Wow, This is brilliant. Microsoft is making leaps and bounds improvement to keep their consumer base happy.
Almost ten years after switching to Linux, I think I might gladly use a windows machine as a second PC.
Windows 10 on ARM
191–200 of 290 posts
Re: Windows 10 on ARM
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
5. How do they solve the problem that x86 has a much stronger memory model than ARM, which makes emulation of multithreaded x86 code pretty hard without introducing a huge performance disadvantage?
Why is that? We are talking user space applications rather than drivers/etc. Properly coded applications will be using some form of sync primitives to shared data structures. So, when the emulator hits a LOCK xxx instruction it simply replaces it with a LDAXR/STLXR (load acquire exclusive, store release exclusive which have implied barriers) pair, or drops a barrier in. Generally though, you would expect that most we…
> Properly coded applications will be using some form of sync primitives to shared data structures. So, when the emulator hits a LOCK xxx instruction
This is not always true. See [1] for an example. Because of the semantics of the x86 memory model a sequentially consistent load does not generate a lock'd instruction. When such loads are translated to ARM64, you need to introduce barriers or use a ldacq instruction.
Re: Windows 10 on ARM
#193I am seriously impressed with Microsoft. I haven't used windows in years but they are releasing tons of useful things. VSCode is great on Ubuntu and every version of OS X I have run it on. Plus tons of other cool things like bash on win; etc. Also, I have a bizspark Azure subscription and it's not a perfect UX; but man does it beat AWS
I agree, what Microsoft shows us today is a real evolution of a software-engineering empire done (mostly) right. The sad fact is that this open-source love + tons of goodies for developers comes after decades of pain and suffering, which were not really "killing" Microsoft, but they were risking a lot. Now they're flying, leaving Apple far behind (Apple completely lacks a multi-tier engineering vision), but if they g…
I'm almost back in. Never thought I would say that. If I was made Wizard; I would take out a full page ad in all the big news papers--"I'm sorry." That's it.
And drop the Surface Pro down to cost. It would be the lost liter. I like that computer, but it's still a bit pricey for myself, and then there's the childhood memories I'm still nursing.
I never thought they could turn the perception of that comany around. It should be taught in every business school.
And what is it? "Just be kinda nice, and fair." Kinda honestly nice, generous, less narcisstic goes along way.
Re: Windows 10 on ARM
#194Microsoft are seriously killing it in emulation these days. First I was amazed with them getting Xbox 360 (PPC) games running at full speed or better on the Xbox One (x86) and now we have x86 on ARM. They have some wizards working on this stuff. Edit: I wonder if Dave Cutler is involved in this x86 on ARM stuff? I think he was with the Xbox 360/Xbox One.
Don't forget they also did Xbox (x86) --> Xbox 360 (PPC) emulation. It worked pretty decently well too.
Re: Windows 10 on ARM
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you mean, could you elaborate on that a bit? How is x86 "memory model stronger" and why would application code be affected?
For a short overview read: > http://preshing.com/20120930/weak-vs-strong-memory-models/ If you want more details of memory models of some CPU architectures, read > http://www.rdrop.com/users/paulmck/scalability/paper/whymb.2... Note that "x86 OOStore" is not a model that you should be concerned about (according to https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/linux.kernel/2dBrSeI... it was only used on IDT WinChip) For a p…
I've found Herb Sutter's talk on std::atomic also useful for understanding this.
The 2nd part of his talk goes into some of the differences between x86 and other architectures (about 31 min in):
https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Cpp-and-Beyond-20...
Re: Windows 10 on ARM
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
As far as I know, they don't emulate Xbox 360 games on Xbox One, they port and compile it for the new console, creating entirely new binaries. Not much emulation going on there. Correct me if I'm wrong. EDIT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Xbox_360_games_compati... "Unlike the emulation of original Xbox games on the Xbox 360, the Xbox One does not require game modification, since it emulates an exact replica o…
from your quote, it's probably neither. looks like api translation like wine does. ...which is rather easy if you wrote the original api.
The Xbox 360 used the PowerPC cpu architecture, and the Xbone is x86, so there has to be emulation or recompilation involved.
Re: Windows 10 on ARM
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where can I download it? Latency on Bluestacks is awful.
A better bluestacks alternative would be anbox.
It would be if it worked on anything except Ubuntu that is. Maybe a month ago when I tried it was different, but there was no amount of installing and tweaking I could do to get it to work on Arch.
Re: Windows 10 on ARM
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think I get it; but could you expand a bit on what you mean?
A phone form factor device that can run a full desktop OS, or something close to it. Canonical was getting close with Ubuntu Touch but that's essentially dead now. I don't want a gimped version of Windows like I'd get with Continuum, I don't want a "desktop-like" version of Android like Samsung is doing, I want a full version of Linux or Windows that can run desktop applications.
Commercially it would seem unviable.
Community ROMS? Keep an eye on Halium, unifying a common base for porting sailfish/luneos/plasma mobile/ubuntu; with anbox for Android apps.
Re: Windows 10 on ARM
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
They pressured google. That was the point. Google does not give a flying fuck about developer experience. I am not saying that is wrong or right. I am saying this was the case for Google for many years. They just didn't give fuck about the experience. But look at the timing. Everyone was nagging on google for years about slow emulator. They didn't do shit for years. Microsoft released an emulator, which was superior…
How many platforms does that Microsoft emulator work on? One? Unlike Microsoft, Google supports 3 development platforms and so their new emulator also had to support 3 platforms. Also, the new emulator was written from scratch and that takes time.
That is no excuse for letting the emulator stagnate for several years, without any kind of visible change in regards to performance.
They hire PhDs capable of sorting out the incredible whiteboard and phone CS exercises for something.
Also apparently all those Phd weren't able to do what GenyMotion guys and girls were happily developing.
Re: Windows 10 on ARM
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which is, sadly, discontinued. It's still available for download though but the latest OS is 6.0 and many versions missing.
They pressured google. That was the point. Google does not give a flying fuck about developer experience. I am not saying that is wrong or right. I am saying this was the case for Google for many years. They just didn't give fuck about the experience. But look at the timing. Everyone was nagging on google for years about slow emulator. They didn't do shit for years. Microsoft released an emulator, which was superior…
I think you are wrong on the Google front. Google did everything to please devs. Take apple for example, they won't think twice about refusing your app. Google OTOH, since the early days, lacked so much in the Appstore, that they let all sort of trash inside. They just wanted the devs more than quality.