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AAA Gaming on Asahi Linux

(rosenzweig.io)
944 points 6a74 | 9 comments | 10 Oct 24 14:16 UTC | HN request time: 0.606s | source | bottom
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bee_rider ◴[10 Oct 24 16:05 UTC] No.41800275[source]▶
The M-series chips from Apple have some special hardware to help emulate x86 with near-native performance, right? I wonder if they take advantage of those features (actually I forget exactly what the features were).

I mean this is an incredible achievement either way. Everything is emulated, but they are still running AAA games. Wow.

replies(4): >>41800448 #>>41800526 #>>41800562 #>>41800952 #
1. saagarjha ◴[10 Oct 24 16:32 UTC] No.41800562[source]▶
No reason they can’t.
replies(2): >>41800835 #>>41801500 #
2. bee_rider ◴[10 Oct 24 16:58 UTC] No.41800835[source]▶
If every layer of abstraction and emulation is set up to allow it to pass through. It still seems really impressive to me, like lining up a bunch of targets and shooting an arrow through to get multiple bullseyes or something, haha.
replies(2): >>41803722 #>>41805625 #
3. rowanG077 ◴[10 Oct 24 18:06 UTC] No.41801500[source]▶
Why not? In fact they are using it right now.
replies(1): >>41802492 #
4. bee_rider ◴[10 Oct 24 19:25 UTC] No.41802492[source]▶
I think the comment was saying “there isn’t any reason they can’t.” Which is true in theory, but in the practice it seems to be a lot of stuff to line up.
5. dontdoxxme ◴[10 Oct 24 21:22 UTC] No.41803722[source]▶
Hardly, the benefit of binary is if everything lines up once, it always will. It’s not an analog world with pesky things like wind resistance.
replies(1): >>41804845 #
6. thfuran ◴[11 Oct 24 00:08 UTC] No.41804845{3}[source]▶
Maybe if you happen to own the control stack from hardware, OS, drivers, to client software and are willing to never change any of it once you get things lined up.
7. saagarjha ◴[11 Oct 24 03:06 UTC] No.41805625[source]▶
It’s not really all that hard
replies(1): >>41808050 #
8. ramon156 ◴[11 Oct 24 10:08 UTC] No.41808050{3}[source]▶
Would you say this is not impressive work? Or how come you're saying it's not hard?
replies(1): >>41817926 #
9. saagarjha ◴[12 Oct 24 09:58 UTC] No.41817926{4}[source]▶
It’s just exposing a couple bits in ACTLR_EL1 to userspace, nothing to it really