Having used an ARM Mac, and the pains of countless utilities and apps that are x86/x64 only, as well as the pains of virtualising x86/x64 operating systems, I’m not a fan. I can virtualise ARM just fine on x64 but not the other way around.
(Edit: I’m not referring to OS utilities and apps - Apple have done a fine job with porting the OS to ARM, but the same can’t be said for the wider ecosystem - especially FOSS and niche developer toolchains).
People probably said the same thing when Apple dropped PowerPC for x86, there's going to be an awkward transition period but when it becomes a standard you'll feel differently.
yeah, but were not talkin some niche audience like apple powerpc products. lets not pretend apple had actual marketshare.
this is messing with legacy windows products that are deeply ingrained the world over. it will be far messier than that apple crap
I had a Mac G4 just before the transition from PPC and while that was painful (since x86 emulation sucked) this is a whole different kettle of fish.
These days I’m running all sorts of VMs for research and UTM or QEMU on macOS ARM just doesn’t cut the cheese. On a laptop, sure, ARM is fine. Heck, even in a data centre it’s fine, but on workstations, ARM is too sluggish for virtualisation or anything except ARM. Not to mention the shocking state of Windows 11 on ARM and how loads of Windows components don’t actually function properly or even run. Defenders GUI doesn’t even open!
Apple yes, windows? Not so sure, in windows there's alot of x86 games and everything, people just won't drop that you know? And with Linux gaining traction in gaming community x86 going to live at least another decade, ONLY way people going to drop x86 if you can launch x86 apps on arm without terrible drop off performance, while apple have that, others don't, so until then except mobile devices only apple and niche laptops gonna be on arm, because gaming and other legacy software people not gonna drop until you can launch it on arm without terrible drops of performance
I’m guessing the ARM version will be for regular people that just go to the main websites. Maybe the x64 version will become enterprise only.
Is Microsoft working on a compatibility layer like Apple did? If no then 2024 is just another x86_64 year filled with bullshit news and hype train conductors.
There’s already a compatibility layer. Microsoft had one before Rosetta 2 was available. You can test it yourself with many windows on arm dev builds that exists, or with a Mac running windows in a VM.
Verdict; not as good as Apple (not sure how it compares with the one from Linux) but good enough. https://beebomal.pages.dev/posts/apple-s-rosetta-2-vs-windows-x86-emulation-explained/
It isn’t as good because Rosetta 2 exploits some custom features built into the their M processors. Specifically, there is a special mode that strengthens the memory model, which is critical for both performance and correctness when it comes to executing multithreaded x86 programs on ARM.
They're going to have to get the emulation working better for x86/x64 software. And they're going to have to get the driver situation sorted -- which likely means requiring ARM drivers alongside x86/x64 drivers in order to meet certification for having a Windows sticker or WHQL certification to gradually build up the list of supported hardware.
The CPU and processing power benefits would be great, but if I'm going to lose software support then I'm only going to do it for RISC V.
Yaaaah, came here to something something RISC-V ^.^ One of these days I'll have a RISC-V system. I'll have no actual use for it but I'll love it stubbornly just because :D
Anyway I'm gonna be over here daydreaming about RISC-V taking over the world instead of ARM. Bwehehehehe.
(Edited to fix my ^.^-face)
Not a chance. We have several more years of x86 dominance.
I don’t know what the author was smoking, but nobody that knows what x86 and ARM are would reasonably say x86 is anywhere near its end. I want it to be, fuck I want it to be, but I’m also not stupid enough to think it’s happening even remotely soon.
How can it be both the year of ARM and the year of the linux desktop?
Linux runs great on ARM 😉
I don’t care as long as desktops remain modular.
Nope, I'll never run windows on anything other than x86.
I'm very happy with my ARM MBP for work, but I occasionally pull up software written decades ago (either music production plugins or games typically) on windows and it still runs, some of the companies that wrote that software no longer exist, so no first party patches will be coming.
I'll never run Windows.
I'll never run
I'll never
I'll
ll'I
reven ll'I
nur reven ll'I
.swodniW nur reven ll'I
.(potksed ym rof) 68x naht rehto gnihtyna no swodniw nur reven ll'I ,epoN
.gnimoc eb lliw sehctap ytrap tsrif on os ,tsixe regnol on erawtfos taht etorw taht seinapmoc eht fo emos ,snur llits ti dna swodniw no (yllacipyt semag ro snigulp noitcudorp cisum rehtie) oga sedaced nettirw erawtfos pu llup yllanoisacco I tub ,krow rof PBM MRA ym htiw yppah yrev m'I
Fair play, if you don't need the compatibility with Windows drivers and software, there's no real reason to choose it in 2023.
For all the informed technical analysis and debates about this, the vast majority of consumers don't care about any of this stuff, and they're the ones who will decide this "year of the whatever." The worse option technically speaking has won out many times in the past.
Consumers will choose more battery life, all else being equal.
Tell me you never used Arm based system for daily drive without telling me you never used Arm based system. General software compatibility is not there and PC is not only on Windows or Mac. Sure on Mac they have enterprise support for their user. By having more power (bruteforcing) to run the emulation simply does not mean the software run flawless.
Maybe I'm a bit bias since I'm comparing it with SBCs (but thats what is affordable). As someone who have Raspberry Pi 4 and Orange Pi 5, the situation is a bit different. Raspberry Pi have a well supported system by communities and the devs, meanwhile on Orange Pi 5 some drivers are not released by the Orange Pi/left to the dust if there are no maintainer, not to mention if you want specific build of binary which not covered by repo/ppa, you have to build yourself from source, and the GPU driver situation for OPi5 which not yet have Vulkan support and sub par performance on Linux meanwhile on RPi5 they have Vulkan support 2 weeks after release.
All the top posts here are people saying it won’t happen.
I was at the store over the weekend and saw a full display of chromebooks. Someone purchased one right in front of me.
I’m sure there’s a market for both technologies to exist at the same time.
They're purchasing the OS, not the CPU/SOC architecture.
Microsoft doesn't have the same loyalty that Apple does. They can't afford to release an ARM OS that isn't already supported by all major software applications, and majority support for normal x86 apps, with assistance and roadmap to completely bridge the gap.
When the transition is seamless, or 90% seamless, the architecture won't matter, and customers won't even realize they've switched.
If they release ARM hardware that doubles battery life and performance, but doesn't offer a seamless transition, it'll flop. Just like their last attempt did.
There are tons of x86 Chromebooks still tho.
There's a lot of focus on Windows for these types of chips, but Chromebooks are probably the best use case for them right now. ChromeOS runs great on ARM and there's no legacy software to worry about, but they feel kind of slow because the ARM chips they've used have been slow. I'd love an ARM Chromebook that actually rips.
Yeah, no. Still got a huge software issue there.
I've used an ARM Mac for the past 3 years on both macOS and Linux. My trusty M1 Air has been an absolute joy to use. I would like more options for a fast, battery efficient and most importantly fanless laptop, so I'm looking forward to this.
Could we have a future where we have an arm main CPU, gaming GPU, and also an x86 card?
Lololol no.
I think this is likely. After dealing with how bad W11 is, MS realized they don't need working software or backwards compatibility to sell units.
Limping along with a wonky hinge on my 5 year old laptop waiting for these to come out. Haven't run windows for years now so I don't think I'll be missing intel much at all. Might have to do some cross compiling for deploying software to intel cloud nodes, but arm VMs for android development will speedy.
Depending on which problem you're experiencing, I've used jb weld to fix it.
Don't care what Windows does. What's going on on Linux here.
Silly bot, windows go on the walls.
The main advantage of ARM right now is that there are low power cores available. The actual instruction set is unrelated to this advantage. If Intel or AMD put more serious effort into power efficiency most of the advantages go out the window.
As for instruction set changes impacting what software you can run I think that is still a big issue. Yes porting to ARM is straitforward in more modern programming environments but most software actively developed at the moment has a lot of old cruft that won't easily port if the engineers can even be convinced to touch it. Most businesses are dependent on old software not all of which is still maintained. Most gamers are even more tied to old software that is not going to get ported and often has annoying anti-virtualization checks (see games breaking on systems with enabled intel e-cores).
I am not sure how large the modern non gaming personal pc market is (tablets, phones, works computers, and chromebooks probably took a chunk out of it) but that could be in play.
Steam. Almost all games would be impacted. On Linux we already use translation layer (Windows -> Linux), but I am not sure if it's a good idea to emulate X86_64 on top of translation layer.
Getting anti-cheat that technically already works enabled on Linux has been a lot of work and Epic still won't enable it. Piracy protection systems will also be an issue. Most EA games inspect your CPU to see if they like it on startup (I think this is using vmprotect and some non-OS x86 calls but don't quote me on that). These kinds on anti virtualization checks are really common (not just in games ProctorU and lock down browser do them too). I don't think valve running an open virtualization layer will be well received by companies and they will probably ban it from running games. MMOs (due to botting) and anything with anticheat will look particularly askance at this. I also suspect Valve won't want to try hiding the VM signatures as it borders on violating DMCA.
Newer games will probably get ported if a large part of the market buys into ARM. Unity stuff might get re-released as it is .net if the publishers can be bothered. Minecraft java edition will also always love you (the launcher might not though).
Gaming is already a solved issue. Any console manufacturer managed to get games developed regardless of processor instruction set. All it takes is investment and a market.
Xbox and PlayStation are currently x86, but they've used different processors in the past. But Nintendo manages uses arm and gets great price/performance. For the PC market Valve could use it's marketplace to make arm and Linux work for gaming. They've made good progress but they could be more aggressive. If they lowered their rates for Linux and/or arm support the gaming industry would move. They could also use the stick as well as the carrot. If they refused to list new games that don't support Linux and arm the industry would move even faster.
I don't think gamers will move the market much either way. Apple is the biggest computer manufacturer in the world and their users don't buy their products for PC gaming. I imagine the rest of the market is similar. People are buying PCs for productive web browsing and office apps. If arm Windows and Linux machines can get half the battery performance macbooks get, they slowly displace x86 in the market for new machines. But half the problem is software optimisation for battery life. Intel macbooks got better battery life, as long as you were using safari rather than a chromium browser.
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
