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Temptation of the Apple: Dolphin on macOS M1

dolphin-emu.org

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Re: Temptation of the Apple: Dolphin on macOS M1

#211

Post by api »

kalleboo wrote: post #134
api wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> many of us don’t want our iPads or iPhones to be like our computers. This nails it. I want full control and the ability to run anything on my computer. I want my phone to "just work" and I never want to fuck with it or worry about what's on it. They are different devices with different roles. What I do wish for is open ARM hardware with similar performance. I am totally certain that it is coming now that Apple has…

> The M1 can be duplicated if not exceeded The obvious question is why has Qualcomm failed so hard at even keeping up with the A series? They're untouchable for radio stuff but their CPUs are very average. Samsung are also trying very hard with average results. The M1 isn't Apple's first crack at this that is some fluke which will quickly be overtaken by someone else. Everyone else has already been in a race to beat…

There hasn't been enough of a market so they have not made the investment.

Android occupies the lower-end side of the phone market, so there's less of a drive for the absolute highest performance. There has until very recently been almost zero desktop or laptop ARM market or server ARM market.

Apple also has a ridiculous amount of cash sitting around and could afford to fund R&D ahead of market demand and develop a truly killer ARM architecture. Everyone else is now behind, but what I'm saying is that there's not much in the M1 that is secret. It's just well-understood performance CPU engineering techniques deployed well on an ARM chip and the added efficiency is largely due to the lack of X86 cruft overhead and the 5nm node.

Re: Temptation of the Apple: Dolphin on macOS M1

#212

Post by _ea1k »

mumblemumble wrote: post #131
_ea1k wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IDK, AT&T used to lock out third party apps on their Android phones. It didn't go over well and was eventually reversed. I think they stayed in that state for a few years, though.

It's probably better to think of that as AT&T trying to continue the thing they were already doing with feature phones, than as Google trying to make Android as locked down as iOS is. For starters, it's something AT&T did with just the phones they were selling, not something Google did with the Android platform or Android phone makers like LG and Samsung did with their phones.

True, and more specifically it was AT&T making their early Android phones into Android iPhones. This was still pretty close to the era when the iPhone was an AT&T exclusive. It was terrible and I believe they sold pretty poorly.

My point is that the mumblemumble seemed to think that Google had no choice in the matter. I think they clearly did and for the most part clearly opted to keep the third party door open at the time.

Granted, Android was much more open back then overall.

Re: Temptation of the Apple: Dolphin on macOS M1

#213

Post by Wowfunhappy »

jeroenhd wrote: post #24

It's clear AS is a great advancement in general computing, but every piece like this reads as "the hardware is amazing, and it's totally worth it to work around these arbitrary software restrictions". This performance would've been available on iPads years ago if it wasn't for Apple's blanket ban on JIT and the likes. Apple is one of those companies whose hardware I'd love to have if it wasn't for their software and…

This article isn't about the iPad, it's about the Mac. The Mac supports JITs. The only conformance change they had to make was marking memory as either write or execute, as opposed to both at the same time.

You can execute whatever arbitrary code you want on an M1 Mac, up to and including completely custom kernels, if the user set their Mac to allow such code. It's not locked down and its not an iPad or an iPhone. I agree that the iPhone and iPad are unacceptably locked down, but the Mac is not, and there's absolutely no reason to group them together.

Re: Temptation of the Apple: Dolphin on macOS M1

#214

Post by skavi »

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #190
Synaesthesia wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that actually shows how impressive the M1 is because it hits faster CPU than the 9900k at 5ghz using only 10W-20W total. And GPU it's much faster than the Intel integrated.

As I understand it, OP is annoyed by the graph because they are comparing different things at different scale. I will use another John Deere metaphor: a Prius can cover a much longer distance on the same amount of fuel, but if I need a John Deere it's because the Prius can't do the same job and I am willing to sacrifice fuel efficiency for raw power. In other words: how much more does the i9 consumes to produce the s…

these are both general purpose CPUs. They do the same job. Maybe if you were comparing a server chip.

Re: Temptation of the Apple: Dolphin on macOS M1

#215

Post by Wowfunhappy »

wffurr wrote: post #38
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Write XOR Execute restriction discussed in the article is a security feature, and it’s greatly beneficial from a security standpoint. > Until I can run a proper version of Firefox on iPad FireFox for iOS works just fine. The Gecko vs WebKit difference doesn’t really matter in practice. If you want general purpose computing, just get a Mac. You can run Firefox and any other program you’d like. It would be great if…

There is an opt-in developer mode on iOS. You can compile and install any software you want on your own iPad; no paid Apple developer account needed. There’s even a way to get W^X memory regions on iOS by abusing ptrace: https://saagarjha.com/blog/2020/02/23/jailed-just-in-time-co... It can’t be submitted to the App Store or deployed with TestFlight, but you can build and install an app using that hack just fine on y…

The apps you install expire after a week. You need to reconnect your device to a computer at least once every seven days and reinstall the custom app. Also, you're limited to three apps at a time.

It's not actually usable for anything. It's also a completely arbitrary and needlessly-punitive restriction—if I've opted in to installing custom software, why limit me to three apps at a time, and why make them only last a week? What security benefit does that provide?

Re: Temptation of the Apple: Dolphin on macOS M1

#216

Post by xrd »

djrogers wrote: post #187
xrd wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting, but I don't want to buy apple hardware. When I buy an Apple product, I'm paying for the integration the software and all the other stuff in addition to the hardware. That's a steep tax. I just want an arm chip performance and free software on top of it

The M1 doesn't smoke Intel chips just because it's ARM - the latest chips from Broadcom and Samsung don't even come close. The M1 is good because it's good.

That's what I'm a little confused about. It isn't just because it is RISC, it's Apple magic? It seems weird that you can emulate other instruction sets with RISC underneath and get the performance they do. I assumed if you could recompile to the native instruction set you would get a really optimized app, but it seems like the interesting work always operates at a different layer. Fascinating stuff.

Re: Temptation of the Apple: Dolphin on macOS M1

#217

Post by dylan604 »

vcxy wrote: post #199
pwinnski wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Paperwhite is indeed locked down.

Figured as much. It's been in airplane mode the entire time I've owned it and I just put books on it with calibre. I guess this somehow mirrors how some people feel about their Apple devices? They don't notice it being locked down because it already does what they want? The other alternative is what I can't relate to at all: the device doesn't do what they want due to being locked down, but they're ok with the trade-…

This is what I don't get as well. The limitations of the devices are well known. Why would you drop the money on a thing that doesn't do what you want it to do? Just because someone feels a device has the ability to do something other than what it is actually doing doesn't mean the vendor has to allow it to do that thing. It was designed and tested against what the vendor wants it to do. Allowing it to do other untested thing just means more support headaches down the road.

Re: Temptation of the Apple: Dolphin on macOS M1

#218

Post by lostgame »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #27
jeroenhd wrote: post #24

It's clear AS is a great advancement in general computing, but every piece like this reads as "the hardware is amazing, and it's totally worth it to work around these arbitrary software restrictions". This performance would've been available on iPads years ago if it wasn't for Apple's blanket ban on JIT and the likes. Apple is one of those companies whose hardware I'd love to have if it wasn't for their software and…

The Write XOR Execute restriction discussed in the article is a security feature, and it’s greatly beneficial from a security standpoint. > Until I can run a proper version of Firefox on iPad FireFox for iOS works just fine. The Gecko vs WebKit difference doesn’t really matter in practice. If you want general purpose computing, just get a Mac. You can run Firefox and any other program you’d like. It would be great if…

>> FireFox for iOS works just fine. The Gecko vs WebKit difference doesn’t really matter in practice.

Yeah; sorry - it really does - I vastly prefer Gecko’s rendering engine and notice it’s considerably speedier and more responsive on my MacBook Pro side by side to the newest Safari. The app even opens faster.

Not only that, but I imagine there are a ton of web devs here in the comments who have a requirement testing on the actual FireFox, not some light skin on top of the existing WebKit engine with bookmark sync support.

FireFox for iOS is the farthest thing from ‘FireFox’. It’s in name only.

Re: Temptation of the Apple: Dolphin on macOS M1

#219

Post by Wowfunhappy »

foldr wrote: post #127
jonathanstrange wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to be contrary for being contrary, but for me it's pretty much he opposite. I've never had complaints about the software when I was an Apple customer (i.e. from 1992 to 2007) and don't have reasons that there is any particular software problem. But the hardware keeps me from buying macs. It doesn't matter how fast Apple's laptops become, as long as they don't have replaceable batteries, have insufficient RAM, and…

> do not come with glare-free screens Do you mean that you want a matte screen? If not, Mac screens are generally among the brightest on the market and have very good anti-reflective coatings. Almost any competing laptop in the same price bracket is likely to have a lower quality screen.

I can't speak for the GP, and I don't consider it a deal-breaker as they apparently do (my laptop is a Macbook Air), but yes, I really would like a matte screen! For all of Apple's engineering, matte screens are still far clearer in sunlight. The colors aren't quite as good, which is a shame, but I'll take the lack of reflections.

Re: Temptation of the Apple: Dolphin on macOS M1

#220

Post by Wowfunhappy »

djrogers wrote: post #185
xrd wrote: post #124

Where is the Linux ARM equivalent laptop? When I read about Pine laptops, it never seems like they tout the amazing performance like the M1.

> Where is the Linux ARM equivalent laptop? There isn't one. Apple's silicon team is at least 1-2 years ahead of all the other ARM vendors when looking at mobile performance, and none of those vendors are even trying to do anything in the desktop space (yet).

This is why I'm actually expecting Apple's laptops to become a fairly common choice for Linux users, once marcan's work gets further along!
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