4 ms·

Fusion doesn’t work on M1s.

coopreme 5y ago
I’ve been looking for this for a while, not sure when or if it will get done. X86 emulation on an M1… I wonder if there will be a massive hit
- aidos 5y ago
  Been dealing with this this week. It’s about a 40x performance hit to run x86 via qemu in our estimates.
  - my123 5y ago
    Qemu isn’t representative of anything else perf-wise. You may want to use user-mode emulation too.
    - aidos 5y ago
      I don’t entirely understand your comment (actively looking for solutions for these issues so all info is good). My initial attempt at getting a running system was to install an x86 VM via qemu / utm. It worked but was about 1 /4 speed of my old MacBook. Round 2 was to an arm64 VM via qemu / utm (utm is using qemu here, but I guess it’s almost running purely on the M1?). That’s blazing fast but I don’t have everything I need compiled for it. So I’m recompiling what I can and whatever I can’t I’m then using qemu user mode within the arm VM to run the x86 binaries. The VM itself is really fast, the x86 code, obviously isn’t, but I’ve at least minimised the times I need the emulation. Not sure of a better approach, but as I say, definitely open to hearing what else I can do.
      - my123 5y ago
        You should try running an Arm64 OS and then using ExaGear (Linux VM) or just run your x86_64 app (Windows). Forget about full system emulation, especially with Qemu’s approach which doesn’t leverage the host MMU. Emulating an MMU alone is very costly perf-wise. That means that you should use an arm64 OS and then use an x86 compat layer on it. For Qemu’s user mode emulation, it doesn’t exactly provide good performance either. But it is still much better than full system emulation.
        aidos 5y ago
        Isn’t that what I’m doing? Mac OS is arm64, with an arm64 Ubuntu VM, then I’m running qemu in that for specific single x86 processes. To clarify, I’m using UTM to run the VM, so it’s using qemu - but it looks like that doesn’t give you a performance cost in itself.
        my123 5y ago
        Yes that’s what you do, you might want to look at options other than Qemu though for more performance. (I assumed FSE from your 40x worse perf figure, which is a very bad case)
kitsunesoba 5y ago
Ahh, so it’s just Parallels then. Don’t yet own an M1 Mac myself, but saw Parallels had made the jump an assumed VMWare followed.

I’ve been looking for this for a while, not sure when or if it will get done. X86 emulation on an M1… I wonder if there will be a massive hit

aidos 5y ago
Been dealing with this this week. It’s about a 40x performance hit to run x86 via qemu in our estimates.
- my123 5y ago
  Qemu isn’t representative of anything else perf-wise. You may want to use user-mode emulation too.
  - aidos 5y ago
    I don’t entirely understand your comment (actively looking for solutions for these issues so all info is good). My initial attempt at getting a running system was to install an x86 VM via qemu / utm. It worked but was about 1 /4 speed of my old MacBook. Round 2 was to an arm64 VM via qemu / utm (utm is using qemu here, but I guess it’s almost running purely on the M1?). That’s blazing fast but I don’t have everything I need compiled for it. So I’m recompiling what I can and whatever I can’t I’m then using qemu user mode within the arm VM to run the x86 binaries. The VM itself is really fast, the x86 code, obviously isn’t, but I’ve at least minimised the times I need the emulation. Not sure of a better approach, but as I say, definitely open to hearing what else I can do.
    - my123 5y ago
      You should try running an Arm64 OS and then using ExaGear (Linux VM) or just run your x86_64 app (Windows). Forget about full system emulation, especially with Qemu’s approach which doesn’t leverage the host MMU. Emulating an MMU alone is very costly perf-wise. That means that you should use an arm64 OS and then use an x86 compat layer on it. For Qemu’s user mode emulation, it doesn’t exactly provide good performance either. But it is still much better than full system emulation.
      - aidos 5y ago
        Isn’t that what I’m doing? Mac OS is arm64, with an arm64 Ubuntu VM, then I’m running qemu in that for specific single x86 processes. To clarify, I’m using UTM to run the VM, so it’s using qemu - but it looks like that doesn’t give you a performance cost in itself.
        my123 5y ago
        Yes that’s what you do, you might want to look at options other than Qemu though for more performance. (I assumed FSE from your 40x worse perf figure, which is a very bad case)

kitsunesoba 5y ago

Ahh, so it’s just Parallels then. Don’t yet own an M1 Mac myself, but saw Parallels had made the jump an assumed VMWare followed.