ANEMOI / SiglusEngine – WMV videos not working on modern Wine

General Discussion
1

Hi everyone, I’ve been trying to get ANEMOI (SiglusEngine) working properly on Linux, and after many hours of testing across different distros and Wine setups, I want to summarize the situation clearly. Maybe someone in the community can confirm or provide a workaround.

1. The game launches fine, but WMV videos do not play

  • The game boots normally under Lutris using wine-ge-8-26-x86_64.
  • However, all WMV videos fail (opening movie, cutscenes, etc.).
  • The game either:
    • crashes with a Japanese ShellExecuteEx error, or
    • plays the video at 2 FPS using Wine’s fallback software renderer.

2. This is NOT caused by:

  • missing codecs
  • missing DLLs
  • wrong locale
  • wrong prefix
  • wrong installation
  • wrong patch version
  • distro issues (tested on Linux Mint, LMDE, Debian)
  • GPU drivers
  • NTFS/ext4
  • permissions

All of those were checked and confirmed working.

3. The real cause: modern Wine / Wine-GE broke DirectShow + WMV

After testing multiple versions, we discovered:

:heavy_check_mark: Wine 6.x and 7.x

  • DirectShow works
  • WMV playback works
  • SiglusEngine videos run normally

:x: Wine 8.x, 9.x, Wine-GE 8.x

  • DirectShow is broken
  • WMV playback is broken
  • quartz.dll and wmvcore.dll no longer function correctly
  • Winetricks no longer installs WMP9 or WMV codecs
  • SiglusEngine cannot play videos at all

This affects:

  • ANEMOI
  • Steins;Gate
  • Chaos;Head
  • Chaos;Child
  • Rewrite
  • Clannad
  • Little Busters
  • Any VN using SiglusEngine or WMV-based cutscenes

4. Lutris only offers modern Wine-GE by default

In the “Manage Versions” window, only these runners appear:

  • wine-ge-8-26-x86_64
  • proton-cachyos-11.0

Older versions like wine-ge-7.1 or wine-7.0-staging (which do support WMV) are not listed.

5. Running Wine-GE manually (outside Lutris) does not help

We tried launching the game with:

Código

~/.local/share/lutris/runners/wine/wine-ge-8-26-x86_64/bin/wine

The game launches, but:

  • videos run at 2 FPS
  • no hardware acceleration
  • DirectShow still broken

Because Lutris normally applies:

  • DXVK
  • esync/fsync
  • gamemode
  • DLL overrides
  • multimedia patches

…which are not active when running Wine-GE manually.

6. Conclusion

ANEMOI will not play WMV videos on any modern Wine or Wine-GE version. This is a regression in Wine 8.x and 9.x, not a distro or user error.

To fix this, we would need:

:heavy_check_mark: A Lutris runner based on Wine-GE 7.x

or

:heavy_check_mark: A community patch restoring DirectShow / WMV support

or

:heavy_check_mark: A custom script/installer like the old PlayOnLinux “recipes”

Right now, there is no working solution using modern Lutris runners.

7. What we are asking

If anyone in the Lutris community can:

  • provide an older Wine-GE runner (7.x)
  • or confirm the DirectShow regression
  • or share a working installer script
  • or upload a working Lutris installer to lutris.net

…it would help a lot of people playing older Japanese VNs.

If you need logs, prefix dumps, or runner info, I can provide them.

Thanks in advance. Si podéis contestar en español, se agradecería (todo este sumario lo ha echo Copilot).

2

The most recent version of Lutris stores its runners in ~/.local/share/lutris/runners/ or in ~/.config/lutris/runners/ so if you put your needed wine version into whichever of these locations contains the available runners, you should be able to select them in Lutris.

3

Thanks for the clarification.
Do you know if there is any way to manually add older Wine-GE versions (like wine-ge-7.1) to Lutris, since they no longer appear in the “Manage Versions” list?
If someone has a link to an older runner or a patched build with working DirectShow/WMV support, that would help a lot.

Mi inglés es reguleras, disculpadme si le pido a Copilot responda por mi, desconozco si en las normas del foro es permitido responder en otro idioma que no sea inglés.

La solución me planteas… me parece que no va a surtir efecto, deberia Lutris dejar descargar Wine que quisieras de la forma en que playOnlinux dejaba, me parece un somero atraso mas siendo una comunidad que se dice a si misma, perservar el videojuego. Sabe los wine mas modernos no hacen funcionar juegos antiguos y restringen descargas…

4

A new GE-Proton version out today with a lot of VIDEO changes:

This version will automatically be downloaded by Lutris next time you launch it.

5

Have you tried to copy (or symlink) the “wine-ge-7.1” folder into ~/.local/share/lutris/runners/ and check if it shows up in the “Manage Versions” dialog in Lutris?

6

To install alternatives Wine version for Lutris, use ProtonPlus:

7

GE‑Proton 11‑1 cannot work with ANEMOI under Lutris because Lutris always detects it as a Proton‑based runner and automatically launches it through UMU, SteamRT4 and pressure‑vessel. This happens regardless of renaming the folder, removing the proton script, or selecting it as a Wine runner. As long as the runner contains Proton’s internal layout (files/, protonfixes/, compatibilitytool.vdf), Lutris forces the Proton container stack before the game even starts. This container environment strips out the legacy DirectShow and WMV components that SiglusEngine requires, which leads to unimplemented OLE32 multimedia calls and prevents ANEMOI from playing any video.

Because of this, GE‑Proton 11‑1’s multimedia improvements never activate in Lutris. They only work when Proton runs inside Steam’s native environment, where UMU is not used and Proton can access its patched Media Foundation pipeline. For Lutris users, the only viable options for ANEMOI are older Wine‑GE builds (pre‑UMU) or Wine Staging with the appropriate DirectShow/WMV components installed. GE‑Proton 11‑1 simply cannot function correctly for this title outside Steam’s runtime.

8

ProtonPlus is only a compatibility‑tool manager, not a runtime modifier. It can download and install Proton‑GE, Wine, DXVK, VKD3D and similar tools for Steam, Lutris, Heroic or Bottles, but it does not change how these tools behave once launched. Even if GE‑Proton 11‑1 is installed through ProtonPlus, Lutris will still detect it as a Proton‑based runner because of its internal structure (files/, protonfixes/, compatibilitytool.vdf). As a result, Lutris automatically launches it through UMU, SteamRT4 and pressure‑vessel before the game starts.

Because of this, ProtonPlus cannot solve the ANEMOI issue. UMU strips out the legacy DirectShow/WMV components and OLE32 multimedia functions required by SiglusEngine, so GE‑Proton 11‑1’s multimedia patches never activate under Lutris. ProtonPlus cannot disable UMU, cannot override Lutris’ Proton detection, and cannot turn GE‑Proton into a pure Wine runner. Therefore, installing GE‑Proton 11‑1 through ProtonPlus will not change the outcome for this title.

9

Wine‑GE 8‑26 works with ANEMOI because Lutris launches it as real Wine ( bin/wine ) with no UMU, no SteamRT4 and no pressure‑vessel involved. In this environment, the legacy DirectShow and WMV components required by SiglusEngine remain available, so the engine can play WMV videos normally. The OLE32 warnings that appear in the log ( CoIncrementMTAUsage ) are harmless, since SiglusEngine only relies on STA and does not require the missing MTA functionality. This is why the game runs correctly under Wine‑GE despite those messages.

In contrast, GE‑Proton 11‑1 cannot work for ANEMOI under Lutris because Lutris always detects it as a Proton‑based runner. Its internal structure ( files/ , protonfixes/ , compatibilitytool.vdf ) triggers Lutris to automatically launch it through UMU, SteamRT4 and pressure‑vessel before the game even starts. This container environment strips out the DirectShow/WMV stack and the older OLE32 multimedia functions that SiglusEngine depends on. As a result, the multimedia patches included in GE‑Proton never activate, and the engine fails to play videos.

Tools like ProtonPlus do not change this behavior. They only install and manage Proton/Wine builds, but they do not modify how Lutris launches them. Even if GE‑Proton 11‑1 is installed through ProtonPlus, Lutris will still treat it as Proton and will still force UMU. ProtonPlus cannot disable UMU, cannot override Lutris’ Proton detection logic, and cannot convert GE‑Proton into a pure Wine runner. Therefore, installing GE‑Proton 11‑1 through ProtonPlus does not improve compatibility with ANEMOI.

In summary, ANEMOI works under Wine‑GE because it runs outside UMU, preserving the DirectShow/WMV components required by SiglusEngine. GE‑Proton 11‑1 cannot work under Lutris because it is always launched inside UMU, which removes those components. This is a design limitation of how Lutris handles Proton‑based runners, not a configuration issue. For this title, Wine‑GE (pre‑UMU) or Wine Staging with the appropriate DirectShow/WMV components are the only viable options.

Nota: Añado yo en castellano, aunque el juego funciona con Wine‑GE 8‑26, sigue existiendo el problema de la visualización de los vídeos.