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A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

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Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#191

Post by bfgoodrich »

pjmlp wrote: post #184
bfgoodrich wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN's "bubble"? Absurd. We are talking about the most valuable company in the world, and the M1 release was covered enthusiastically the world over. The notion that it's US-only is absolutely preposterous. Apple is a significant player in mobile in the entirety of the West. Canada, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands. And it's PC saturation is virtually the same in Canada and Europe as the US. Even in Euro…

Please list tier 2 and tier 3 countries where there is a significant market share of Apple hardware.

If there were any such thing as "tier 2 and tier 3 countries" in any broad sense, I'd say that's quite a lazy and disingenuous transition from "only on HN" and only something the US cares about, to "outside of the vast bulk of the world's economy".

Further I don't think you understand what "significant" marketshare is. Even 10% marketshare is significant, where the actions of that market player is impactful. But Apple is pushing way above that almost everywhere.

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#192

Post by sneak »

T-A wrote: post #129
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…

This is a very Apple-centric view. A reminder: https://www.statista.com/statistics/576473/united-states-qua... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_share_of_personal_compu...

It's not just Apple that's shipping AMD and Intel chips with a special security coprocessor (ME/PSP) embedded in the CPU that only boots signed, unmodifiable code: everyone in that marketshare table is doing so.

What OS does the main CPU run? Usually the one from Microsoft, the vendor with specific state-of-the-art expertise in locking down the platforms on which they operate stores (xbox).

Apple is simply ahead of the curve here; Microsoft (and the entirety of the PC market they run on) will get there soon enough.

I hope you're right and I'm totally wrong, but everything I see with regards to platform stores, DRM, and "cryptographic integrity of software" as it's termed leads me to believe that in a relatively short period of time (10 years, +/-5) basically nothing cheap and performant off the shelf will run open OSes or common software without significant difficulty.

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#193

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

simias wrote: post #126
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…

>Standardized parts and a well defined firmware interface (and thus "standard" bootloaders instead of a multitude like on ARM) That was true ~15years ago but less so today. Modern PC EUFI bootloaders are bigger and more bloated than any uboot build in existence, and things like device tree support in linux means that you can support various boards with the same kernel (including boards that don't exist yet). Sure you…

> Modern PC EUFI bootloaders are bigger and more bloated than any uboot build in existence, and things like device tree support in linux means that you can support various boards with the same kernel (including boards that don't exist yet). Sure you'll probably still need custom bootloaders for most boards, but it's not like you can swap your motherboard BIOS/UEFI chips and expect them to work either.

This feels like, at best, getting back to where PCs already were, at least as a user. If a device tree can be embedded in firmware and fed to the booting system, then that's fine, it's just a minor implementation detail. If you need to go get a file and put it on your boot media, then that's extra friction. Likewise, I don't really care what the hardware's boot firmware looks like, but if I need a different bootloader per-device then that's a problem - can you imagine if Dell laptops and HP laptops needed different GRUB builds to work?

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#194

Post by xmodem »

TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #158
whatever1 wrote: post #132

Now we need an ARM processor that can compete with M1. Seems that Apple caught everyone with the pants down in the PC industry. Microsoft SQ2 processor that ships in their $1400 Surface Pro X is almost 50% slower than M1.

It would be hard to argue that the PC world won't at least make some attempt at shifting to ARM. Apple has demonstrated far too large of a performance and power efficiency savings to not try. Of course, even if that becomes successful, x86 will be available for decades. Right now, ARM Macs are going to just be lost for any kind of gaming (except Catalyst versions of mobile games). This is probably ridiculous, but my…

> ARM Macs are going to just be lost for any kind of gaming

Every game I've tried with a Mac port runs great on the M1 under Rosetta. I've sunk many hours into Factorio and Offworld Trading Company on my M1 mini, and if I gave you the same game running side by side on an Intel mac, I'd bet you could't tell which was which without quitting and checking the system profiler.

If you meant triple-A gaming, then yeah, without a sizable increase in mac marketshare, it's probably lost for the foreseeable future.

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#195

Post by kristopolous »

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.

I'd actually see a desktop Linux or desktop Android as more realistic unless Apple stops being so intentionally hostile to their users and treat them with some dawdling infantilism. This cult game they're playing is going to eventually crash and they'll have to start designing software that's not just theatrics and showmanship

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#196

Post by bluescrn »

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…

Sadly it seems that these days any new architecture will be used as an excuse to further lock down the platform and tie it to a monopolistic App Store

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#197

Post by CyberDildonics »

pjmlp wrote: post #184
bfgoodrich wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN's "bubble"? Absurd. We are talking about the most valuable company in the world, and the M1 release was covered enthusiastically the world over. The notion that it's US-only is absolutely preposterous. Apple is a significant player in mobile in the entirety of the West. Canada, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands. And it's PC saturation is virtually the same in Canada and Europe as the US. Even in Euro…

Please list tier 2 and tier 3 countries where there is a significant market share of Apple hardware.

Go to a mall in Bangkok and you will lose count of the number of people walking around with iphones. I don't know what you consider a "tier 2 and tier 3" country, since I think you just made that up, but maybe you should travel more.

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#198

Post by neogodless »

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.

All the young people I know (OK about a dozen nieces, nephews and neighbor kids) got PC laptops. Maybe I live in a bubble where kids playing video games is more common, but it seems like getting $300-500 laptops that can play thousands of PC games (and be used for homework) is still a pretty popular option. (Some of the older youth are getting $600-1000 PC gaming laptops instead.)

> Now the hardware is also gonna completely fall behind.

This may happen. For efficiency/battery life, it already has. But a handful of synthetic benchmarks where the M1 outperforms high-end AMD desktop chips in single core seems to have overshadowed the cases where those same desktop chips (and even some comparable 15W mobile APUs) outperform the M1 in other tasks.

Or the huge segment of PC gaming.

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#199

Post by wffurr »

neogodless wrote: post #189
rusticpenn wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This is a dynamic evaluation. Right now, ARM is a far superior technology to x86 for my smartphone use cases, and x86 is a massively superior technology for my high-detail PC gaming use cases. (It's split for things like development, now that the M1 is here. Personally I get my development done with 8-core 4+ Ghz x86 chips in Windows/WSL2/Docker, but others are getting development done with Apple Silicon M1 ARM chips…

Is that latter case simply due to the availability of high performance GPU cards?

If so, as soon as someone (Apple) makes an ARM chip with sufficient PCIe lanes, then it's only a matter of drivers...

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#200

Post by n1xbuffoon »

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…

Wait so a standardized system is more flexible?

Experimenting with new ideas would be too rigid?

That seems entirely contradictory.

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