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A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

blogs.windows.com

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Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#81

Post by sime2009 »

emilsedgh wrote: post #54
pjmlp wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only on HN bubble does it matter. Apple devices are out of budget for most countries, and they only own 10% of the worldwide market share in computing. Outside desktop, Android owns the mobile market. Really, it is just US analysts going crazy with M1.

M1 can accelerate the shift of home users to Macs. Microsoft devices are already out-fashioned by apple. The Windows UX is also subpar comparing to Apple. Now the hardware is also gonna completely fall behind. If all the young people get mac's for their home computers, will the next generations use Windows at workplace? Im talking about 10-20 years landscape for Windows and Office.

> M1 can accelerate the shift of home users to Macs.

I can't see the M1 making a lick of difference here. Home users aren't going to double their budgets to afford an Apple machine, especially one which can't even play most games.

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#82

Post by me551ah »

One really good side effect of this move is going to be that you can run Android apps with ease on Windows. I wonder if this will make people move towards apps instead of electron apps. Since android apps are made for low power devices, they would run with minimal resource consumption on laptops. They are pretty snappy too.

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#83

Post by cprecioso »

sneak wrote: post #76
qalmakka wrote: post #70

I hope that the possibility of an industry-wide switch to ARM doesn't take away the flexibility we now have with the PC. Standardized parts and a well defined firmware interface (and thus "standard" bootloaders instead of a multitude like on ARM) is what makes the PC truly special. Moving to a world where you can't install Linux or where every single machine has incompatible firmware would be disastrous, IMHO. Curren…

The xbox and the iPhone are the security models I expect on almost all mainstream computing devices soon. I estimate that it will be impossible or near impossible to execute any code that was not approved by the hardware vendor, and obtained by the hardware owner IDing themselves to the code distribution/signing service ("stores"). Anonymous software publishing or use/consumption will be relegated solely to what will…

Maybe the iPhone model? But definitely not the Xbox one. In the newest console, every part of the console is designed not to trust each other. IIRC, even the CPU instructions are encrypted. This is in order to assure game developers that their games will not be pirated -- but I suspect it might be paying quite a large performance price. I don't think Microsoft or Apple need that much distrust of their own packages in regular computing.

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#85

Post by rkangel »

codeulike wrote: post #9
emilsedgh wrote: post #7

I'm wondering what's happening at Microsoft's camp regarding M1. They are in a weird situation. They depend on AMD/Intel to deliver. This is a massive dependency for Microsoft. Are there other large corporations have this big of a dependency? I understand that Microsoft's revenue is shifting towards cloud, services, etc. But I think Windows is still "the" key to a lot of those offerings. Take a massive chunk of marke…

Businesses above a certain size overwhelmingly use pcs unless they are in specific arty sectors. M1 won't change that, or at least not rapidly. I think Microsoft have 5 or 6 different lines of business that bring in billions or more of revenue: windows, cloud, gaming, office/productivity and surface. They are the most diversified of the big players.

> M1 won't change that, or at least not rapidly.

This to me is the interesting spectator sport for M1 (I have no intention of buying Apple hardware) - what are the competition going to do in response?

Based on all the reviews and benchmarks, the new generation of Apple laptops are going to outperform anything AMD/Intel, while having twice the battery life. These are not 'small difference' only of interest to geeks, these are large user visible differences that could make everything non-Apple look inferior.

I don't see x64 suddenly getting competitive on this front any time soon, so are the 'traditional' laptop vendors (e.g. Lenovo) going to have to pivot to ARM as well? Possibly segmenting so that 'gaming' or 'workstation' are different market sectors that stay on x86. Even if they do switch there's going to be lag for development, and there's no guarantee that the software landscape will be as set up for it as on Apple.

As someone whose purchases are 'second hand thinkpad, install Linux' I'm all for it. If you pick the right distro, Linux has supported ARM well for a while.

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#86

Post by lxgr »

sneak wrote: post #76
qalmakka wrote: post #70

I hope that the possibility of an industry-wide switch to ARM doesn't take away the flexibility we now have with the PC. Standardized parts and a well defined firmware interface (and thus "standard" bootloaders instead of a multitude like on ARM) is what makes the PC truly special. Moving to a world where you can't install Linux or where every single machine has incompatible firmware would be disastrous, IMHO. Curren…

The xbox and the iPhone are the security models I expect on almost all mainstream computing devices soon. I estimate that it will be impossible or near impossible to execute any code that was not approved by the hardware vendor, and obtained by the hardware owner IDing themselves to the code distribution/signing service ("stores"). Anonymous software publishing or use/consumption will be relegated solely to what will…

> Already every mac available for purchase, even the Intel ones, requires online activation to wipe and reinstall the storage:

I was under the impression that activation can be circumvented by setting the secure boot mode to something less than "maximum security", at least on Intel Macs. Is that a different mechanism then?

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#87

Post by sneak »

cprecioso wrote: post #83
sneak wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The xbox and the iPhone are the security models I expect on almost all mainstream computing devices soon. I estimate that it will be impossible or near impossible to execute any code that was not approved by the hardware vendor, and obtained by the hardware owner IDing themselves to the code distribution/signing service ("stores"). Anonymous software publishing or use/consumption will be relegated solely to what will…

Maybe the iPhone model? But definitely not the Xbox one. In the newest console, every part of the console is designed not to trust each other. IIRC, even the CPU instructions are encrypted. This is in order to assure game developers that their games will not be pirated -- but I suspect it might be paying quite a large performance price. I don't think Microsoft or Apple need that much distrust of their own packages in…

The anti-piracy drive is the main one, IMO. The money from services far outweighs the money from the sale of the hardware, in the long run for most types of users on most devices.

It's my understanding that disabling system integrity protection (SIP) on M1 macs immediately disables its new ability to run iOS apps from the iOS App Store, for precisely this reason.

As for the hardware protections, already we have iPhones doing this with their cameras and screens and fingerprint readers and the like, ostensibly for security but who knows if it's just to kill the third party repair market.

I don't think I'm telling any tales out of school when I say that Apple would prefer nobody ever buy a formerly-broken, repaired, secondhand iPhone or iPad.

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#88

Post by ClosedGL »

Yuioup wrote: post #55

So does this mean I can run GOG games on my Raspberry PI ? (Asking a stupid question here)

If the Raspberry Pi is running Windows and the games you want to play were compiled for x86_64 or ARM, yes. The emulation will allow software that was only compiled for x86_64 to run on ARM.

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#89

Post by the-enterprise »

tokamak-teapot wrote: post #63
emilsedgh wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

M1 can accelerate the shift of home users to Macs. Microsoft devices are already out-fashioned by apple. The Windows UX is also subpar comparing to Apple. Now the hardware is also gonna completely fall behind. If all the young people get mac's for their home computers, will the next generations use Windows at workplace? Im talking about 10-20 years landscape for Windows and Office.

I haven't noticed much acknowledgement of sole traders, as they're called in the UK. Very often when I see someone who's working for themselves they have a Macbook Air. While they're more expensive to buy new than many Windows laptops, the general sentiment from those I've spoken to seems to be: * It's worth the extra money for more reliable operation and fewer worries about malware. * Buying used is much less of a l…

This same narrative has been touted for many decades now. I have heard it for 20+ years, yet the rate of windows usage in the quantifiable sense remains has varied only slightly.

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#90

Post by oblio »

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #75
oblio wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The strategic disadvantage is that as windows users move to M1 based macs, sales of PC hardware will drop, since the PC ecosystem is hobbled by a lack of deep integration, lower performance CPU's, lower profit margins, less R&D, etc. If volumes of sales drop too, it could trigger a cascade effect (fewer sales causes less R&D causes less desirable products causes fewer sales). That could kill consumer PC's entirely,…

With M1 they have a single platform though. Phone, tablet, laptop, desktop. All on Apple silicon. The iPad already supports BT keyboards. M1 already supports iPad apps. I imagine an iPad is already powerful enough to run MacOS. I imagine the next step is to unify the OS. That’s your cheap computer right there.

In order to avoid repeating myself:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25384346

Just because it could be cheap doesn't mean it will be cheap.

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