I have a few (50) games in GOG that I have purchased over the years. I only had time to select a few at random. I picked 5 which gave me a representative sample of relatively modern stuff mixed with retro games, and a good mix between native Linux and native Windows titles.
If you enjoy listening to music or podcasts, you're probably no stranger to Spotify. While it's been around for years, it was only recently that the company released an experimental Arm version of Spotify that runs natively on Arm-based Windows devices. There is currently a known issue with it where you might be unable to watch video podcasts through the app, but aside from that, everything should work fine, and it will perform much better than running an emulated x86 app. You can download the Spotify beta here.
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The popular file archiving tool 7-Zip has been testing a native Arm version for a while, and it's already available as a stable release. This is a free tool that lets you comrpess and extra all kinds of archives, including ZIP, RAR, and 7z formats. You can find the latest version on the 7-Zip download page.
VLC has a native app for Windows PCs running on Arm. It's essentially the same video player we're used to that can play all sorts of video formats. You can download the Arm version of VLC from the official website, though you have to use the dropdown menu on the download button to specifically get the Arm64 version of the app.
Like the UWP-based Netflix app, there is a standalone Twitter app that can be downloaded and installed on devices with Windows on Arm. You can grab the official Twitter app from the Microsoft Store. Technically speaking, the Twitter app is a progressive web app (PWA), so it's not exactly native to Arm, but it runs on the Microsoft Edge engine, which is.
Bandizip is another free file archiver for Windows operating system that supports all major archive file formats and various customization options. It has officially supported Windows 10 on Arm since v6.18, and it works natively on Arm64 CPU. You can download Bandizip from the Microsoft Store here.
This isn't an app you really need to download, but recently, Microsoft released an update for the Xbox app that's installed with Windows 11 and Windows 10, adding native support for Arm devices. Now, the Xbox app itself doesn't run games locally, but what it does is support Xbox cloud gaming. Until recently, you could only use cloud gaming through the browser, and the only browsers that really support Arm are Edge and Firefox. Now, you can use the Xbox app to play top-tier Xbox titles on Arm-based devices like the Surface Pro 9 with 5G.
If you're looking for games, there are some popular titles that can run natively on Windows running on Arm chipsets, but it's worth noting that many of these aren't typical PC games. Many were designed for Windows 8 and Windows Phone back in the day, which is why they needed to support Arm processors. There's a running list of games that can natively run on Arm-based Windows laptops and tablets which includes all of these. There are also some more typical PC games that support Windows on Arm, like League of Legends, DOTA 2, Starcraft 2, CS: GO, Minecraft, Plague Inc., GTA: San Andreas, World of Warcraft: Shadowlands.
It's also worth mentioning that Unity recently committed to supporting Windows Arm devices with its game engine, so as long as developers are willing to put in the work, we should see more games run natively on Arm processors over time.
These are some of the best native apps for Windows on Arm, but that doesn't mean it's all you can use. With Windows 11, both 32-bit and 64-bit apps based on x86 technology can work via emulation, and aside from specific web-based apps like browsers and Slack, they'll run almost as well that way. And as we mentioned above, Windows 11 now supports Android apps, which means more than games. As long as the apps don't require Google services, you can use almost any Android app on your PC, and they're likely to run better on Arm processors since htat's what most Android apps are made for.
MSYS2 is required in order to build native C/C++ extensions for Ruby and is necessary for Ruby on Rails.Moreover it allows the download and usage of hundreds of Open Source libraries which Ruby gems often depend on.
To install Guild Wars 2 using PlayOnLinux, download, install and launch PlayOnLinux and follow the first run wizard. Then, wait for the message "Refreshing PlayOnLinux" to go away from the bottom pane of the PlayOnLinux window. Once it is finished refreshing, click the "Install" button at the top of the window. This will open a new window. Select "Games" from the sidebar, and select "Guild Wars 2" from the list. (If it does not appear, you will need to check the "Testing" search option.) This will launch a step-by-step wizard that will automatically download and install pre-requisites like DirectX dlls and the Guild Wars 2 installer for you. Once the wizard is complete, Guild Wars 2 will appear in the list of games in your PlayOnLinux main window. Double-clicking it will launch the launcher for Guild Wars 2.
On Linux and on MacOS you can select to install the Windows version of a native game. This might be handy in case the native version is not supported anymore. On Linux you can choose that for GOG games only.
Steam needed to replace some libraries to make games work back in 2012. Today this is no longer necessary. So why are they still pushing their runtimes? How much progress could we make if Steam deprecated their runtimes, abandoned containerization for new games, and let all new games just use the native system libraries? How loudly do you think gamers would complain if a distribution upgrade broke their favourite game?
But for small apps and games from independent developers, a proper sandboxed app marketplace can in theory increase their reach. It can eliminate much of the trust that would otherwise be necessary to run them on your computer and can bring native apps closer to the ease of use of web apps.
Winetricks is a helper script to download and install various redistributable runtime libraries needed to run some applications, and games in Wine. These may include replacements for components of Wine using closed source libraries. It can also be used to change Wine settings.
Wine has its own Builtin DLLs for all versions of vcrun which works fine with many applications and games, but some application and games may check if native Visual C++ Redistributable Runtimes is installed, so it is better to install them all to avoid that situation in the future. Visual C++ Redistributable Runtimes are required for some games. Winetricks can install vcrun from 2003 to 2019. Do not install vcrun2015, or vcrun2017, just install vcrun2019, and it will install all the required libraries from 2015 to 2019.
Custom Resolution Utility is a small freeware utility which can tweak your NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards to create higher resolutions.As a portable application, CRU does not require installation and can be run without installation.The layout of the program provides a list of currently supported resolutions for your monitor with the option to add new ones.The application isn't perfect, but if your monitor can support higher and/or different resolutions from what's displayed in your graphics control panel, Custom Resolution Utility will create EDID values in the registry so that you may select the resolutions in your graphics settings.Currently supported GPUs are limited to some AMD/ATI and NVIDIA cards, as Intel GPUs are not supported.It's worth pointing out that you should have an idea of what your monitor and GPU are capable of. If anything goes wrong, the download comes with an app called "reset-all.exe" which can be run to revert any changes you have made with Custom Resolution Utility.Features of Custom Resolution UtilityAMD/ATI's driver also listens to the TMDS clock limit in the HDMI support data block.
Detailed resolutions are the preferred way to add custom resolutions.
HDMI is treated as single-link DVI unless an HDMI support data block is defined in the first extension block.
HDMI limits depend on the graphics card.
Passive DisplayPort to HDMI adapters are limited to 165 MHz unless the driver is patched.
The first detailed resolution is considered the preferred or native resolution.
Compatibility and LicenseCustom Resolution Utility is provided under a freeware license on Windows from video tweaks with no restrictions on usage. Download and installation of this PC software is free and 1.5.2 is the latest version last time we checked.
Valve's Games on Steam are native ports. They will run a lot faster and smoother than the experience with Wine workarounds (see the section below for more information about Steam on Wine). Valve also claimed that the lack of DirectX overhead also increased performance.[1] If you spawn an additional XServer to run OpenGL games it will boost your FPS even more because the Desktop Environment and composition effects won't slow you down. If you are running KDE hit ALT+SHIFT+F12 to temporarily disable the KWin compositor. This will enhance video performance especially when you run OpenGL games in windowed mode.
The goal of Steam Play is to make games that are not native to Linux run as well as they do on Windows. Some games even get the benefit of better controller support through Steam Play than they would have running on Windows. Steam Play uses a customized version of Wine called Proton to launch games. This does not require the user to install Wine on their PC.
Probably the most useful button for new UTM users is Browse UTM Gallery. Click this to display a web page with links to download pages for a number of virtual machines (screenshot above). At this time, ARM native VMs are available for:
JoyToKey is a shareware, but you can download the latest version for free.Try it on your PC to play games which don't have native controller support with your favorite joysticksand/or use it for general applications to improve efficiency by registering frequently used key shortcuts as joystick input.If you find JoyToKey useful, you can purchase a license key at any timefrom JoyToKey application menu. 2ff7e9595c
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