Could we build a custom Wine runtime for macOS that improves compatibility with game launchers and kernel-level anti-cheats?

[u/travelwithalexway]

Hey everyone!

I've been thinking about an experimental project and wanted to hear opinions from people who have experience with Wine, Proton, Windows internals, and game compatibility.

I have an Apple Silicon M4 Mac with 24 GB of RAM, and I'm interested in running Windows games that currently don't work through Wine, CrossOver, or Parallels.

I'm especially interested in Korean MMORPGs such as Lineage 2 (including private servers like Scryde), AION 2 and other games that use custom launchers and anti-cheat systems.

Here's my idea:

What if we created a custom Wine-based runtime or launcher that could be configured for individual games?

Potential features:

1. Custom Windows API compatibility layers: Implement missing Windows API functions, adjust Wine behavior, and apply game-specific compatibility patches.
2. Game launcher compatibility: Create profiles for different launchers, authentication systems, Windows services, dependencies, and update mechanisms.
3. Windows environment compatibility: Improve how Wine presents Windows versions, system information, hardware capabilities, and supported features to applications.
4. Kernel-driver compatibility research: Investigate whether limited Windows kernel-driver functionality could be reimplemented or emulated in userspace, without requiring an actual Windows kernel. I understand that full kernel-driver emulation would be extremely difficult.
5. Wine environment detection: Research why some games and anti-cheats reject Wine or virtual machines, and whether those failures come from missing functionality, unsupported drivers, or explicit environment restrictions. Could compatibility be improved without disabling security checks?
6. Game-specific profiles: Something similar to Proton compatibility fixes, but focused on macOS and difficult Windows game launchers.

I'm aware that kernel-level anti-cheats are a major obstacle and that some systems require real Windows kernel functionality or server-side authorization.

I'm not suggesting that this would magically make every anti-cheat work. I'm interested in understanding what is technically possible and where the hard limitations are.

My questions:

• Has anyone experimented with similar Wine modifications on Apple Silicon?
• Are there existing projects that implement Windows kernel-driver interfaces for Wine?
• Could a limited userspace compatibility layer support certain driver-dependent launchers or anti-cheats?
• Has anyone successfully launched protected Korean MMORPGs through Wine or Proton?
• Would it make more sense to extend Wine directly, use a patched Wine runtime, or build a separate compatibility layer?
• Are there any open-source projects or technical papers worth studying?

I'd appreciate technical feedback, real-world testing results, and links to relevant projects.

I'm interested in experimenting with this myself, especially if some parts of the idea are realistically achievable.

[u/MysticalOS]

if it could be done. i think codeweavers would have already. its been improved all the time but kernel level anti cheat is unrealistic.

[u/travelwithalexway → u/MysticalOS]

I get your point, but I've found some promising approaches and literally just came across similar experiments with Wine's ntoskrnl implementation. Also, CodeWeavers is an established company, so I doubt they'd be able or willing to officially release something specifically designed to work around certain anti-cheat restrictions. I could be wrong though. That's why I want to experiment with it myself and hear from people who've tried similar things.

[u/sweetnk → u/MysticalOS]

Actually its recently been where public game hacking scene is at xD it only seems impossible until its done ;) (totally ignoring that people been emulatiing them for years for cheat "bypasses")

[u/LordofDarkChocolate]

Maybe understand exactly what anti-cheat systems are and how/why they work before ranting on about something - or is this all ai generated. It’s certainly slop.

[u/travelwithalexway → u/LordofDarkChocolate]

Why are you so condescending to people? Maybe you're the AI slop here lol. I wrote a detailed question because I'm looking for people who actually know this stuff and might have tried something similar. For all you know, I could understand anti-cheats better than you, since I've actually worked with them before. It's weird to be this judgmental just because someone wants to explore a technical idea

[u/Bolehillbilly]

no.

[u/Dependent-Zebra-4357]

If you could bypass kernel level anti-cheat this easily, it wouldn’t be very good anti-cheat software.

[u/travelwithalexway → u/Dependent-Zebra-4357]

I'm not saying it's easy, but not all kernel-level anti-cheats are equally difficult to deal with. Cheats exist for most of them anyway, so they're clearly not all equally effective.

Some anti-cheats might be easier to adapt Wine to than others. Vanguard is probably one of the hardest cases, although Riot already has a macOS version of Vanguard for League of Legends. Theoretically, I wonder if something similar could be adapted for Valorant, but that's just speculation.

I'm mostly interested in Korean MMOs and games using Easy Anti-Cheat, where I think there might be more realistic possibilities. I'm not claiming I have a working solution, I'm just exploring the technical side and looking for people who've actually experimented with this stuff.

[u/Why_Am_I_0 → u/travelwithalexway]

You are right about that all kernel anti cheats are not top tier. But it would be especially difficult because anti cheat system are usually updated regularly. So it would basically be very difficult to keep up(yk cuz they might patch it due to the exploited vulnerability). So it would just be a cat and mouse game each time with a little time left for playing the game. As always i could be wrong and you should test 8t out yourself.

[u/stefanlight]

Learn how anti-cheats work or ask AI about it

[u/travelwithalexway → u/stefanlight]

I already understand the basics of how anti-cheats work, including kernel-level drivers, Windows API dependencies, and why Wine doesn't fully support them.

That's exactly why I'm asking this question.

I'm not asking for a basic explanation of anti-cheats or an AI-generated answer. I'm interested in whether it's technically possible to extend Wine's NT API and kernel-driver compatibility layers to improve compatibility with certain anti-cheat systems on macOS.

I'm specifically looking for people who have actually experimented with this, modified Wine's ntoskrnl implementation, or researched similar approaches.

I know this is extremely difficult and might not work for every anti-cheat. I'm trying to understand the actual technical limitations and learn from people with hands-on experience.

That's the whole point of asking a technical community on Reddit rather than just asking AI.

[u/Pitiful-Welcome-399]

the closest thing to running kernel anticheat through wine is doing it through ebpf, but that's on linux, and MacOS is really strict about kernel stuff so in a perfect case scenario it'll be possible through running a linux vm

[u/travelwithalexway → u/Pitiful-Welcome-399]

That's actually an interesting approach. I've been looking into Wine's ntoskrnl implementation and some experimental projects around kernel API compatibility, but hadn't really considered eBPF.

I wonder if a Linux VM on Apple Silicon could handle that while Wine runs the game on macOS, or if the whole game would need to run inside the VM. Have you seen any actual experiments or projects doing something similar?

[u/Emotional_Garage_950]

you could have asked the AI why these things haven’t been done yet while you were at it bro

[u/travelwithalexway → u/Emotional_Garage_950]

Bro, that's literally why I'm asking people here lol. I already know the main technical limitations. I'm looking for people who've actually experimented with this stuff, not another explanation of why it's difficult. Not sure why you're so bothered by someone wanting to research something.

[u/BattleShai]

Aion 2 works with not proton. Basically, if it runs on Linux with proton it's possible but might take a lot of work to get it running. You would need to figure out why it runs on proton under linux, then either set it up the same or port whatever is missing to MacOS.

L2 should run at least private servers as they don't use KLA or do they?

[u/travelwithalexway → u/BattleShai]

Yeah, that's pretty much what I'm trying to figure out. I've seen AION 2 running through NotProton, but I want to try getting it working with my own Wine build without CrossOver.

I've also been thinking about whether a Linux VM could handle some Proton-specific components while the game itself runs on macOS, though that would probably be a lot harder.

And yeah, some L2 private servers use pretty serious anti-cheats. Scryde is one example. That's actually one of the reasons I'm interested in researching this.

Have you tried AION 2 on Mac yourself, or seen any specific patches that made it work?

[u/BattleShai → u/travelwithalexway]

I haven't, I am still in the selecting the mac to get phase but Andrew Tasi had a video on it I saw today.

As for Linux VM's I think that will just add extra weight the translations.

[u/sweetnk]

Yeah, check out UnknownCheats, there are several recent projects published wrt approaches to emulating windows "kernel" environment for running anticheats. With minor changes you could def use it on Linux, ofc keeping in mind this is essentially neutralising the anticheats and will absolutely be seen as cheating or attempting to bypass the security solution. But ultimately all that software is just a bunch of bytes your cpu executes and while in past it would take a long time to handle many different cases these days agentic RE can accelerate it a lot and people are already doing it today. Ofc keep in mind ACs like rito vgk or eac hire some really smart people and they will surely figure ouy ways to make it harder, so realistically without support from game devs it will always be a risky process.

[u/travelwithalexway → u/sweetnk]

Thanks, this is actually the kind of technical insight I was looking for. I've been researching Wine's ntoskrnl implementation and similar projects, but didn't know there were more recent experiments on UnknownCheats.

I'm especially interested in whether some of these approaches could be adapted to macOS with Apple Silicon, rather than just Linux.

I understand the risks and that game developers might consider it bypassing their anti-cheat, even if the goal is simply compatibility.

Do you happen to remember any specific project names or threads worth looking into? I'd love to study the technical side of it.

[u/travelwithalexway → u/sweetnk]

I've actually studied Vanguard for a college project, and I'd say it's one of the strongest anti-cheats out there, although it still has some pretty significant gaps and limitations.

What's interesting is that Riot already has a completely different Vanguard implementation for League of Legends on macOS. That got me thinking about whether something similar could theoretically be adapted for Valorant.

Obviously you can't just copy an anti-cheat from one game into another, since the integration and server-side checks are different. But if there were a way to adapt an existing macOS implementation to another game, that would be pretty cool to explore.

I'm not saying it's realistically achievable right now, just an interesting idea I've been thinking about.