PipeASIO

Q: No sound, or the driver does not load under Proton?

Proton's container cannot see /usr/lib/wine. Install under $HOME and set WINEDLLPATH in the game's launch options - Steam: WINEDLLPATH=/home/ /.local/lib/wine %command%, Faugus: the same variable in the per-game environment field - then register in that prefix.

Q: Bluetooth headphones produce no sound?

Turn on follow device clock in the panel (or set PIPEASIO_FOLLOW_DEVICE_CLOCK=on). A Bluetooth sink's clock is the radio link and cannot always be slaved to the host, so the driver follows it instead, which also switches it to asynchronous scheduling and costs one buffer period. Some Bluetooth sinks do accept a forced quantum and work with the option off, so try it both ways.

Q: FL Studio crackles or xruns constantly?

Turn Mix in buffer switch off in Options > Audio settings > Input / output. It makes FL Studio mix and run plugins inside the ASIO callback, which the driver delivers on the PipeWire data loop with one buffer period to return; a full mixer pass overruns that, and with follow device clock off the driver is scheduled synchronously, so the overrun stalls the graph rather than being absorbed. With it off, FL Studio mixes on its own threads and the callback only hands over ready buffers.

Q: How do I select it in my DAW?

After registering, pick PipeASIO from the host's ASIO device list. In FL Studio that is Options > Audio settings > Device.

Low-latency ASIO audio for Windows DAWs on Linux. Runs under Wine and Proton, native to PipeWire.

v1.6.0 x86_64 PipeWire 1.4.2+ Wine 10+ GPL-3.0

Get started View on GitHub Support on Ko-fi

New: PipeASIO is now packaged in the AUR. paru -S pipeasio installs the driver, the settings panel and its menu entry in one go. Other distros build from source.

Straight to PipeWire

PipeASIO is a native PipeWire client. Audio gets from your host to the graph in one hop, instead of detouring through Wine's audio layer or a JACK bridge that the Proton container does not even ship.

PipeASIO

FL Studio PipeASIO PipeWire Audio device

One hop, native, via libpipewire-0.3 shared memory.

FL Studio ASIO (built in)

FL Studio Wine audio pipewire-pulse PipeWire Audio device

Works, but rides Wine's audio backend and the PulseAudio compatibility layer.

WineASIO (upstream)

FL Studio WineASIO libjack.so.0

Needs libjack.so.0, which is absent in the steamrt4 container, so it crashes on load.

How it compares

FL Studio's built-in ASIO does work under Wine, but it is just a stereo stream handed to Wine's audio layer. PipeASIO is a first-class node in the PipeWire graph.

Capability	PipeASIO	FL Studio ASIO	WineASIO
Loads in Proton / steamrt4	Yes	Yes	No, needs libjack
Path to PipeWire	Direct, native client	Through Wine audio	Through JACK
Routable per-channel node in the graph	Yes	No, one stream	Via JACK only
Graph clock locked to the host buffer	Yes	No	Partial
Live settings panel with a load monitor	Yes	No	No
Extra runtime dependency	None	Wine audio	libjack.so.0

What you get

A focused, modern bridge between ASIO hosts and PipeWire, with a native settings panel.

PipeWire native

Talks to libpipewire-0.3 directly through a pw_filter DSP node. No JACK, no libjack.so.0 at runtime.

Runs under Proton

Loads inside the Steam Runtime steamrt4 container that Proton uses, via a host-provided WINEDLLPATH.

Sample-accurate clock

Locks the PipeWire quantum to the host's negotiated buffer with PW_KEY_NODE_FORCE_QUANTUM for tight, glitch-free timing.

Qt6 settings panel

A native pipeasio-settings app: channels, buffer size, device routing, plus a live Monitor tab showing the connected input/output devices, quantum, rate, xruns and a DSP-load graph.

Bluetooth friendly

A follow-device-clock mode lets the target device drive the cycle, which a Bluetooth sink needs when its radio-link clock cannot be slaved. The panel names the scheduling mode each choice implies.

Live config reload

The driver re-reads its INI while running, so saving in the panel applies within about a second. No reselecting the driver or restarting the host.

The settings panel

Configure channels and routing, then watch the graph live. Shown here running under FL Studio.

PipeASIO Settings tab over FL Studio — Settings: channels, buffer, devices, follow-device clock.

PipeASIO Monitor tab over FL Studio — Monitor: live quantum, rate, DSP-load graph, xruns, and the connected devices.

PipeASIO About tab over FL Studio — About: version, project links, and Ko-fi support.

PipeASIO running under VB-Audio VBASIOTest32, a 32-bit ASIO host, via WoW64 — Experimental 32-bit support: PipeASIO driving a 32-bit ASIO host (VB-Audio VBASIOTest32) over Wine's WoW64 - same 64-bit PipeWire backend.

Quick start

x86_64 only. Building from source needs CMake 3.20+, gcc, pkg-config, the Wine SDK and the PipeWire headers, plus Qt6 Widgets for the optional settings panel. Package names differ per distro - Arch: wine libpipewire qt6-base, Fedora: wine-devel pipewire-devel qt6-qtbase-devel, Debian/Ubuntu: wine64-tools libwine-dev libpipewire-0.3-dev qt6-base-dev.

Arch Linux / CachyOS: skip the build

# driver + settings panel, from the AUR
paru -S pipeasio   # or: yay -S pipeasio
pipeasio-register

Plain Wine users are done. For Proton the system-wide install is invisible inside the container, so follow steps 1-2 (user-local) and step 4 instead. Everyone else, build from source:

1 / Build

# clone and build (Release)
git clone https://github.com/M0n7y5/pipeasio.git && cd pipeasio
cmake -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build

2 / Install

# user-local, required for Proton / Faugus / Steam
cmake --install build --prefix "$HOME/.local"

# ...or system-wide (lands in /usr/lib/wine, right for Arch and similar)
sudo cmake --install build --prefix /usr

At launch, Wine looks for the driver's Unix half only in its own library dir (or WINEDLLPATH), so the driver must land there: /usr/lib/wine on Arch, /usr/lib64/wine on Fedora, /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/wine on Debian/Ubuntu, and lib/wine inside the tree for WineHQ builds under /opt/wine-<branch>. For those, point the driver files at the right root (the tools still land under the normal prefix):

# Fedora
cmake -B build -DPIPEASIO_WINE_INSTALL_ROOT=/usr/lib64/wine
sudo cmake --install build --prefix /usr

# Debian/Ubuntu
cmake -B build -DPIPEASIO_WINE_INSTALL_ROOT=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/wine
sudo cmake --install build --prefix /usr

# WineHQ (e.g. wine-staging)
cmake -B build -DPIPEASIO_WINE_INSTALL_ROOT=/opt/wine-staging/lib/wine
sudo cmake --install build --prefix /usr

pipeasio-register compares the install root against the Wine on your PATH and warns when they mismatch; the alternative to reinstalling is WINEDLLPATH=<driver-install-root> in the host's launch environment.

3 / Register into a wineprefix

# plain Wine prefix
env WINEPREFIX="$HOME/asioapp" pipeasio-register

# Proton / Faugus / Steam prefix: through the runner, never host wine
env WINEPREFIX="$HOME/Faugus/<game>" WINE=umu-run \
    PROTONPATH="$HOME/.local/share/Steam/compatibilitytools.d/<runner>" \
    GAMEID=umu-<game> pipeasio-register

Host Wine started in a Proton prefix rewrites its registry and system32 for the host build, so pipeasio-register refuses one unless WINE names the runner's launcher. Faugus bundles umu-run at ~/.local/share/faugus-launcher/umu-run.

4 / Proton and Steam Runtime

Proton runs Wine in a container that cannot see /usr/lib/wine, so install under $HOME (above) and point Proton's Wine at the ELF half with WINEDLLPATH. In Steam, add it to the game's launch options (right-click the game > Properties > General):

WINEDLLPATH=/home/<you>/.local/lib/wine %command%

In Faugus, put it in the per-game "Launch options" environment field:

WINEDLLPATH=/home/<you>/.local/lib/wine

Use the absolute path (Faugus does not expand ~). Then pick PipeASIO as the ASIO device inside your host. The full config reference and environment overrides live in the README.

32-bit games and hosts only: Proton runs 32-bit apps through classic split WoW64 by default, which cannot load PipeASIO's experimental 32-bit front end. Enable Proton's new WoW64 mode. In Steam, add PROTON_USE_WOW64=1 alongside WINEDLLPATH in the game's launch options:

PROTON_USE_WOW64=1 WINEDLLPATH=/home/<you>/.local/lib/wine %command%

In Faugus, enable the WoW64 option in the game's settings, or add PROTON_USE_WOW64=1 to the same environment field as WINEDLLPATH. 64-bit games and hosts do not need this.

5 / Bottles

Bottles runs each bottle with its own runner, and the Flatpak sandbox sees neither /usr/lib/wine nor $HOME/.local/lib/wine. Leave the driver where it is installed, give the bottle the PE stub and a WINEDLLPATH, and register through Bottles' own launcher so the bottle's runner does it:

flatpak override --user --filesystem="$HOME/.local/lib/wine:ro" com.usebottles.bottles
flatpak override --user --filesystem=xdg-run/pipewire-0 com.usebottles.bottles
BOTTLE="$HOME/.var/app/com.usebottles.bottles/data/bottles/bottles/<name>"
CLI="flatpak run --command=bottles-cli com.usebottles.bottles"
cp "$HOME/.local/lib/wine/x86_64-windows/pipeasio64.dll" "$BOTTLE/drive_c/windows/system32/"
$CLI edit -b <name> --env-var "WINEDLLPATH=$HOME/.local/lib/wine"
$CLI shell -b <name> -i "regsvr32 /s pipeasio64.dll"

Native Bottles keeps its data under ~/.local/share/bottles/ and runs the same bottles-cli directly, without the flatpak override lines. pipeasio-register refuses a bottle for the same reason it refuses a Proton prefix. The README's Bottles section has the 32-bit step.

6 / Configure with the panel

The same install drops a native settings app, pipeasio-settings (built whenever Qt6 Widgets is present; the driver builds fine without it). Launch it to set channels, buffer size and device routing, and to watch the live Monitor. Saves apply within about a second, with no host restart.

pipeasio-settings

Configuration

A flat INI at ~/.config/pipeasio/config.ini (written by the panel). Every key also has an environment-variable override, and the defaults work out of the box.

Key	Default	What it does
`inputs` / `outputs`	2 / 2	Number of PipeWire ports the driver opens.
`buffer_size`	1024	Preferred ASIO buffer size (power of two, 16 to 8192).
`fixed_buffer_size`	on	Lock the size, or let the host change PipeWire's quantum.
`sample_rate`	follow	`0` follows the graph, a non-zero value pins the rate.
`auto_connect`	on	Auto-wire channels to a hardware device on start.
`follow_device_clock`	off	Let the target device drive the cycle, scheduled asynchronously (+1 buffer period).

Questions and troubleshooting

PipeASIO is at 1.6.0, verified with FL Studio under Proton-CachyOS and with the VB-Audio ASIO Test utility (64-bit and 32-bit). Other ASIO hosts (Reaper, Ableton Live) should work but are not yet confirmed. Reports are very welcome.

No sound, or the driver does not load under Proton?

Proton's container cannot see /usr/lib/wine. Install under $HOME and set WINEDLLPATH in the game's launch options - Steam: WINEDLLPATH=/home/<you>/.local/lib/wine %command%, Faugus: the same variable in the per-game environment field - then register in that prefix.

A 32-bit game or host does not list PipeASIO under Proton?

Proton runs 32-bit apps through classic split WoW64 by default, which cannot load the 32-bit front end. In Steam, add PROTON_USE_WOW64=1 alongside WINEDLLPATH in the game's launch options: PROTON_USE_WOW64=1 WINEDLLPATH=/home/<you>/.local/lib/wine %command%. In Faugus, enable the WoW64 option in the game's settings. The install must also include the 32-bit half (-DBUILD_WOW64_32=ON).

Registering fails with status c0000135?

Wine could not find the unified PE name. The install creates pipeasio.dll symlinks next to pipeasio64.dll for Wine 10+, so re-run cmake --install to create them, then register again.

Bluetooth headphones produce no sound?

Turn on follow device clock in the panel (or set PIPEASIO_FOLLOW_DEVICE_CLOCK=on). A Bluetooth sink's clock is the radio link and cannot always be slaved to the host, so the driver follows it instead, which also switches it to asynchronous scheduling and costs one buffer period. Some Bluetooth sinks do accept a forced quantum and work with the option off, so try it both ways.

FL Studio crackles or xruns constantly?

Turn Mix in buffer switch off in Options > Audio settings > Input / output. It makes FL Studio mix and run plugins inside the ASIO callback, which the driver delivers on the PipeWire data loop with one buffer period to return; a full mixer pass overruns that, and with follow device clock off the driver is scheduled synchronously, so the overrun stalls the graph rather than being absorbed. With it off, FL Studio mixes on its own threads and the callback only hands over ready buffers.

Does it conflict with WineASIO?

No. PipeASIO has its own CLSID and registry identity, so it installs side by side with WineASIO and hosts list them as separate drivers.

How do I select it in my DAW?

After registering, pick PipeASIO from the host's ASIO device list. In FL Studio that is Options > Audio settings > Device.

Where is it in my volume mixer?

The driver's node is a playback stream, so it appears under the host's name in pavucontrol, plasma-pa, pulsemixer and wpctl with a volume slider and mute like any application. The slider scales what the host plays, per output channel, inside the driver; inputs are not affected. WirePlumber remembers the level per host the way it does for every stream. The node is not auto-routed by WirePlumber; the auto-connect and device settings still decide where it links.