Heronite runs Windows games on Linux through Wine or Proton. Change any option below per game in Game settings → Compatibility, or for all games in Settings. When a game won’t start, Heronite suggests a fix: see Troubleshooting.
Download Proton builds in the Wine Manager
The Wine Manager (Ctrl 3) downloads and updates these builds:
- Proton-CachyOS
- GE-Proton
- DW-Proton
- UMU-Proton
- Proton-EM
- Proton-Sarek
Builds go to Heronite’s data folder (~/.local/share/heronite/tools/proton and tools/wine), or to Steam’s compatibilitytools.d if you turn that on, so Steam can use them too. Heronite finds Proton builds already in your Steam libraries and the Wine runners of Lutris.
Where games and Wine prefixes are stored
A Wine prefix is a separate Windows folder for a game, with its settings, saves and what Winetricks installs. By default:
- Games install to
~/Games/Heronite - Each game gets its own prefix in
~/Games/Heronite/Prefixes - Several games can share
~/Games/Heronite/Prefixes/sharedinstead, but then they can break each other’s dependencies
The Wine Manager lists your prefixes. In Game settings → Compatibility, the Prefix menu picks the game’s prefix or makes a New prefix for this game. The Winecfg and Winetricks buttons there work on that prefix.
Per-game options
- Wine or Proton version and prefix
- DXVK, VKD3D-Proton, and DXVK-NVAPI
- Esync and Fsync
- gamescope (needs
gamescopeinstalled) - FPS limit
- GPU choice on PCs with more than one
- DLSS, FSR, and XeSS upgrades
- Winetricks
- umu and its protonfixes (game fixes from the umu database)
- Lossless Scaling frame generation through lsfg-vk (needs Lossless Scaling from Steam; works with Vulkan, DXVK, and VKD3D games, not OpenGL)
- Wayland instead of X11 (needs a Wine build with Wayland support)
- Scripts to run before and after the game, and programs to run alongside it (like trainers)
- Launch presets to reuse in other games
Sandbox
To run a game you do not trust, turn on Run in a sandbox in Game settings → Sandbox. The game then runs through bubblewrap (bwrap, from the bubblewrap package), with no network and no access to your home folder. Allow the network or a folder under Exceptions when the game needs it.
Anti-cheat
Heronite shows each game’s anti-cheat status in its details, from Are We Anti-Cheat Yet?. If the game works on Linux, turn on BattlEye or Easy Anti-Cheat under Anti-cheat runtimes in Game settings → Compatibility; Heronite downloads it before the next launch. A game whose developer does not allow Linux will not run, whatever the settings.