5 ms·

How slow is this? I needed x86 windows for something just after I got my M1 MBP in 2021. So I installed a copy of windows 10. I don't recall which hypervisor

How slow is this? I needed x86 windows for something just after I got my M1 MBP in 2021. So I installed a copy of windows 10. I don't recall which hypervisor I used, but it was super slow.

wtallis 3y ago
> I don't recall which hypervisor I used, but it was super slow. You didn't. You used an emulator rather than a hypervisor, which is why it was slow. For most use cases, running x86 Windows applications is much better either under ARM Windows 11 in a VM, or with a Wine-based solution. But if you really need an x86 Windows kernel running, it's going to be slow.
- sidewndr46 3y ago
  I thought the M1 could run x86 code via some sort of layer they added?
  - LeoPanthera 3y ago
    It can run Intel Mac applications via translation, but this doesn't extend to virtual machines. Your VM host (more accurately, your emulation host) must perform the x86 emulation itself. UTM for example uses qemu for this.
    - ace2358 3y ago
      There is a way to use apples Rosetta translation layer, through the vm, to run x86 binaries on arm Linux. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization/running_intel_binaries_in_linux_vms_with_rosetta https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization/run...
      - LeoPanthera 3y ago
        That's very cool, but doesn't help you run an Intel OS in a VM under Rosetta.
        ace2358 3y ago
        Ah yes true, thank you.
top_sigrid 3y ago
I recently had to use an x86 version of Linux on my M1Pro MBP, hence using QEMU emulation instead of virtualization. The system was barely usable, although I only had basic headless server/SSH requirements. Researching a little showed that this is basically what can be expected running x86 emulation and the systems will just be wonky and slow, although it was running flawlessly, just slow. There seem to be ways to use Rosetta2 inside a VM [0] to then translate binaries but I found no official support or documentation (using UTM+QEMU that was), this would be such a cool feature, at least there are discussions about it [1,2] - [0] https://mybyways.com/blog/using-rosetta-in-a-utm-linux-vm-with-docker-on-apple-silicon https://mybyways.com/blog/using-rosetta-in-a-utm-linux-vm-wi... - [1] https://github.com/utmapp/UTM/discussions/4939 https://github.com/utmapp/UTM/discussions/4939 - [2] https://github.com/utmapp/UTM/issues/5460 https://github.com/utmapp/UTM/issues/5460
- xcv123 3y ago
  This shows how to run x86 software inside an ARM Linux VM using Rosetta https://www.nocentino.com/posts/2023-01-02-running-sql-server-apple-silicon/ https://www.nocentino.com/posts/2023-01-02-running-sql-serve...
nebula8804 3y ago
Have you tried running your app on ARM Windows 10/11 and using their translation layer? It runs so damn fast, the M1 Mac is ironically the snappiest Windows machine I've ever used ha ha. Its faster than this 2019 Core i9 Macbook Pro I got sitting here running the same Windows app.
- nick_ 3y ago
  Same here. Blown away how was Windows 11 for ARM is in a VM on on M1 Mac.
  - wyldfire 3y ago
    If you can use HVF it would be near-native speed. Just like KVM, but quite a bit simpler.
userbinator 3y ago
Windows 10 is far more bloated than XP, which was designed to run acceptably on sub-GHz processors. Windows 11 is even more so. Try these emulators of previous Windows versions running in a web browser for something that'll definitely be slower than QEMU, but are surprisingly still not unusably slow; in fact, I suspect a lot of new corporate machines with the pre-installed spyware and other background stuff will feel slower: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24955706 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24955706 On the other hand, in somewhat of a converse to your situation, I tried ARM Windows 11 in QEMU running under x86 emulation on a relatively new (2 years) machine, and it was an absolute slug. Installing took over an hour, booting to the desktop took 10-15 minutes, and right-clicking the start menu required a 10-second wait for it to appear (I dared not left-click, for the ad-filled monstrosity that summons would likely have taken far longer to appear.) Even the "modern" Task Manager took most of a minute to show up, and then continued to consume 60-70% CPU when "idle". Edit: care to give some counterarguments?

How slow is this? I needed x86 windows for something just after I got my M1 MBP in 2021. So I installed a copy of windows 10. I don't recall which hypervisor I used, but it was super slow.

wtallis 3y ago

> I don't recall which hypervisor I used, but it was super slow. You didn't. You used an emulator rather than a hypervisor, which is why it was slow. For most use cases, running x86 Windows applications is much better either under ARM Windows 11 in a VM, or with a Wine-based solution. But if you really need an x86 Windows kernel running, it's going to be slow.

sidewndr46 3y ago
I thought the M1 could run x86 code via some sort of layer they added?
- LeoPanthera 3y ago
  It can run Intel Mac applications via translation, but this doesn't extend to virtual machines. Your VM host (more accurately, your emulation host) must perform the x86 emulation itself. UTM for example uses qemu for this.
  - ace2358 3y ago
    There is a way to use apples Rosetta translation layer, through the vm, to run x86 binaries on arm Linux. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization/running_intel_binaries_in_linux_vms_with_rosetta https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization/run...
    - LeoPanthera 3y ago
      That's very cool, but doesn't help you run an Intel OS in a VM under Rosetta.
      - ace2358 3y ago
        Ah yes true, thank you.

top_sigrid 3y ago

I recently had to use an x86 version of Linux on my M1Pro MBP, hence using QEMU emulation instead of virtualization. The system was barely usable, although I only had basic headless server/SSH requirements. Researching a little showed that this is basically what can be expected running x86 emulation and the systems will just be wonky and slow, although it was running flawlessly, just slow. There seem to be ways to use Rosetta2 inside a VM [0] to then translate binaries but I found no official support or documentation (using UTM+QEMU that was), this would be such a cool feature, at least there are discussions about it [1,2] - [0] https://mybyways.com/blog/using-rosetta-in-a-utm-linux-vm-with-docker-on-apple-silicon https://mybyways.com/blog/using-rosetta-in-a-utm-linux-vm-wi... - [1] https://github.com/utmapp/UTM/discussions/4939 https://github.com/utmapp/UTM/discussions/4939 - [2] https://github.com/utmapp/UTM/issues/5460 https://github.com/utmapp/UTM/issues/5460

xcv123 3y ago
This shows how to run x86 software inside an ARM Linux VM using Rosetta https://www.nocentino.com/posts/2023-01-02-running-sql-server-apple-silicon/ https://www.nocentino.com/posts/2023-01-02-running-sql-serve...

nebula8804 3y ago

Have you tried running your app on ARM Windows 10/11 and using their translation layer? It runs so damn fast, the M1 Mac is ironically the snappiest Windows machine I've ever used ha ha. Its faster than this 2019 Core i9 Macbook Pro I got sitting here running the same Windows app.

nick_ 3y ago
Same here. Blown away how was Windows 11 for ARM is in a VM on on M1 Mac.
- wyldfire 3y ago
  If you can use HVF it would be near-native speed. Just like KVM, but quite a bit simpler.

userbinator 3y ago

Windows 10 is far more bloated than XP, which was designed to run acceptably on sub-GHz processors. Windows 11 is even more so. Try these emulators of previous Windows versions running in a web browser for something that'll definitely be slower than QEMU, but are surprisingly still not unusably slow; in fact, I suspect a lot of new corporate machines with the pre-installed spyware and other background stuff will feel slower: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24955706 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24955706 On the other hand, in somewhat of a converse to your situation, I tried ARM Windows 11 in QEMU running under x86 emulation on a relatively new (2 years) machine, and it was an absolute slug. Installing took over an hour, booting to the desktop took 10-15 minutes, and right-clicking the start menu required a 10-second wait for it to appear (I dared not left-click, for the ad-filled monstrosity that summons would likely have taken far longer to appear.) Even the "modern" Task Manager took most of a minute to show up, and then continued to consume 60-70% CPU when "idle". Edit: care to give some counterarguments?