LE).

S32_LE describes the sample container format and does not necessarily mean that the device provides true 32-bit conversion resolution. Many onboard HDA devices support this format—the Realtek ALC897 used for testing does—but some low-cost USB audio devices only support 16-bit or 24-bit formats.

To test playback compatibility, replace hw:0,0 with your ALSA device:

aplay \
  --device=hw:0,0 \
  --file-type=raw \
  --format=S32_LE \
  --channels=2 \
  --rate=48000 \
  --period-size=32 \
  --buffer-size=128 \
  --duration=5 \
  --dump-hw-params \
  /dev/zero

If capture is required, test the input device as well:

arecord \
  --device=hw:0,0 \
  --file-type=raw \
  --format=S32_LE \
  --channels=2 \
  --rate=48000 \
  --period-size=32 \
  --buffer-size=128 \
  --duration=5 \
  --dump-hw-params \
  /dev/null

If both commands are completed without errors, the device supports the key hardware requirements of WineDirectALSA.

Benchmark

Test system: 48 kHz, 64-frame ASIO buffer, RTL Utility 0.5.2, Realtek ALC897

Driver	Reported RTL	Measured RTL	Difference
WineDirectALSA	160 samples / 3.333 ms	174 samples / 3.625 ms	14 samples / 0.292 ms
PipeASIO	128 samples / 2.667 ms	290 samples / 6.033 ms	162 samples / 3.367 ms

10 consecutive measurements:

• WineDirectALSA: 174 / 174 / 174 / 174 / 174 / 174 / 174 / 174 / 174 / 174
• PipeASIO: 286 / 285 / 289 / 290 / 289 / 292 / 292 / 292 / 291 / 290

Building

Dependencies

Required

1. CMake
2. Ninja
3. xwin
4. Wine 11.0 or later

Build steps

1. First, use xwin to download the Windows SDK:

   xwin --arch x86_64 --accept-license splat --include-debug-libs --preserve-ms-arch-notation --output <path>

2. Configure the project with CMake:

   cmake -G Ninja -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo -DXWIN_SPLAT_PATH=<path>

3. Build the project:

   cmake --build build

License

WineDirectALSA itself is licensed under GPL-3.0-only. Dependencies used by this project may be licensed differently.