Judicat0r: Frankly I'm not an expert but what you write kind of defies the purpose of emulation altogether if you still need native hardware, take for example console emulators, additionally hardware emulation can be executed in different ways.
The purpose of emulation is to translate software in way that is comprehensible and efficiently executable by the hardware, now I'm not aware of the intricacies of Apple's approach but Iknow it happens in a couple different ways.
One implies that the sfotware is translated in memory by rosetta 2 and then executed, the other should translate the non native application before it is started and then executed on local hardware, I'm simplyfing here but, again, I'm not an expert of that stuff.
As I am aware none of the mentioned methods involves native x86-64 hardware in Apples' silicon and in my knowledge M1 isn't an Hybrid architecture chip.
dtgreene: Any translation will result in a reduction of performance.
If you have a program that does heavy calculations on the CPU, then the result of emulation will be noticeable. If we have an ARM CPU and emulating a program compiled for an x86 CPU, it's going to run significantly slower than if the program had been compiled for ARM and run natively.
Either you have native hardware (in which case you are actually using an x86 compatible CPU to run x86 programs), or you are emulating it in software,
(Worth noting: Hardware virtualization only works if the CPU can natively execute the target instruction set. It's apparently possible to run Linux on a VM in an Apple Silicon mac, but it has to be a version compiled for ARM; it still can't do an x86 VM without emulation.)
Yep that was in my point, I honestly thought it was self-evident, implicit and well known.
I was not referring at all to native hardware, you just need some hardware capable of efficiently accelerate the translation process, which should be what Apple's M1 is equipped with.
So not an hardware emulation, yes a software translation accelerated by ad hoc-hardware.
Judicat0r: What I am trying to say is that x64 is facing competition by ARM also because of plus ten years of poor innovations and lack of techical advancementes, Apple abandoned intel hardware guess why.
Phasmid: Apple going ARM was probably inevitable at some point given that they like a tightly controlled supply chain. Intel supply and thermal issues may have been the last straw, but Apple could have gone fully AMD (CPU/ GPU) instead of in house.
The talk of ARM replacing x86 really brings me back though, since there were similar murmurings in the 90s with Oracle's Network Computers going to replace PCs via ARM/ DEC's StrongARM etc. Didn't happen then, obviously, but would have been interesting if it had.
Intel's fundamental mistake in retrospect was tying architectural improvements to their fab business. Hard to be sympathetic when they most certainly milked a dominant position for literally no improvement in core numbers at consumer level and mediocre IPC gains since Nehalem/ Sandy Bridge respectively, of course, but they'd still be competitive if they could have got their 10nm process working properly. TigerLake has and IceLake had a good IPC gain over SkyLake, but it's laptop only gain (and 1 (?) server chip, seemingly produced solely to fulfill a pledge to shareholders) until early next year, assuming the backport doesn't slip again.
Should also be noted that a lot of AMD's improvements with Zen are not strictly architectural, but due to more cache, managed better- ironically, Intel did much the same with its initial Broadwell chips by adding EDRAM modules to compensate for low clocks, iirc the 5775C still has the best IPC of any Intel desktop chip as a result. Doesn't really matter for the consumer where the performance comes from though of course.
I totally agree.
Phasmid: Apple going ARM was probably inevitable at some point given that they like a tightly controlled supply chain. Intel supply and thermal issues may have been the last straw, but Apple could have gone fully AMD (CPU/ GPU) instead of in house.
Dark_art_: They may have anti competitive agreements, who knows what it's stipulated on the contract.
Funny how Apple seem to not want to deal with nVidia and in the end must pay them royalities/licencing fees.
Apple should have a lifetime ARM license, so nvidia can do basically nothing about it.
And to elaborate on that a little, many, me included initially, were impressed by Apple's silicon, which is good, but the real deal is nvidia that owning ARM now is pointing their guns to intel, the old enemy, I see nvidia as the real future competitor to intel and AMD not Apple.
