Set to make the upcoming Linux 6.14 kernel cycle even more exciting is that it looks like the completed NTSYNC driver will be ready for merging. The NTSYNC driver enhances Wine / Proton (Steam Play) gaming by better matching the Windows NT synchronization primitives to allow for better gaming performance. The NTSYNC code has long been a work-in-progress but this week the revised code made it into the relevant “-next” branch ahead of Linux 6.14.
The NTSYNC driver has been a long time coming for better matching the Windows NT synchronization primitives within the Linux kernel and opening up a great deal more performance potential for Windows games running on Linux with the likes of Wine and Valve’s popular Steam Play (Proton) software. The initial NTSYNC driver was merged back in Linux 6.10 but marked as “broken” since not all of the functionality was wired up for actually making this driver useful to end-users/gamers.
Patches posted by the developers have shown some pretty wild improvements out of NTSYNC:
Since early December though CodeWeavers engineers were back sending out new NTSYNC patches for completing this kernel driver. Following recent patches improving NTSYNC, it looks like the driver is now ready for the mainline kernel in full!
This week Greg Kroah-Hartman queued up the outstanding NTSYNC driver patches into his “char-misc-next” Git branch for the char/misc area of the kernel where NTSYNC resides. With these remaining NTSYNC patches now in “char-misc-next”, they are poised for submitted to the mainline Linux 6.14 kernel with the merge window opening later this month.
So barring any last minute issues from coming about or objections by Linus Torvalds, the completed NTSYNC code will be found in Linux 6.14. This includes no longer marking it as broken:
The Linux 6.14 merge window will open later this month while the stable kernel will be out in March. Linux 6.14 is expected to power the upcoming Ubuntu 25.04 and Fedora 42 releases, among other spring 2025 Linux distributions. It’s terrific seeing the NTSYNC driver finally being completed and hopefully Steam Play (Proton) will quickly be making use of the NTSYNC kernel driver for enhancing the Windows gaming experience on Linux.
