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Available Today: Windows Dev Kit 2023 a.k.a. Project Volterra

blogs.windows.com

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Re: Available Today: Windows Dev Kit 2023 a.k.a. Project Volterra

#241

Post by artificialLimbs »

smoldesu wrote: post #193
VTimofeenko wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arm64 vms seem to be working great. And pretty soon Asahi will get to the point of being completely usable as a daily driver

Why would I buy a Mac Mini for Linux when devices like this exist? The Qualcomm chip is officially supported and much cheaper than buying the Mac. Seems to be much less hassle and better value on the Microsoft side of things.

$699 for a Mini, $599 for this. The 32GB ram may be nice, but I haven't felt ram pressure on my M1 16GB even running Windows VM on Parallels once, with VSCode, Teams, ~20 tabs of Firefox, DBeaver, Outlook, and Kitty open at once.

Would like to see perf numbers. Could be an interesting box, maybe a nice home server.

Re: Available Today: Windows Dev Kit 2023 a.k.a. Project Volterra

#242

Post by wumpus »

klodolph wrote: post #11

It makes sense. The Mac Mini is what you get if you want to make a Mac or iOS app, but you want to keep your Windows or Linux system for daily use.

I have a mac mini as a desktop in my home office and actual office, multiple screens, and almost all my windows are either browsers or shell windows to my Linux dev server. I've never developed a MacOS or iOS app.

Re: Available Today: Windows Dev Kit 2023 a.k.a. Project Volterra

#243

Post by Joe_Boogz »

detaro wrote: post #201
Joe_Boogz wrote: post #197

It appears the consensus is HN is hesitant about the Windows on ARM push. I really want this to succeed. If this gains traction then we should start seeing support for windows laptops on ARM. As a dev who prefers windows but has a m1 MacBook b/c of the battery life I really hope this works out.

There are Windows ARM laptops already, and their existence does a lot to justify that hesitancy.

Previous laptops and current surface devices do support ARM, but IMO nothing MSFT has put out has been serious. (Looking at you Surface Pro X). This targeted solution correctly identifies the main problem with Windows on ARM. Lack of developer support. Outside of internal MSFT dev support no one has taken Windows/ARM support seriously. I hope these dev kits represent a wider market push that ultimately leads to better Windows laptops on ARM. (Ones that can close to gap with the current MacBook lineups).

Re: Available Today: Windows Dev Kit 2023 a.k.a. Project Volterra

#244

Post by arglebargle123 »

wmf wrote: post #194
Sakos wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a chicken or the egg dilemma. Non-Apple ARM is too slow, so nobody wants Windows ARM, and nobody wants Windows ARM, so nobody is seriously working on consumer-targeted ARM. It will probably fail because Microsoft is generally bad at managing and marketing their hardware projects and coordinating with manufacturers and retail partners. Also, yeah, the pricing and performance is abysmal. But there is some sense to…

The solution to chicken-or-egg problems is known: you spend money to just overpower the problem. But MS and Qualcomm aren't doing that; they're half-assing their ARM hardware to save a little money.

Does Qualcomm actually need to whole-ass a solution though? They're making gobs of money on mobile SoCs, any additional market for these chips is just gravy. Microsoft is the party that stands to really gain from a successful x86 alternative here but they don't seem like they're willing to pony up Apple or Google money to design their own chips yet.

Re: Available Today: Windows Dev Kit 2023 a.k.a. Project Volterra

#246

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

Kranar wrote: post #239
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>XBox is a great example of horrible mismanagement that cost Microsoft many billions of dollars Guess what, so was the first NES, and the first Play Station, the first Game Boy, etc. for their respective companies. Breaking into a new market, with a new product, in uncharted waters, with no prior experience, with no support from clueless executives who don't believe in the new product looking for any reason to stop y…

The first NES and Playstation were MASSIVE successes for their respective companies, as was the Gameboy. In fact, the NES is credited with single handedly putting an end to the video game crash of 1983. The Gameboy sold out in a matter of weeks and Nintendo managed to sell every single Gameboy that it produced for the course of its first two years. Here's an article about how massive of a success the original NES and…

>The first NES and Playstation were MASSIVE successes for their respective companies, as was the Gameboy.

I never said they weren't successful, I said they were also mismanaged during development like you said about the xbox, because management at Nintendo did not believe in the product.

>I have no idea where you got the idea that any of those products were mismanaged

Documentaries and war stories on youtube rabit holes.

>in fact those specific examples are among the most successful product launches in video game history

Today it's easy to say that with hindsight, but before they were launched, during their development, many in the company did not believe in those projects would succeed at all, leading to many internal fights and turf wars.

Also, Nintendo has a number of fuckups that bombed as well. Anyone remember the Virtualboy? Or the Wii-U? Gamecube also didn't sell too good.

The only thing that moves Nintendo merch is their exclusive IP (Zelda, Mario, Pokemon, etc), as their HW products are mediocre at best both in technical capabilities and in quality.

Re: Available Today: Windows Dev Kit 2023 a.k.a. Project Volterra

#247

Post by Funnyduck99 »

zeusk wrote: post #229
gw99 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Realistically you have to ask how many people is that now? I have never seen an ARM windows machine in the wild. In fact I barely even see any windows 11 machines.

Surface Pro X had some traction, but they share the chassis with Surface Pro 7 and 8 so you wouldn't be able to tell even if you passed by one.

No the 7 is different, but I believe the 8 and 9 look the same

Re: Available Today: Windows Dev Kit 2023 a.k.a. Project Volterra

#248

Post by wmf »

arglebargle123 wrote: post #244
wmf wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution to chicken-or-egg problems is known: you spend money to just overpower the problem. But MS and Qualcomm aren't doing that; they're half-assing their ARM hardware to save a little money.

Does Qualcomm actually need to whole-ass a solution though? They're making gobs of money on mobile SoCs, any additional market for these chips is just gravy. Microsoft is the party that stands to really gain from a successful x86 alternative here but they don't seem like they're willing to pony up Apple or Google money to design their own chips yet.

Qualcomm is fully capable of building an SoC with eight X2 or X3 cores, for example, if MS is willing to pay for it. I think it's on MS that they didn't set higher performance goals for Qualcomm. Nvidia can also design good ARM chips (see Orin) but MS went and got married to Qualcomm (never do this!) so they can't use them.

Re: Available Today: Windows Dev Kit 2023 a.k.a. Project Volterra

#249

Post by pornel »

detaro wrote: post #201
Joe_Boogz wrote: post #197

It appears the consensus is HN is hesitant about the Windows on ARM push. I really want this to succeed. If this gains traction then we should start seeing support for windows laptops on ARM. As a dev who prefers windows but has a m1 MacBook b/c of the battery life I really hope this works out.

There are Windows ARM laptops already, and their existence does a lot to justify that hesitancy.

Of course Qualcomm being chronically incapable of making fast CPUs doesn't help, but partly it's just a chicken-egg problem of lack of ARM-optimized Windows software caused by the lack of ARM Windows users.

Having a decent devkit may help bring more native ARM software, which may make these underpowered machines struggle less with speed and compatibility.

Re: Available Today: Windows Dev Kit 2023 a.k.a. Project Volterra

#250

Post by [deleted] »

progbits wrote: post #128
chocolatkey wrote: post #121

The most interesting part to me was the quote from Denuvo, presumably testing out pluton: “The Volterra devices are neat and powerful, ideal for us to test our market-leading anti-piracy and anti-cheat game security technologies. They’re also very quiet, and they just work out of the box.” – Reinhard Blaukovitsch, Managing Director of Denuvo by Irdeto

Yay, more walled gardens that will break for legitimate customers while pirated version will continue to work forever. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29149555

[deleted]
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