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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

#101

Post by PeterisP »

sneak wrote: post #87
cprecioso wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 iPhon…

"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."

I believe that this is true for the USA market but not true for many markets worldwide. From the perspective of the developing world (containing most of the users and most of the devices, but not most of the revenue), the market is very different, much less relevance of iOS/Apple Store, much higher preference for free apps instead of service subscriptions, etc.

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#102

Post by marmaduke »

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…

> Most people buying computers don't want flexibility, they want reliability

I think this is a correct statement, for the reason that what was once a enthusiast activity (using computers) becomes a necessity, and tolerance of problems reduces drastically when your life/salary depends on it working flawlessly.

Imagine saying these things about a dishwasher? Who’d care if the circuitry driving the buttons controlling the pumps etc is proprietary and e waste when it’s dead.

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#103

Post by nojito »

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…

I love comments like these.

Android phones largely out number iOS devices and phone home far more than iOS devices.

This illusion of caring about "security" or "privacy rights" that hackernews expresses never ever passes the sniff test.

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#104

Post by tsbinz »

simfoo wrote: post #5

What happened to the patent issues surrounding x86 emulation? For example I remember reading this: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/06/intel... First Apple and now Microsoft. Do they license the patents from Intel or did they expire? Or are they working around that somehow?

MS had x86 emulation for a while, but not x64 (Windows on ARM could run 32-bit binaries, but not 64-bit).

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#105

Post by bserge »

rusticpenn wrote: post #59
lars-b2018 wrote: post #41

I think the bigger story here is that computing based on ARM64 has been, and continues to, surround the traditional x86-64 territory. ARM dominates phones, and is popping up in server environments as well, where it is cheaper to run for many workloads than X86-64. We have migrated to ARM based Gravitron processors to deliver our services at my company, and we have been able to reduce our AWS EC2 costs by 40% or so, w…

I do not understand why ARM is considered lesser technology. RISC was always considered to be better then CISC in many academic circles.

Wasn't that simply because there was less software available for ARM? And the first ARM chips were quite anemic in performance.

That's not the case anymore, but the stereotype will persist for a while.

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#106

Post by swiley »

est31 wrote: post #22
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #17

Microsoft are between a rock and a hard place. They've done a very good job maintaining compatibility with windows/DOS x86 programs as hardware and the OS grows, but eventually for windows to survive and be competitive they need to ditch it and do a successful port to the next generation (presumably ARM). This will be challenging and painful for many of their existing users.

The ARM platform is currently massively held back IMO by its lack for standardization. I think there is tremendous value hidden behind a company that achieves a push for consistency. Microsoft has invested tens if not hundreds of thousands of man years in this, so who would be better qualified for this than them. RISC-V is kinda in a similar situation as ARM. If I were Microsoft, I'd be investing hard into the RISC-V…

What do you mean by "standardization?"

Do you mean device probing? There's a standard API implemented by Linux for the firmware to communicate this to the kernel, also PCI works on ARM just like x86. No one bothers with this because all of the popular ARM SoCs tend to come from organizations that are extremely hostile to their users though.

Do you mean user space ABI? GlibC on arm7 and aarch64 has had a pretty stable ABI for a while now, I can personally share binaries between all my arm machines that share an architecture (not that flinging binaries around is a good thing.)

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#107

Post by bserge »

pjmlp wrote: post #49
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…

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.

I'm pretty sure we'll see M1 copies/analogues soon enough (same design ideas, even if the processing cores are worse). That will spread around the world very fast. Kind of like AirPods.

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#108

Post by chalst »

varispeed wrote: post #98
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…

I am hoping that given how open some ARM archs are that now it will be within hobbyist reach to create even their own motherboard, send to one of the fabs and assemble then run full-fledged Windows on it. This looks like a dream come true! You could definitely do that now and run Linux, but given that some software doesn't exist on Linux, this is very exciting.

Aren't bespoke motherboards going to be rather expensive for hobbyists?

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#109

Post by PeterisP »

Tepix wrote: post #3

This makes Windows on Apple M1 devices more attractive. I wonder when Microsoft will take up Apple on their offer to create a bootable OS for their hardware.

As a user, I don't need Windows on M1 directly, but I need Windows to work in a VM under OSX just as I'm running it now on pre-M1 Macbooks.

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#110

Post by apetrovic »

londons_explore wrote: post #6
Tepix wrote: post #3

This makes Windows on Apple M1 devices more attractive. I wonder when Microsoft will take up Apple on their offer to create a bootable OS for their hardware.

If I was Microsoft, I would be very reluctant to support Windows on M1 Macs. The obvious disadvantage is the consumer will get Mac OSX for free with the hardware, and won't be too keen to pay much more to Microsoft. Apple will end up earning most of the revenue. 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 dee…

I don't think that Microsoft care that much about the one-digit percentage of their user base who will use M1 Mac. MS force is in the office (as in the place and as in the software package), and a) it's hard to fathom majority of companies all around the world ditching their PCs and buying Mac Minis and b) there is the Office package on the mac already, and Mac users are already paying for it.
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