8 ms·

ARM-Based Windows 10 Portable PCs? Hell Yes

79 points by e271828 10y ago

RandomOpinion 10y ago
Interesting. I must say that I'm surprised that MS didn't give up on Continuum after Intel hosed them by cancelling their Broxton smartphone x86 chip. MS might just be throwing good money after bad. The two keys will be performance and compatibility for the x86 emulation. If they can get it to the point where it's effectively as fast as Intel's low power Atoms while still keeping broad Win32 app compatibility, then Microsoft's Continuum concept is back on track to become a game changer.
- scholia 10y ago
  > I must say that I'm surprised that MS didn't give up on Continuum after Intel hosed them by cancelling their Broxton smartphone x86 chip. MS might just be throwing good money after bad. Intel didn't hose Microsoft, it hosed Intel. Microsoft was already developing for ARM so nothing changed for Microsoft. Intel stopped developing for smartphones and tablets so something changed for Intel. Windows 10 is free on small screen devices so Microsoft didn't even lose any revenue....
  - RandomOpinion 10y ago
    >Intel didn't hose Microsoft, it hosed Intel. I'm not sure I follow your logic. Surely you'd agree that implementing Continuum running x86 apps on Microsoft's rumored Surface Phone would have been far easier if Intel hadn't cancelled Broxton and MS had been directly able to use it as the target processor?
    - scholia 10y ago
      Not at all. The apps were being developed for Windows Runtime. You shouldn't confuse that with the old Win32 API used by traditional Windows software. The only advantage of having an Intel processor would be for the old-style traditional apps, and if you allow those, you have all sorts of problems. They're not sandboxed like runtime apps, and you can't stop them from eating your battery. It's actually better to run them in an emulator.
      - RandomOpinion 10y ago
        >"The only advantage of having an Intel processor would be for the old-style traditional apps, and if you allow those, you have all sorts of problems." That's precisely what MS is allowing. From Thurott's article: "Even better, Windows 10 on ARM will supply a long-rumored feature: The ability to run 32-bit Win32/x86 desktop applications—Apple iTunes, Adobe Photoshop, Google Chrome, whatever—directly on the system, unchanged." I suspect that MS probably would have very much preferred not to have to use emulation, which is always a tricky business, for Continuum on the Surface Phone. Curbing resource intensive apps is a vastly less complex engineering problem.
        scholia 10y ago
        You appear to have overlooked the fact that OEMs can already make Intel-based smartphones and tablets, using Windows 10 for free. One smartphone example is the Asus ZenPhone, and there are plenty of tablets. How many have you bought? How many has anyone bought? > The ability to run 32-bit Win32/x86 desktop applications—Apple iTunes, Adobe Photoshop, Google Chrome, whatever—directly on the system, unchanged." True, but they're in an emulator. Pretty sure they don't have access to the whole system, which they would on a standard Windows 10 device.
        scholia 10y ago
        Extra info: there may be some confusion here because the above announcement is about tablets/2-in-1s/laptops NOT smartphones. The headline is (with my emphasis): "ARM-Based Windows 10 Portable PCs!? Hell Yes!" So if you recompile Win32 programs to run on this version of Windows 10 on ARM, they will be able to do all the (good and) bad things they can do on the x86 version....
EvanAnderson 10y ago
Presumably these will all have Secure Boot enabled with no option for the user to disable it. >sigh<
filereaper 10y ago
Here is the announcement from Microsoft: https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2016/12/07/device-innovation-opportunities-mixed-reality-gaming-cellular-pcs/ https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2016/12/07/devic...
douche 10y ago
The last time we had ARM Windows machines, we got the Surface RT. I still have one of these that I occasionally bring to meetings to fool around and maybe put a ticket in with. It is not a great piece of equipment...
- mark-r 10y ago
  It generally takes Microsoft 3 tries to get something right. Unfortunately their next ARM device will only be #2.
  - quink 10y ago
    I'd say Windows CE on ARM devices was attempt #1. Lumia and Surface 1 and 2 were #2.
    - WorldMaker 10y ago
      1. Windows CE on ARM 2. Xbox 360 3. Windows Phone 7 (on leftover chunks of Windows CE) on ARM 4. Windows Phone 8/Windows RT 5. Windows 10 on ARM So, by my count, this might be iteration 6? (Though maybe more like 5 Part 2.)
      - mark-r 10y ago
        I'm thinking specifically of the Windows desktop experience on ARM, so things like phones and Xbox don't count. But I didn't realize the Surface went through 2 iterations of ARM, so maybe this counts as #3? Or maybe it doesn't count at all since it was a watered-down version of Windows that couldn't run most apps.
      - atesti 10y ago
        Xbox 360 was PowerPC, not ARM
- cptskippy 10y ago
  Are you speaking just of the software or does the hardware have issues as well?
RachelF 10y ago
We'll see. Full Windows x86 emulation will likely be slow. It will be a harder sell the second time around, too as Windows RT burned a lot of people, and fewer trust Microsoft than before.
- MekaiGS 10y ago
  This is not full x86 emulation, it only emulates x86 when you are running x86 apps. Windows/Office and other apps are running in native mode.
- glhaynes 10y ago
  Nearly all of their target market would be unfamiliar with Windows RT.
- mikhailt 10y ago
  It's native ARM version of Windows 10 and for UWP apps, as well as any x86 apps recompiled for ARM. The rest of the classic x86 32-bit apps will run via the emulation, like Rosetta on macOS in the past when running PPC apps on Intel. That means unlike WinRT, almost all of your apps will be usable, no confusion about it like what befell the WindowsRT.
pwnna 10y ago
Interesting development. Could this be a good thing that encourages OEM to standardize on something like the IBM-like PC that we have for x86 systems so we don't have to deal with each individual boards in Android or the traditional GNU/Linuxes? Furthermore, if the x86 emulation turns out to be as fast as they promised and demo'ed, will this kind of technology be developed for desktop linux? Is it even necessary as most apps tend to be open source and can recompile already?
- filereaper 10y ago
  I'm actually more interested in getting a standard ARMv8 laptop rather than a tablet to run Linux on it. Windows 10 being an entry point to get these machines into the market is perfectly fine.
- mirasmithy 10y ago
  +1 A major issue with ARM boards is you can't expect [name-your-arm-os] to run on all ARM boards. Each implements it's own boot sequence and drivers aren't the best. Something like this might push for a unified spec.
  - mrpippy 10y ago
    UEFI is the boot environment for Windows on ARM
loeg 10y ago
> First, Qualcomm’s System on a Chip (Soc) designs have improved so dramatically in the past four years that their performance rivals that of mainstream Intel Core chipsets for PCs. Hah! > And even better, Microsoft has developed an emulation technology that allows Win32 applications to launch and run unmodified on ARM-based PCs. And to do so with what I am assured is excellent performance. I don't believe it.
- cm2187 10y ago
  Not many CPU bound apps running on an ordinary laptop.
- taspeotis 10y ago
  > I don't believe it. My understanding is Microsoft actually has some pretty cool and fast tech for this already: the Xbox 360 emulation on Xbox One.
  - loeg 10y ago
    No matter how good it gets, binary recompilation will always be slower than native code. And when the host CPU is already a very slow model like Qualcomm ARM, those effects stack.
  - pritambaral 10y ago
    That was PPC-on-amd64 emulation. I don't know much about hardware-assisted virtualization, but I guess that was easier than x86-on-ARM64?
- mtgx 10y ago
  Why are you laughing? Last's year's Apple chip was as powerful as the chip in the Macbook Air: https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/221881-apples-a9x-goes-head-to-head-against-intels-core-m-in-arm-x86-grudge-match https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/221881-apples-a9x-goes-he... This year's chip is even more powerful: http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/16/12939310/iphone-7-a10-fusion-processor-apple-intel-future http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/16/12939310/iphone-7-a10-fusi... I'm also a bit skeptical about the emulation part, but if it's less than 10% overhead out of the gate, it should be okay, and I assume Microsoft could continue to optimize it over the years.
btmiller 10y ago
If this works out, this is the final piece of the puzzle for Apple moving to ARM chips in their Macs. Windows emulation is too big of a feature to leave out. Then again, who knows with Apple of late. Either way, very interesting news!
dbcooper 10y ago
Qualcomm also announced a 48-core ARM server SoC today, which is based on "Falcor" cores, and is to be manufactured on a 10nm node. http://semiaccurate.com/2016/12/07/qualcomm-announces-10nm-centriq-2400-arm-server-soc/ http://semiaccurate.com/2016/12/07/qualcomm-announces-10nm-c...
Jedd 10y ago
> ... as such, it will be late 2017 or sometime next year ... Well, that could be clearer. > Perhaps Surface phone isn’t a phone in the traditional sense. Perhaps it is, instead, just a new kind of PC with a small—for PCs; I’m hearing 6-inches—screen. This sounds a lot like what others have been doing / try to do for a while now with Android devices (albeit not hugely successfully ... yet). So it's not surprisingly that Microsoft is considering jumping on that bandwagon.
cm2187 10y ago
I'd assume the .net framework would run natively
- protomyth 10y ago
  Doesn't seem like any reason that it wouldn't be native.
  - cm2187 10y ago
    Agree. But it is a big deal. If the CLR is ported to ARM then any c#/vb code will run very efficiently on ARM without even needing to be recompiled or making use of the x86 emulation. That's a big deal for a corporate environment.
    - protomyth 10y ago
      I just have a tough time imagining that Microsoft wouldn't (or hasn't given RT) the CLR to ARM. It would be news if it wasn't ported.
      - xorxornop 10y ago
        It has been, I'm running one such example on my Raspberry Pi 2 right now. It's just a DynDNS updater. Written in UWP. I have tried it in CLR and native (machine code via .NET Native) modes. Both work great. I'm pretty sure my Pi runs on an ARM chip, anyway
skrebbel 10y ago
Download my great free Windows program now! Please choose: EXE installer 32-bit x86 64-bit x64 32-bit ARM 64-bit ARM MSI installer 32-bit x86 64-bit x64 32-bit ARM 64-bit ARM Portable Zip 32-bit x86 64-bit x64 32-bit ARM 64-bit ARM (Download my great free macOS program now! Click here ) This is already a usability problem, and adding 2 more target chipsets makes it worse. Given both bandwidth and smart programmers, couldn't Microsoft make an installer creator that works on all the above architectures and installs the right version of the program? No problem shipping 4x too much code right - most installers that are big at all, are big because of assets, not code size. I guess politics vs the Windows Store team would prevent this from happening within Microsoft, but given how awful the Windows Store is and how it still can't be used to download and install boring oldschool desktop applications, this is a usability nightmare waiting to happen - despite the obvious benefits of not being locked into a single chipset architecture anymore.
- Mao_Zedang 10y ago
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/store/apps/windows https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/store/apps/windows "it still can't be used to download and install boring oldschool desktop applications" it can. https://msdn.microsoft.com/windows/uwp/porting/desktop-to-uwp-root https://msdn.microsoft.com/windows/uwp/porting/desktop-to-uw...
  - skrebbel 10y ago
    Are you sure? Afaik you can convert most apps to UWP apps but they don't have the same rights and capabilities as the oldschool desktop apps. I don't exactly know what the limits are but I doubt stuff like Wireshark or f.lux could run as an UWP app.
    - felixrieseberg 10y ago
      You can now publish win32 binaries to the Windows Store, which run in a virtualized environment. They get the same rights as normal win32 exes because they _are_ exes.
Eridrus 10y ago
Even assuming they can hit performance targets with this, which sounds hard but not impossible, what's the major use case? Continuum? Windows laptops with better battery life? Most win32 software is going to suck on a touch screen, so I'm not really seeing this help them in mobile.
- ZenoArrow 10y ago
  >"Windows laptops with better battery life?" Not going to happen. There's a performance hit that almost certainly comes along with emulation. Battery life is likely to get worse with x86 Windows emulation on ARM. Also, by the time Intel stopped pushing x86 in mobile devices they were producing chips that were competitive with ARM chips when it came to power draw.
  - jabjoe 10y ago
    > Also, by the time Intel stopped pushing x86 in mobile devices they were producing chips that were competitive with ARM chips when it came to power draw. People forgot this. It was price that killed Intel in this space. They couldn't get the price down to ARM chips. They subsidized hard to get even close, but it ended up just costing them too much just to have even a presence.
  - Eridrus 10y ago
    Does your comment still stand for the cheap end of things? If Intel struggles to compete on price, then low end ARM may have better perf characteristics. From what I read, doing binary translation from x86 to ARM is actually not that hard since ARM has many more registers, so I'm sort of hopeful they get decent perf from it.
    - ZenoArrow 10y ago
      > "If Intel struggles to compete on price, then low end ARM may have better perf characteristics." I'd suggest it has more to do with the size of the silicon wafer rather than the performance.
  - 10y ago
dragonbonheur 10y ago
An interesting development, but it is a shame that this will require a new chip from Qualcomm, while there have been full desktop Linux distributions for several ARM chips and boards for quite a while now. Microsoft's software is really full of bloat.
- xorxornop 10y ago
  It probably doesn't require the chip... I'm thinking they are using some form of hardware accelerated binary translation. Re: Windows on ARM, I run Windows IoT on a Raspberry Pi. Shows they have a good lot of it running, eg the full UWP UI system, kernel etc. Imagine it's the translation part that's deleted things.
cm2187 10y ago
I tried a surface pro as a replacement for an ipad, but I found it to be extremely frustrating. Beyond the bugs and blue screens, I found the battery life to be way shorter, and the surface to take a long time to wake up, not an instantaneous experience like an ipad, where you can forget it in a bag for 10h and use it straight away. More like a laptop. Would an ARM based windows device achieve an ipad style battery life and instantaneous experience? Or is it more linked to the architecture of the system?
- dcw303 10y ago
  which version of Surface Pro? 2 / 3 / 4 ?
  - cm2187 10y ago
    4
    - dcw303 10y ago
      Thanks. I'm thinking of replacing my MBP for a Surface Pro 4. I'd heard the battery life wasn't great but didn't know about it taking a long time to wake up.
      - cm2187 10y ago
        Well, compared to a smartphone or an ipad. It's a normal wake up time for a laptop.
      - subspaceman 10y ago
        This is exactly what I just did and it's been great so far. The battery life isn't spectacular for todays standards, but it lasts longer than my 2012 rMBP 15" does now. Quick, light (way lighter than the MBP) and has been fun to draw on. Getting use to windows again takes a bit of time, but with the new Bash integration, my workflow is just about the same.
- notimetorelax 10y ago
starik36 10y ago
I am skeptical that the emulation can achieve reasonable speeds. I would like to see first that Qualcomm’s chips are even up to par with Intel's. Secondly, can a heavy duty Win32 app like iTunes or TurboTax or Photoshop could run reasonably fast via emulation, something that has historically been a problem. I'll believe it when I see some benchmarks.
- mtgx 10y ago
  They are, at least with the mainstream Macbook Air-type/older Mac Pro type chips, not the latest and most expensive Core i7's, obviously. But they don't need to reach that high, either. Even taking over the Celeron/Pentium market from Intel would probably make Qualcomm bigger than AMD is in the PC chip market. https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/221881-apples-a9x-goes-head-to-head-against-intels-core-m-in-arm-x86-grudge-match https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/221881-apples-a9x-goes-he... http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/16/12939310/iphone-7-a10-fusion-processor-apple-intel-future http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/16/12939310/iphone-7-a10-fusi...
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
kalleboo 10y ago
People have been speculating for the past year if Apple could switch their Macs to ARM, and keep compatibility with a emulation layer like they did during the PowerPC->Intel transition. I guess Microsoft beat them to the point... Will be interesting to see how well it performs in real life.
- eikenberry 10y ago
  I think Linux beat them both to the point... many years ago.
  - millstone 10y ago
    No way. Linux has never had any sort of cross-architecture binary compatibility story. Certainly nothing that worked as well as Apple's Mixed Mode Manager or Rosetta.
    - Jedd 10y ago
      > Linux has never had any sort of cross-architecture binary compatibility story. You mean like qemu? > Certainly nothing that worked as well as Apple's Mixed Mode Manager or Rosetta. I think the parent was alluding to the fact that with GNU/Linux and/or free software in general there isn't the same kinds of requirement to get binary lumps of code running on alien architecture.
      - millstone 10y ago
        > You mean like qemu? No. > there isn't the same kinds of requirement to get binary lumps of code running on alien architecture. Are you implying that this has something to do with the software being free? In 2006, I used Time Machine to back up my G5, and then restore it onto my new Intel Core Duo (both iMacs!). The migrated apps just worked, regardless of whether they were free software or binary blobs. This has nothing to do with software freedom. It's about having a good user experience: when your users migrate from an old machine to a new one, it just works, period. Linux doesn't have this requirement because it prioritizes developers over end users. I'm not bashing Linux here, I use it often and appreciate it for what it is. But an honest assessment tells us it has never come close to Apple-level smoothness in architectural transitions.
spikengineer 10y ago
Photoshop x86 running on Windows 10 ARM https://www.neowin.net/news/watch-microsoft-shows-off-photoshop-running-on-a-windows-10-device-with-a-snapdragon-820 https://www.neowin.net/news/watch-microsoft-shows-off-photos...
9erdelta 10y ago
For me it is more like hell no. I am having a hard time getting over stuff like, you know, waking up one day and Chrome is no longer my default browser.
- xorxornop 10y ago
  How the hell does this happen. Seriously, I've ran Windows for like over 10 years now. It's happened a grand total of 3 times, ever, and 2 of those were back in the Windows 9x days, and the last one was between W8 and 8.1 (a major service pack). Never since then. Oh, I'm even in the fast update pool. What do you people _do_?
  - 9erdelta 10y ago
    It happens after every Windows update. I'll log in, and have a message about the update, then see that Edge is my browser and VLC is no longer my default music player. Maybe it is because I have so many of the "features" of Windows 10 turned off? I dunno, but some people seem to not have the same experience.
setq 10y ago
Call me cynical but this feels like another platform to be abandoned when no one buys them as per the old Windows ARM tablets. Those who bought them abandoned quickly. There will probably be a crazy restriction like App Store only. Oh and the whole MSI 32/64/ARM pile of crap as well.
- cm2187 10y ago
  Well, that would be repeating the Surface RT failure. I can only assume they are not going to make the same mistake twice, so I doubt it will be locked down like Windows RT was.

79 points by e271828 10y ago

Interesting. I must say that I'm surprised that MS didn't give up on Continuum after Intel hosed them by cancelling their Broxton smartphone x86 chip. MS might just be throwing good money after bad. The two keys will be performance and compatibility for the x86 emulation. If they can get it to the point where it's effectively as fast as Intel's low power Atoms while still keeping broad Win32 app compatibility, then Microsoft's Continuum concept is back on track to become a game changer.

scholia 10y ago
> I must say that I'm surprised that MS didn't give up on Continuum after Intel hosed them by cancelling their Broxton smartphone x86 chip. MS might just be throwing good money after bad. Intel didn't hose Microsoft, it hosed Intel. Microsoft was already developing for ARM so nothing changed for Microsoft. Intel stopped developing for smartphones and tablets so something changed for Intel. Windows 10 is free on small screen devices so Microsoft didn't even lose any revenue....
- RandomOpinion 10y ago
  >Intel didn't hose Microsoft, it hosed Intel. I'm not sure I follow your logic. Surely you'd agree that implementing Continuum running x86 apps on Microsoft's rumored Surface Phone would have been far easier if Intel hadn't cancelled Broxton and MS had been directly able to use it as the target processor?
  - scholia 10y ago
    Not at all. The apps were being developed for Windows Runtime. You shouldn't confuse that with the old Win32 API used by traditional Windows software. The only advantage of having an Intel processor would be for the old-style traditional apps, and if you allow those, you have all sorts of problems. They're not sandboxed like runtime apps, and you can't stop them from eating your battery. It's actually better to run them in an emulator.
    - RandomOpinion 10y ago
      >"The only advantage of having an Intel processor would be for the old-style traditional apps, and if you allow those, you have all sorts of problems." That's precisely what MS is allowing. From Thurott's article: "Even better, Windows 10 on ARM will supply a long-rumored feature: The ability to run 32-bit Win32/x86 desktop applications—Apple iTunes, Adobe Photoshop, Google Chrome, whatever—directly on the system, unchanged." I suspect that MS probably would have very much preferred not to have to use emulation, which is always a tricky business, for Continuum on the Surface Phone. Curbing resource intensive apps is a vastly less complex engineering problem.
      - scholia 10y ago
        You appear to have overlooked the fact that OEMs can already make Intel-based smartphones and tablets, using Windows 10 for free. One smartphone example is the Asus ZenPhone, and there are plenty of tablets. How many have you bought? How many has anyone bought? > The ability to run 32-bit Win32/x86 desktop applications—Apple iTunes, Adobe Photoshop, Google Chrome, whatever—directly on the system, unchanged." True, but they're in an emulator. Pretty sure they don't have access to the whole system, which they would on a standard Windows 10 device.
        scholia 10y ago
        Extra info: there may be some confusion here because the above announcement is about tablets/2-in-1s/laptops NOT smartphones. The headline is (with my emphasis): "ARM-Based Windows 10 Portable PCs!? Hell Yes!" So if you recompile Win32 programs to run on this version of Windows 10 on ARM, they will be able to do all the (good and) bad things they can do on the x86 version....

EvanAnderson 10y ago

Presumably these will all have Secure Boot enabled with no option for the user to disable it. >sigh<

filereaper 10y ago

Here is the announcement from Microsoft: https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2016/12/07/device-innovation-opportunities-mixed-reality-gaming-cellular-pcs/ https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2016/12/07/devic...

douche 10y ago

The last time we had ARM Windows machines, we got the Surface RT. I still have one of these that I occasionally bring to meetings to fool around and maybe put a ticket in with. It is not a great piece of equipment...

mark-r 10y ago
It generally takes Microsoft 3 tries to get something right. Unfortunately their next ARM device will only be #2.
- quink 10y ago
  I'd say Windows CE on ARM devices was attempt #1. Lumia and Surface 1 and 2 were #2.
  - WorldMaker 10y ago
    1. Windows CE on ARM 2. Xbox 360 3. Windows Phone 7 (on leftover chunks of Windows CE) on ARM 4. Windows Phone 8/Windows RT 5. Windows 10 on ARM So, by my count, this might be iteration 6? (Though maybe more like 5 Part 2.)
    - mark-r 10y ago
      I'm thinking specifically of the Windows desktop experience on ARM, so things like phones and Xbox don't count. But I didn't realize the Surface went through 2 iterations of ARM, so maybe this counts as #3? Or maybe it doesn't count at all since it was a watered-down version of Windows that couldn't run most apps.
    - atesti 10y ago
      Xbox 360 was PowerPC, not ARM
cptskippy 10y ago
Are you speaking just of the software or does the hardware have issues as well?

RachelF 10y ago

We'll see. Full Windows x86 emulation will likely be slow. It will be a harder sell the second time around, too as Windows RT burned a lot of people, and fewer trust Microsoft than before.

MekaiGS 10y ago
This is not full x86 emulation, it only emulates x86 when you are running x86 apps. Windows/Office and other apps are running in native mode.
glhaynes 10y ago
Nearly all of their target market would be unfamiliar with Windows RT.
mikhailt 10y ago
It's native ARM version of Windows 10 and for UWP apps, as well as any x86 apps recompiled for ARM. The rest of the classic x86 32-bit apps will run via the emulation, like Rosetta on macOS in the past when running PPC apps on Intel. That means unlike WinRT, almost all of your apps will be usable, no confusion about it like what befell the WindowsRT.

pwnna 10y ago

Interesting development. Could this be a good thing that encourages OEM to standardize on something like the IBM-like PC that we have for x86 systems so we don't have to deal with each individual boards in Android or the traditional GNU/Linuxes? Furthermore, if the x86 emulation turns out to be as fast as they promised and demo'ed, will this kind of technology be developed for desktop linux? Is it even necessary as most apps tend to be open source and can recompile already?

filereaper 10y ago
I'm actually more interested in getting a standard ARMv8 laptop rather than a tablet to run Linux on it. Windows 10 being an entry point to get these machines into the market is perfectly fine.
mirasmithy 10y ago
+1 A major issue with ARM boards is you can't expect [name-your-arm-os] to run on all ARM boards. Each implements it's own boot sequence and drivers aren't the best. Something like this might push for a unified spec.
- mrpippy 10y ago
  UEFI is the boot environment for Windows on ARM

loeg 10y ago

> First, Qualcomm’s System on a Chip (Soc) designs have improved so dramatically in the past four years that their performance rivals that of mainstream Intel Core chipsets for PCs. Hah! > And even better, Microsoft has developed an emulation technology that allows Win32 applications to launch and run unmodified on ARM-based PCs. And to do so with what I am assured is excellent performance. I don't believe it.

cm2187 10y ago
Not many CPU bound apps running on an ordinary laptop.
taspeotis 10y ago
> I don't believe it. My understanding is Microsoft actually has some pretty cool and fast tech for this already: the Xbox 360 emulation on Xbox One.
- loeg 10y ago
  No matter how good it gets, binary recompilation will always be slower than native code. And when the host CPU is already a very slow model like Qualcomm ARM, those effects stack.
- pritambaral 10y ago
  That was PPC-on-amd64 emulation. I don't know much about hardware-assisted virtualization, but I guess that was easier than x86-on-ARM64?
mtgx 10y ago
Why are you laughing? Last's year's Apple chip was as powerful as the chip in the Macbook Air: https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/221881-apples-a9x-goes-head-to-head-against-intels-core-m-in-arm-x86-grudge-match https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/221881-apples-a9x-goes-he... This year's chip is even more powerful: http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/16/12939310/iphone-7-a10-fusion-processor-apple-intel-future http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/16/12939310/iphone-7-a10-fusi... I'm also a bit skeptical about the emulation part, but if it's less than 10% overhead out of the gate, it should be okay, and I assume Microsoft could continue to optimize it over the years.

btmiller 10y ago

If this works out, this is the final piece of the puzzle for Apple moving to ARM chips in their Macs. Windows emulation is too big of a feature to leave out. Then again, who knows with Apple of late. Either way, very interesting news!

dbcooper 10y ago

Qualcomm also announced a 48-core ARM server SoC today, which is based on "Falcor" cores, and is to be manufactured on a 10nm node. http://semiaccurate.com/2016/12/07/qualcomm-announces-10nm-centriq-2400-arm-server-soc/ http://semiaccurate.com/2016/12/07/qualcomm-announces-10nm-c...

Jedd 10y ago

> ... as such, it will be late 2017 or sometime next year ... Well, that could be clearer. > Perhaps Surface phone isn’t a phone in the traditional sense. Perhaps it is, instead, just a new kind of PC with a small—for PCs; I’m hearing 6-inches—screen. This sounds a lot like what others have been doing / try to do for a while now with Android devices (albeit not hugely successfully ... yet). So it's not surprisingly that Microsoft is considering jumping on that bandwagon.

cm2187 10y ago

I'd assume the .net framework would run natively

protomyth 10y ago
Doesn't seem like any reason that it wouldn't be native.
- cm2187 10y ago
  Agree. But it is a big deal. If the CLR is ported to ARM then any c#/vb code will run very efficiently on ARM without even needing to be recompiled or making use of the x86 emulation. That's a big deal for a corporate environment.
  - protomyth 10y ago
    I just have a tough time imagining that Microsoft wouldn't (or hasn't given RT) the CLR to ARM. It would be news if it wasn't ported.
    - xorxornop 10y ago
      It has been, I'm running one such example on my Raspberry Pi 2 right now. It's just a DynDNS updater. Written in UWP. I have tried it in CLR and native (machine code via .NET Native) modes. Both work great. I'm pretty sure my Pi runs on an ARM chip, anyway

skrebbel 10y ago

Download my great free Windows program now! Please choose: EXE installer 32-bit x86 64-bit x64 32-bit ARM 64-bit ARM MSI installer 32-bit x86 64-bit x64 32-bit ARM 64-bit ARM Portable Zip 32-bit x86 64-bit x64 32-bit ARM 64-bit ARM (Download my great free macOS program now! Click here ) This is already a usability problem, and adding 2 more target chipsets makes it worse. Given both bandwidth and smart programmers, couldn't Microsoft make an installer creator that works on all the above architectures and installs the right version of the program? No problem shipping 4x too much code right - most installers that are big at all, are big because of assets, not code size. I guess politics vs the Windows Store team would prevent this from happening within Microsoft, but given how awful the Windows Store is and how it still can't be used to download and install boring oldschool desktop applications, this is a usability nightmare waiting to happen - despite the obvious benefits of not being locked into a single chipset architecture anymore.

Mao_Zedang 10y ago
https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/store/apps/windows https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/store/apps/windows "it still can't be used to download and install boring oldschool desktop applications" it can. https://msdn.microsoft.com/windows/uwp/porting/desktop-to-uwp-root https://msdn.microsoft.com/windows/uwp/porting/desktop-to-uw...
- skrebbel 10y ago
  Are you sure? Afaik you can convert most apps to UWP apps but they don't have the same rights and capabilities as the oldschool desktop apps. I don't exactly know what the limits are but I doubt stuff like Wireshark or f.lux could run as an UWP app.
  - felixrieseberg 10y ago
    You can now publish win32 binaries to the Windows Store, which run in a virtualized environment. They get the same rights as normal win32 exes because they _are_ exes.

Eridrus 10y ago

Even assuming they can hit performance targets with this, which sounds hard but not impossible, what's the major use case? Continuum? Windows laptops with better battery life? Most win32 software is going to suck on a touch screen, so I'm not really seeing this help them in mobile.

ZenoArrow 10y ago
>"Windows laptops with better battery life?" Not going to happen. There's a performance hit that almost certainly comes along with emulation. Battery life is likely to get worse with x86 Windows emulation on ARM. Also, by the time Intel stopped pushing x86 in mobile devices they were producing chips that were competitive with ARM chips when it came to power draw.
- jabjoe 10y ago
  > Also, by the time Intel stopped pushing x86 in mobile devices they were producing chips that were competitive with ARM chips when it came to power draw. People forgot this. It was price that killed Intel in this space. They couldn't get the price down to ARM chips. They subsidized hard to get even close, but it ended up just costing them too much just to have even a presence.
- Eridrus 10y ago
  Does your comment still stand for the cheap end of things? If Intel struggles to compete on price, then low end ARM may have better perf characteristics. From what I read, doing binary translation from x86 to ARM is actually not that hard since ARM has many more registers, so I'm sort of hopeful they get decent perf from it.
  - ZenoArrow 10y ago
    > "If Intel struggles to compete on price, then low end ARM may have better perf characteristics." I'd suggest it has more to do with the size of the silicon wafer rather than the performance.
- 10y ago

dragonbonheur 10y ago

An interesting development, but it is a shame that this will require a new chip from Qualcomm, while there have been full desktop Linux distributions for several ARM chips and boards for quite a while now. Microsoft's software is really full of bloat.

xorxornop 10y ago
It probably doesn't require the chip... I'm thinking they are using some form of hardware accelerated binary translation. Re: Windows on ARM, I run Windows IoT on a Raspberry Pi. Shows they have a good lot of it running, eg the full UWP UI system, kernel etc. Imagine it's the translation part that's deleted things.

cm2187 10y ago

I tried a surface pro as a replacement for an ipad, but I found it to be extremely frustrating. Beyond the bugs and blue screens, I found the battery life to be way shorter, and the surface to take a long time to wake up, not an instantaneous experience like an ipad, where you can forget it in a bag for 10h and use it straight away. More like a laptop. Would an ARM based windows device achieve an ipad style battery life and instantaneous experience? Or is it more linked to the architecture of the system?

dcw303 10y ago
which version of Surface Pro? 2 / 3 / 4 ?
- cm2187 10y ago
  4
  - dcw303 10y ago
    Thanks. I'm thinking of replacing my MBP for a Surface Pro 4. I'd heard the battery life wasn't great but didn't know about it taking a long time to wake up.
    - cm2187 10y ago
      Well, compared to a smartphone or an ipad. It's a normal wake up time for a laptop.
    - subspaceman 10y ago
      This is exactly what I just did and it's been great so far. The battery life isn't spectacular for todays standards, but it lasts longer than my 2012 rMBP 15" does now. Quick, light (way lighter than the MBP) and has been fun to draw on. Getting use to windows again takes a bit of time, but with the new Bash integration, my workflow is just about the same.
notimetorelax 10y ago

starik36 10y ago

I am skeptical that the emulation can achieve reasonable speeds. I would like to see first that Qualcomm’s chips are even up to par with Intel's. Secondly, can a heavy duty Win32 app like iTunes or TurboTax or Photoshop could run reasonably fast via emulation, something that has historically been a problem. I'll believe it when I see some benchmarks.

mtgx 10y ago
They are, at least with the mainstream Macbook Air-type/older Mac Pro type chips, not the latest and most expensive Core i7's, obviously. But they don't need to reach that high, either. Even taking over the Celeron/Pentium market from Intel would probably make Qualcomm bigger than AMD is in the PC chip market. https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/221881-apples-a9x-goes-head-to-head-against-intels-core-m-in-arm-x86-grudge-match https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/221881-apples-a9x-goes-he... http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/16/12939310/iphone-7-a10-fusion-processor-apple-intel-future http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/16/12939310/iphone-7-a10-fusi...
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

kalleboo 10y ago

People have been speculating for the past year if Apple could switch their Macs to ARM, and keep compatibility with a emulation layer like they did during the PowerPC->Intel transition. I guess Microsoft beat them to the point... Will be interesting to see how well it performs in real life.

eikenberry 10y ago
I think Linux beat them both to the point... many years ago.
- millstone 10y ago
  No way. Linux has never had any sort of cross-architecture binary compatibility story. Certainly nothing that worked as well as Apple's Mixed Mode Manager or Rosetta.
  - Jedd 10y ago
    > Linux has never had any sort of cross-architecture binary compatibility story. You mean like qemu? > Certainly nothing that worked as well as Apple's Mixed Mode Manager or Rosetta. I think the parent was alluding to the fact that with GNU/Linux and/or free software in general there isn't the same kinds of requirement to get binary lumps of code running on alien architecture.
    - millstone 10y ago
      > You mean like qemu? No. > there isn't the same kinds of requirement to get binary lumps of code running on alien architecture. Are you implying that this has something to do with the software being free? In 2006, I used Time Machine to back up my G5, and then restore it onto my new Intel Core Duo (both iMacs!). The migrated apps just worked, regardless of whether they were free software or binary blobs. This has nothing to do with software freedom. It's about having a good user experience: when your users migrate from an old machine to a new one, it just works, period. Linux doesn't have this requirement because it prioritizes developers over end users. I'm not bashing Linux here, I use it often and appreciate it for what it is. But an honest assessment tells us it has never come close to Apple-level smoothness in architectural transitions.

spikengineer 10y ago

Photoshop x86 running on Windows 10 ARM https://www.neowin.net/news/watch-microsoft-shows-off-photoshop-running-on-a-windows-10-device-with-a-snapdragon-820 https://www.neowin.net/news/watch-microsoft-shows-off-photos...

9erdelta 10y ago

For me it is more like hell no. I am having a hard time getting over stuff like, you know, waking up one day and Chrome is no longer my default browser.

xorxornop 10y ago
How the hell does this happen. Seriously, I've ran Windows for like over 10 years now. It's happened a grand total of 3 times, ever, and 2 of those were back in the Windows 9x days, and the last one was between W8 and 8.1 (a major service pack). Never since then. Oh, I'm even in the fast update pool. What do you people _do_?
- 9erdelta 10y ago
  It happens after every Windows update. I'll log in, and have a message about the update, then see that Edge is my browser and VLC is no longer my default music player. Maybe it is because I have so many of the "features" of Windows 10 turned off? I dunno, but some people seem to not have the same experience.

setq 10y ago

Call me cynical but this feels like another platform to be abandoned when no one buys them as per the old Windows ARM tablets. Those who bought them abandoned quickly. There will probably be a crazy restriction like App Store only. Oh and the whole MSI 32/64/ARM pile of crap as well.

cm2187 10y ago
Well, that would be repeating the Surface RT failure. I can only assume they are not going to make the same mistake twice, so I doubt it will be locked down like Windows RT was.