For anyone interested, here's a Microsoft Channel 9 video in which they talk about some of the x86 emulation layer internals:
Intel fires warning shots at Microsoft, says x86 emulation is a patent minefield
111–120 of 234 posts
Re: Intel fires warning shots at Microsoft, says x86 emulation is a patent minefield
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
if it's Church Turing you're arguing, then Intel surely doesn't hold the patent on the whole equivalence class...
The argument is that anything with that equivalence is a processor, which means an emulator is a processor, which means that any patent thats mentions the word "processor" (or equivalent) covers the emulator if it would cover the emulated device. The argument is not that the patent covers all processors.
Wouldn't that make it essentially a mathematical patent, which is not allowed? Or at best a software patent, which is a gray area? Patenting an equivalence class of logical operations, without specificity about their implementation, is on a lot shakier footing than patenting a hardware invention, at least in U.S. patent law. It does lead to wider potential applicability, but at the risk of weaker foundations.
Re: Intel fires warning shots at Microsoft, says x86 emulation is a patent minefield
#113Logically this implies that I can't execute some i386 binary that I possess without infringing Intel patents. I think this theory of infringement has to run into various thought-experiment problems such as : can I auto-translate that binary into some other instruction set, then execute the translated binary, without infringing Intel patents? (yes, surely) Is the translator now infringing Intel patents because it has…
If you execute your i386 binary on an Intel, AMD, or other licensed processor, then you're protected by the doctrine of exhaustion:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhaustion_of_intellectual_pro...
If you execute it in an emulator, though, all bets are off...
Re: Intel fires warning shots at Microsoft, says x86 emulation is a patent minefield
#114So Intel is so scared of little ol' ARM (compare their revenues) that it's willing to use patents to take it out of the PC market, rather than compete on technical grounds? Okay, got it. I'll make sure to account for that in my next CPU/device purchase.
Intel vs ARM revenue is not an apples-to-apples comparison, since the former makes chips and the latter only licenses designs.
Re: Intel fires warning shots at Microsoft, says x86 emulation is a patent minefield
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some devs are making quite a bit on their Patreons right now through donations. https://www.patreon.com/cemu https://www.patreon.com/Nekotekina 2 of the more well-known dev teams.
Interesting. I wonder why there is such a disparity between CEMU (building a Wii U emulator) getting $28k/mo and Nekotekina getting $1.2k/mo (building a PS3 emulator).
Easy. Breath of the Wild. I bought the game so I could emulate it on my PC and it runs almost flawlessly. Between the launch of the game and now, their monthly donations have just been going up and up and up. Just a few months after release, it runs at a higher (more consistent, anyway, because it's still capped at 30) FPS and resolution than either the Wii U or Switch could provide. The PC BotW experience is actually already the definitive experience.
It will probably stay decently high for a while too while they hammer out compatibility for other Wii U games.
See, it's still worthwhile for me to pick up an old PS4 and amass a decent library while also still being able to buy new titles, but the Wii U was an absolute dud and there is 0% incentive to buy one now that it's already been axed. Emulation will be the only saving grace for its stellar exclusive titles. And since the Switch has its own share of problems handling BotW, it's really a no-brainer to invest a little in CEMU's future. The CEMU devs are absolute demons, on par with Dolphin's team.
As for RPCS3, the PS3 has a big enough library and is cheap enough to make it worth just buying one until the devs can catch up. AFAIK there isn't a single fully working commercial game on it yet.
Re: Intel fires warning shots at Microsoft, says x86 emulation is a patent minefield
#116May someone please elaborate on the difference between what MS does and emulators on Linux like Quemu and ExaGear?
The difference, as it pertains to the patent issue, is nothing technical - it's simply that Intel feels threatened by Microsoft's emulator and not by qemu. (Though if Intel has ever redistributed qemu, there may be an additional GPL wrinkle...)
Re: Intel fires warning shots at Microsoft, says x86 emulation is a patent minefield
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
Regarding 5, no, it's five bytes (b8 01 00 00 00) for movl $1,%eax. If you actually have a 64-bit immediate, just the immediate itself would be 8 bytes, and the actual instruction is 10 bytes.
MOV RAX, 1 is seven bytes: 48 C7 C0 01 00 00 00
The parent has a good point actually, because "mov eax,1" automatically zero-extends in 64-bit mode.
It's still one byte longer than the equivalent AArch64 instruction, though.
Re: Intel fires warning shots at Microsoft, says x86 emulation is a patent minefield
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
One has to wonder why this approach hasn't been successful in litigation against game console emulator developers.
How many suits against console emulators have gone to trial? I would think nobody who makes or sells console hardware actually wants to risk such a case going to trial, because the best case is that they win and can't recover any meaningful damages, but the worst case outcome is that they establish precedent that the emulator is legal.
Well, that's exactly it. It has gone to trial before and emulator devs win every time. The precedent has already been set. That's what spawned my comment, because I don't understand the differences between x86 emulation and, say, Cell processor emulation, from a legal standpoint.
Re: Intel fires warning shots at Microsoft, says x86 emulation is a patent minefield
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some devs are making quite a bit on their Patreons right now through donations. https://www.patreon.com/cemu https://www.patreon.com/Nekotekina 2 of the more well-known dev teams.
Interesting. I wonder why there is such a disparity between CEMU (building a Wii U emulator) getting $28k/mo and Nekotekina getting $1.2k/mo (building a PS3 emulator).
Because you can play Breath of the wild in CEMU :-)
Re: Intel fires warning shots at Microsoft, says x86 emulation is a patent minefield
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
One has to wonder why this approach hasn't been successful in litigation against game console emulator developers.
Most of the classic consoles didn't have patents covering their architecture. For example, the NES had a patent covering the security chip on every game cartridge, but since the chip was a purely hardware thing that didn't affect the operation of the game software, NES emulators happily ignore the whole thing.
I was really thinking more about the modern, active emulation scene. See my other comments to your sister posts.