Page 5 of 8 « First 34 5 67 Last »
Reply
Thread Tools
Radu is offline Radu
2011-01-06 , 08:13
Posts: 303 | Thanked: 146 times | Joined on Aug 2009
#41
Umm, the same way as Linux runs on different OSes? You recompile the programs for whatever CPUs you need..
 
lma is offline lma
2011-01-06 , 08:18
Posts: 2,802 | Thanked: 4,491 times | Joined on Nov 2007
#42
Originally Posted by attila77 View Post
Not to mention the fact that ARM is a lot more fragmented (v5 ? v7 ? NEON ? OpenGL (ES) ?) than X86, which is mostly incremental.
x86 is just as much, if not more, fragmented. The issues are pretty much the same: "x" can refer to a number of different instruction sets, then you have a large set of SIMD extensions, FPU vs VFP, PAE, virtualisation extensions, hardware crypto and so on. ARM is also incremental, you can still run for example ARMv5 binaries on an N900. (OpenGL is an orthogonal issue)

It's just that on x86 most distros are doing a decent job picking build options that produce binaries that can run on most hardware that's still in use. The exceptions tend to be in the "squeeze every bit of performance out of Atom chips" category, such as MeeGo/x86 and Ubuntu's (now defunct) LPIA "architecture", or Gentoo's "optimise for this box and compatibility be damned" approach.
 
attila77 is offline attila77
2011-01-06 , 10:52
Posts: 3,319 | Thanked: 5,610 times | Joined on Aug 2008 @ Finland
#43
Originally Posted by lma View Post
x86 is just as much, if not more, fragmented. The issues are pretty much the same: "x" can refer to a number of different instruction sets, then you have a large set of SIMD extensions, FPU vs VFP, PAE, virtualisation extensions, hardware crypto and so on. ARM is also incremental, you can still run for example ARMv5 binaries on an N900. (OpenGL is an orthogonal issue)
The point was you don't have successor processors that don't have the extensions the previous ones had. In other words, your mainstream lowest common denominator won't change *in the future*, like it just did for ARMs with the Tegra2.

It's just that on x86 most distros are doing a decent job picking build options that produce binaries that can run on most hardware that's still in use. The exceptions tend to be in the "squeeze every bit of performance out of Atom chips" category, such as MeeGo/x86 and Ubuntu's (now defunct) LPIA "architecture", or Gentoo's "optimise for this box and compatibility be damned" approach.
A funny thing that you mention LPIA - the lesson learned there was that in Intel space, the differences are quite a bit smaller than they would be in ARM. I.e. even hard-compiling for 686 w SSE3 will cover basically everything manufactured in the last 5 years and still be reasonably close to what you get if you go the Gentoo way. ARM OTOH was booming in that period, so if you go for something that covers the same range, so somewhere between ARMv4 and ARMv5, (comparatively) you throw out a lot more performance in the name of compatibility.
__________________
Blogging about mobile linux - The Penguin Moves!
Maintainer of PyQt (see introduction and docs), AppWatch, QuickBrownFox, etc
 
johnel is offline johnel
2011-01-06 , 11:25
Posts: 999 | Thanked: 1,117 times | Joined on Dec 2009 @ earth?
#44
I think the title should have been:

Windows 8 on ARM Disgust
__________________
I like cake.
 
Kangal's Avatar
Kangal is offline Kangal
2011-01-06 , 11:29
Posts: 1,789 | Thanked: 1,699 times | Joined on Mar 2010
#45
So Windows 7 will support Windows XP (alot of software), Windows Vista (basically same software as Windows 7).

Windows 8 will support nothing.

Wow, this IS microsoft's biggest gamble in history (as Ballmer said), if this is true.
Thus begins fragmentation, for the purpose of utilizing better processors and devices with more effecient (newer) code.
 
wmarone is offline wmarone
2011-01-06 , 17:15
Posts: 1,746 | Thanked: 2,100 times | Joined on Sep 2009
#46
Originally Posted by Radu View Post
Do you guys think it will run OpenGL 1.4/2/3 like a desktop, or OpenGL ES like a phone?
It'll continue to be the outlier and run Direct X. OpenGL support will have to come from the video chip manufacturers, since not even MS was able to kill off OpenGL on Windows like they wanted to.
 
javispedro's Avatar
javispedro is offline javispedro
2011-01-06 , 17:29
Posts: 2,355 | Thanked: 5,249 times | Joined on Jan 2009 @ Barcelona
#47
Originally Posted by Radu View Post
Ok, now I am totally confused. If DosBox uses code translation, rather than interpretation, then why is it so slow? With [proper] code translation, I would expect average speeds around 1/10 of the speed of an X86 CPU at the same frequency or so. But in my observations, DosBox is much, much slower than that.
Well. "1/10 of the speed" of the stock N900's 3430 that is around the performance of a Celeron 333Mhz is indeed around a 386.
 

The Following User Says Thank You to javispedro For This Useful Post:
Radu is offline Radu
2011-01-06 , 19:43
Posts: 303 | Thanked: 146 times | Joined on Aug 2009
#48
Originally Posted by javispedro View Post
Well. "1/10 of the speed" of the stock N900's 3430 that is around the performance of a Celeron 333Mhz is indeed around a 386.
There are many games that I was able to play on my 386DX 40.
Ultima Underworld ran almost perfectly, Tie Fighter ran great, etc. Can you say the same thing about N900 + DOSBox?
 
javispedro's Avatar
javispedro is offline javispedro
2011-01-06 , 21:12
Posts: 2,355 | Thanked: 5,249 times | Joined on Jan 2009 @ Barcelona
#49
Originally Posted by Radu View Post
Ultima Underworld
I'd hardly call it "flawless" on a 386. It is the minimal requirement as printed on the box. IIRC I had to disable a lot of gfx stuff to even get it to run. Dunno about the other one.
Nevertheless, DOSBox on the N900 is hitting the same roadblocks as every other emulator on the N900: video and sound performance. So it might be a bad example.

I use DOSBox for "office" applications mostly (including win31), and the performance there is similar to a 386. Maybe worse in some places, but we're not talking about an order of magnitude. The point is that these values are imho a good insight into what you should expect for ia32 on ARM emulation performance.
Last edited by javispedro; 2011-01-06 at 21:17.
 
Radu is offline Radu
2011-01-07 , 00:58
Posts: 303 | Thanked: 146 times | Joined on Aug 2009
#50
Did you play Ultima Underworld on a 386? I played both of them, and I can tell you that they had at least 20 FPS in most of the places. Ultima Underworld 1 was released in 91 or something when very few people had a 486 (which were very, very expensive).
Also, I tried MAX, which was running OKish on a 486 @80 MHZ.
On the N900 it takes a few seconds to just draw one screen. Yes, a 486 at 80mhz is a few times more powerful than a 386, but I would still expect a frame rate of maybe 4-5fps.

Oh, and a Celeron at 330mhz/10 would probably equal the performance of a 486 @80 MHZ, considerably faster than a 386.
 
Reply
Page 5 of 8 « First 34 5 67 Last »

Tags
die ms die, microfail

« Previous Thread | Next Thread »

 
Forum Jump


All times are GMT. The time now is 01:31.

Contact Us - Home - Archive - Top