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Aside - calling it now - but the M1's x86 memory model mode is a temporary thing that'll go away in a few years along with Rosetta 2 once Apple is happy with th

by xmodem 6y ago

Aside - calling it now - but the M1's x86 memory model mode is a temporary thing that'll go away in a few years along with Rosetta 2 once Apple is happy with the level of universal binary support.

gwbas1c 6y ago
> in a few years Pure speculation: I suspect that Apple will support x86 longer than it supported PPC. Why? The macOS platform is "older" now and more popular than when PPC was around. There's more old applications laying around, unmaintained. Also, don't forget that "windows compatibility" was a huge Mac selling point when they switched to x86. So, I suspect a minimum of 8 years support, but possibly indefinitely if Windows can't make the jump to ARM. Again, pure speculation, but what will be the deciding factor is if x86 virtualization on ARM Mac ever becomes a thing. (And I hope it does!)
- xmodem 6y ago
  > I suspect that Apple will support x86 longer than it supported PPC. Totally agree - I was surprised how quickly they dropped PPC support. The install base is so much larger now, and hardware refresh cycles so much longer that it'll be necessary. Hell, they've said this transition will take 2 years - the Intel transition took them a year to go from no Intel macs to all Intel macs. > So, I suspect a minimum of 8 years support, Not gonna happen. The Apple of today does not care about old unmaintained applications and definitely does not want to make computers for people to run Windows on.
  - gwbas1c 6y ago
    > The Apple of today does not care about old unmaintained applications The Apple of today is not the Apple of tomorrow. Considering how awesome the M1 Macs sound; if Mac reaches a high marketshare, it might be required.
ant6n 6y ago
I understand M1 has a special mode that implements the x86 memory model, which aids in Emulation. Apparently qualcom doesn’t have that, so x86 on Arm Windows is slow, being littered with memory barriers. Couldn’t one just use userthreads in an emulator and ignore all these memory issues? Sure that would mean every emulated process is running on one core, but as long as blocking io is implemented properly, how bad can that be? (It would be like having a single core for the emulated process)
- sgerenser 6y ago
  It would be pretty bad. Right now even relatively recent 3D games run fine under Rosetta. I don’t think that would be the case with a single thread limit.
- xmodem 6y ago
  With sufficient memory barriers, the x86 memory model can be emulated entirely in software without having to sacrifice multithreading. I expect a year from now we will be able to run x86 Windows on our AS Macs at reasonable-ish speeds this way.

by xmodem 6y ago

Aside - calling it now - but the M1's x86 memory model mode is a temporary thing that'll go away in a few years along with Rosetta 2 once Apple is happy with the level of universal binary support.

gwbas1c 6y ago

> in a few years Pure speculation: I suspect that Apple will support x86 longer than it supported PPC. Why? The macOS platform is "older" now and more popular than when PPC was around. There's more old applications laying around, unmaintained. Also, don't forget that "windows compatibility" was a huge Mac selling point when they switched to x86. So, I suspect a minimum of 8 years support, but possibly indefinitely if Windows can't make the jump to ARM. Again, pure speculation, but what will be the deciding factor is if x86 virtualization on ARM Mac ever becomes a thing. (And I hope it does!)

xmodem 6y ago
> I suspect that Apple will support x86 longer than it supported PPC. Totally agree - I was surprised how quickly they dropped PPC support. The install base is so much larger now, and hardware refresh cycles so much longer that it'll be necessary. Hell, they've said this transition will take 2 years - the Intel transition took them a year to go from no Intel macs to all Intel macs. > So, I suspect a minimum of 8 years support, Not gonna happen. The Apple of today does not care about old unmaintained applications and definitely does not want to make computers for people to run Windows on.
- gwbas1c 6y ago
  > The Apple of today does not care about old unmaintained applications The Apple of today is not the Apple of tomorrow. Considering how awesome the M1 Macs sound; if Mac reaches a high marketshare, it might be required.

ant6n 6y ago

I understand M1 has a special mode that implements the x86 memory model, which aids in Emulation. Apparently qualcom doesn’t have that, so x86 on Arm Windows is slow, being littered with memory barriers. Couldn’t one just use userthreads in an emulator and ignore all these memory issues? Sure that would mean every emulated process is running on one core, but as long as blocking io is implemented properly, how bad can that be? (It would be like having a single core for the emulated process)

sgerenser 6y ago
It would be pretty bad. Right now even relatively recent 3D games run fine under Rosetta. I don’t think that would be the case with a single thread limit.
xmodem 6y ago
With sufficient memory barriers, the x86 memory model can be emulated entirely in software without having to sacrifice multithreading. I expect a year from now we will be able to run x86 Windows on our AS Macs at reasonable-ish speeds this way.