A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM • Hacker News Board

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#201

Post by neogodless » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 2:19 PM UTC

wffurr wrote: post #199

neogodless wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

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

It's a combination of things:

* Apple has not indicated that they'll allow for third-party GPUs

* Apple has not pushed for widespread gaming compatibility

* Game developers prefer to reach the widest audience

Apple would need the M1 successors superior in gaming computation and capable of marrying up to high-performance GPUs, write the drivers necessary AND get broad adoption of Apple gaming to factor into game publishing.

This is all theoretically possible, but it didn't happen while Apple was using roughly the same high-end hardware available to PC gamers, so it's questionable (in my mind) that it'll happen when they are locking down their hardware further, and trying to use all their own hardware for gaming.

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#202

Post by yjftsjthsd-h » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 2:20 PM UTC

adrian_b wrote: post #74

est31 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It would be very nice if an open CPU ISA, which can be implemented by everyone, like RISC-V, would be more widespread. Sadly, RISC-V is not a good candidate for that. It is an excellent ISA for student implementation projects, but not for real work. RISC-V is praised only by people who have very little or no experience with different CPU ISAs and with the history of their evolution. RISC-V sucks more than even the ug…

> RISC-V is praised only by people who have very little or no experience with different CPU ISAs and with the history of their evolution.

I'm having trouble actually digging up the reference right now, but I've been told that it was specifically built out of decades of industry experience in what works in building processors/ISAs.

> RISC-V sucks more than even the ugliest ISA, x86.

How so?

> At least from the huge x86 ISA it is possible to extract a subset composed mostly of more recently introduced instructions, which can be considered as a decent ISA, except for the weird encoding, with many prefix bytes, which is needed for backward compatibility.

So, exactly like RISC-V base + extensions?

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#203

Post by als0 » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 2:22 PM UTC

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)

UEFI comes with some ARM SoCs and uptake is increasing. U-boot will still be popular on the embedded SoCs. With standards like SBSA and SBBR, you can run a generic unmodified arm64 operating system.

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#204

Post by kenjackson » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 2:25 PM UTC

the_af wrote: post #155

kenjackson wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is that for the vast number of people, PCs are already appliances. It isn’t this change that made them into appliances, it was their natural change in usage - as noted by a previous poster.

For a lot of people -- yes. But this will affect the future programmers and tinkerers, too. It's as if they are no longer wanted. "But, " you could argue, "hobbyists and enthusiasts can buy specialized hardware". Well, many if not most of the generation of enthusiasts that made the computing world of today possible started with general purpose hardware, not special hardware. They took the common hardware of their day…

You’re probably right. That said what is an example of something you can’t do note that you could do with more open HW, at a personal level. I get that distributing apps at scale isn’t doable without going through some store . But at a personal level what are the types of things that tinkerers can’t do with a Mac or Arm based PC?

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#205

Post by pjmlp » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 2:25 PM UTC

bfgoodrich wrote: post #191

pjmlp wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 App…

I bet if we do a demographic IP check that is what most HN logins come from.

I surely do, whatever Porsche and Ferrari do have very little repercussions on the automotive market, if you want a comparison.

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#206

Post by doikor » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 2:26 PM UTC

iSnow wrote: post #112

oblio wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agreed. I'd also want to add something for this: > 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. Besides the fact, which many HN users working for FAANGS or startups don't encounter, that big enterprises are both rigid and also quite locked into the Microsoft/Windows/Office mono culture, big companies tend to hav…

>Things with just 1 vendor tend to be completely ignored, if they're meant to be used throughout the company. I disagree. I work in such a company and they are always looking for one and only one vendor for their millions of PCs. It used to be Dell, now HP but they completely outsource procurement, maintenance, repairs and disposal of the computers to that one full-service provider. Apple wouldn't be considered becau…

I think what he means with "needs more than 1 vendor" is that there exist a competitor to Dell (or now HP) that provides roughly the same service they can switch to if they are not happy with their services. With Apple the only supplier is Apple. There is no other supplier you can switch to if the relationship with Apple gets to the point that you can not work with them anymore.

This ignores the operating system from the equation. Basically there is no effective replacement for Windows or macOS (or Linux). Whichever platform you pick you are stuck with due to legacy/having to retrain hundreds (if not thousands) of workers if you want to switch.

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#207

Post by bearjaws » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 2:27 PM UTC

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…

ARM instances are usually 10% cheaper than their equivalent instance.

How exactly did you achieve such a dramatic reduction in cost? The graviton instances aren't faster than the Intel/AMD options, so you need at least the same number of instances unless something else changed.

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#208

Post by cromwellian » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 2:28 PM UTC

xmodem wrote: post #194

TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, with…

Macs in general are terrible for triple-A gaming. I doubt any Mac in existence can run a Bootcamp's version of Cyberpunk 2077, except maybe a Mac Pro with a top-end GPU, or maybe an eGPU would work, assuming you could get a top-end AMD or Nvidia eGPU.

On top of that, there's a lack of raw mouse which Apple hasn't fixed despite over a decade of people begging. This really fubar's FPS games where absolute control over sensitivity, acceleration curves are crucial for mechanics (e.g. countering recoil and flick shots in Counter-Strike)

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#209

Post by throwmylifawy » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 2:31 PM UTC

klelatti wrote: post #170

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 hope that any switch to ARM retains a degree of the flexibility available with the PC but it's important to recognise that 1. x86 probably isn't going away anytime soon and 2. the PC world has come with its own set of constraints - notably being locked-in to (to all practical purposes) a duopoly of CPU manufacturers with the resultant impact on pricing and customer choice.

Yeah but the duopoly is at least committed to opensource for most of its components. I can download opensource drivers for the GPUs (provided by Intel and AMD) and network components (Intel) as well as most-if-not all of the components on my current motherboard.

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#210

Post by fartcannon » Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 2:33 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #100

fartcannon wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the kind of comment dictators love. Crushed spirits. It's a cold, emotionless, frank extrapolation to a future without hope. You've already given up. Maybe you can drag a few more down with you.

My comment didn't suggest if this future is good or bad, or if I am pleased or dismayed by the state of affairs. I stuck to the facts and my own predictions about future facts and left my emotional opinions out of it. Perhaps these sort of closed systems are crushing to you, as you have correctly assumed that they are to me. They aren't to most people: the iPhone is wildly popular. Many people will be very happy to g…

I believe most people like what they're told to like. I think a small number of taste makers can change the future drastically and you never know how your words will influence people. If you ever want it to be different, you and I and everyone who cares have to simply say that it is different.

If you want it to be different, you have to ignore them and get people jazzed about a more open future. Eventually one of us will either become famous enough for us to do something about it, or inspire someone else.