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Qualcomm, Microsoft Announce Snapdragon 835 PCs with Gigabit LTE

arstechnica.com

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Re: Qualcomm, Microsoft Announce Snapdragon 835 PCs with Gigabit LTE

#161

Post by TheCoreh »

wyldfire wrote: post #87
albeva wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is lunacy. It will break compatibility with nearly all software out there. From games to productivity apps. Like the stuff I actually use a PC for.

Lunacy? Nah, the vast majority of software that regular people use is massively I/O bound. For the stuff that isn't (photoshop, e.g.), it will get ported. All of those non-photoshop apps will work just fine under emulation. Chrome and Edge will be ported, they'll work just fine. I predict that this will have a negligible impact on PC games. They're CPU/memory/GPU bound and will not work well under emulation. They're…

AFAIK Photoshop uses the GPU via DirectX, so it should work fine

Re: Qualcomm, Microsoft Announce Snapdragon 835 PCs with Gigabit LTE

#162

Post by Nullabillity »

wyldfire wrote: post #26

I look forward to learning more about this product. I love that we're moving non-x86 into mainstream consumer products like this (and not limited to low-end chromebooks, e.g.). ARM SoCs lack the backward compatible x86 BIOS-style bootstrap. This is great because it's kinda crazy to think about booting into stuff like MBR, real mode, etc in 2017. But this is bad because without good standards it's really tricky to hav…

> This is great because it's kinda crazy to think about booting into stuff like MBR, real mode, etc in 2017.

This doesn't happen on UEFI computers, unless you use the CSM.

Re: Qualcomm, Microsoft Announce Snapdragon 835 PCs with Gigabit LTE

#163

Post by phoenix3200 »

bobsam wrote: post #103
phoenix3200 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcode

I think you were thinking of microarchitecture, microcode is related but probably not what parent meant. Information about Intel internal architectures is highly confidential, but there are remotely related technologies that are generic and public, for example https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Register_renaming

Nah, Tomasulo and all that jazz (microarchitecture) is about improving performance once you've got a defined instruction set.

Microcode (which is one of those highly confidential things that both Intel and AMD hold close and dear) is about doing an on-the-fly CISC to RISC transformation because you realized that the legacy x86 ISA is an absolute pain to handle (but you aren't willing to give it up).

Re: Qualcomm, Microsoft Announce Snapdragon 835 PCs with Gigabit LTE

#164

Post by Nullabillity »

suihkulokki wrote: post #128
ryukafalz wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Awful: often used to protect subsidies or other business model hijinks; can't install an alternate OS. And there's the rub. Microsoft forbids manufacturers of ARM-based Windows devices from allowing customers to disable or customize secure boot.[0] I doubt they'll change that going forward. >On an ARM system, it is forbidden to enable Custom Mode. Only Standard Mode may be enabled. [0] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-…

Shim is signed with microsoft key, does it still require custom mode for booting?

Yes. Shim requires that your kernel is also signed, and also disables support for kernel modules.

Re: Qualcomm, Microsoft Announce Snapdragon 835 PCs with Gigabit LTE

#165

Post by Nullabillity »

flavio81 wrote: post #77
albeva wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is lunacy. It will break compatibility with nearly all software out there. From games to productivity apps. Like the stuff I actually use a PC for.

Productivity apps are almost never developed in assembly language. They are developed in some high level language, so for each of such language, assuming the Windows 10 APIs are the same (which they WILL be, no need to change them): - Java Java applications will not require any recompilations, they will run immediately because they run on a JVM - C#/VB/F# Those applications still will run right away because they run…

> Java applications will not require any recompilations, they will run immediately because they run on a JVM

Except for the native libraries that they depend on.

Re: Qualcomm, Microsoft Announce Snapdragon 835 PCs with Gigabit LTE

#166

Post by [deleted] »

johnvaluk wrote: post #105
Eridrus wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is tethering too complicated for most people? Simpler tethering seems like it would be more helpful here than a new CPU architecture that also requires people to have a second SIM they need to get on their plan.

I'd love to tether, but don't because my carrier (AT&T) won't enable it for a single device, only for all accounts on my family plan. My family could easily (even innocently) use up our monthly data allotment in a day. Also, how can you limit data usage while tethering? Can a device tell if it's tethered, or does it just assume it has a normal wifi connection? Do you need to turn off automatic updates on laptops?

[deleted]

Re: Qualcomm, Microsoft Announce Snapdragon 835 PCs with Gigabit LTE

#167

Post by bobsam »

phoenix3200 wrote: post #163
bobsam wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you were thinking of microarchitecture, microcode is related but probably not what parent meant. Information about Intel internal architectures is highly confidential, but there are remotely related technologies that are generic and public, for example https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Register_renaming

Nah, Tomasulo and all that jazz (microarchitecture) is about improving performance once you've got a defined instruction set. Microcode (which is one of those highly confidential things that both Intel and AMD hold close and dear) is about doing an on-the-fly CISC to RISC transformation because you realized that the legacy x86 ISA is an absolute pain to handle (but you aren't willing to give it up).

I believe you are confusing microcode (which is mainly used for complex and slow instructions and does not need to be RISC) with micro-ops which is the Intel lingo for the internal RISC operations.

Register renaming is a key part of high performance ISA emulation. The x64 has 16 gp registers but the internal RISC normally has 80. Of course this is also a key part of OOO and alike as you mentioned.

Re: Qualcomm, Microsoft Announce Snapdragon 835 PCs with Gigabit LTE

#168

Post by megablast »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #130
microtonal wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure how this is worse than what Android or iPhone do. My apps are constantly chatting on the internet I thought that what iOS apps can do in the background is fairly limited: https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/iP... E.g., Dropbox can only synchronize the camera roll when you keep the app open or enable the location updates permission. Also, on iOS, you can disable cellular data for specifi…

This is exactly why you can't get a decent photo uploader on iOS to upload in the background. The existing ones either stop after a few because iOS puts it to sleep (or whatever the term is) or they have to use location services to stay awake longer, but that's a gross hack. I get why Apple does this. I just wish they would let me choose to have an app run as a service. Being able to sync all my photos to NextCloud w…

And it is why you get so much better battery life on the iPhone compared to an Android device.

Re: Qualcomm, Microsoft Announce Snapdragon 835 PCs with Gigabit LTE

#169

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

tw04 wrote: post #157
kevin_b_er wrote: post #11

> With a Snapdragon inside your PC, you'll no longer need Wi-Fi to fetch your latest e-mail and catch up on Twitter. Instead, you'll be able to get online wherever there's cellular connectivity. I'm not buying the optimism, especially not in the US. The cellular data is still horribly limited. In Canada it is even worse. The "unlimited" plan is surging back, but it has automatic throttling at varying points. Oh and s…

You've been able to limit data usage on Windows 10, if not from the start, shortly thereafter. "Set as metered connection" under the connection settings. You can disable telemetry at any point if you want to. The only "unwanted ad" - that everyone constantly complains about, is for onedrive. Guess what - every time I log into my mac, it asks me if I want more icloud storage. So literally the same thing. Ubuntu wasn't…

> You can disable telemetry at any point if you want to.

Isn't it more like, "You can reduce telemetry at any point if you want to, until a 'bug' in an update silently resets it."

Re: Qualcomm, Microsoft Announce Snapdragon 835 PCs with Gigabit LTE

#170

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

wolfgke wrote: post #90
leggomylibro wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well...yes, sometimes. You could run a WM in a chrome tab, but I prefer breaking out individual programs. Like, I can have KiCAD running in one tab, with the datasheets for parts I'm using in nearby tabs. Or I can just break an IDE out into its own window. It's a small screen, so having the whole browser window dedicated to the program is nice, and you can even use fullscreen mode and navigate with ctrl+[shift+]tab.…

> Like, I can have KiCAD running in one tab, with the datasheets for parts I'm using in nearby tabs. To me this rather sounds like one should use another window manager than the default one that usual GNU/Linux distributions install if one has a small screen. I'm no GNU/Linux wizard, but I somehow expect that such a window manager already exists.

I mean, there are tiling window managers that are happy to tab windows; I use i3 and do this all the time. Bonus: tiling window managers are a great use of limited screen real estate even when showing multiple windows.
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