News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by satysin on Thursday May 11, 2017 @02:59PM (#14318597)
Microsoft are seriously killing it in emulation these days.

First I was amazed with them getting Xbox 360 (PPC) games running at full speed or better on the Xbox One (x86) and now we have x86 on ARM.

They have some wizards working on this stuff.

Edit: I wonder if Dave Cutler is involved in this x86 on ARM stuff? I think he was with the Xbox 360/Xbox One.

Re:Windows 10 on ARM by Kenji on Thursday May 11, 2017 @03:41PM (#14318857)
As far as I know, they don't emulate Xbox 360 games on Xbox One, they port and compile it for the new console, creating entirely new binaries. Not much emulation going on there. Correct me if I'm wrong.

EDIT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Xbox_360_games_compati... "Unlike the emulation of original Xbox games on the Xbox 360, the Xbox One does not require game modification, since it emulates an exact replica of its predecessor's environment – both hardware and software operating systems."

I stand corrected.

Re:Windows 10 on ARM by satysin on Thursday May 11, 2017 @03:53PM (#14318958)
It uses emulation. While it is true the user needs to download a 'game image' rather than play the game directly from disc this is because that image is a virtual hard disk that contains the game and a customised Xbox 360 virtual machine that has tweaks for the game. It is similar to PC console emulators that have specific configs for certain games.
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by sjmulder on Thursday May 11, 2017 @04:34PM (#14319257)
I thought they do a static recompilation too, from the original binary, but I can't look it up now.
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by monocasa on Thursday May 11, 2017 @06:12PM (#14319940)
That's actually probably the case. Xbox 360 banned making arbitrary pages executable (not even the Kernel could do it, the Hypervisor call to mark a page as executable had to come with the signatures signed by Microsoft's private key).

So they probably can get away with static recompilation.

Re:Windows 10 on ARM by ceejayoz on Thursday May 11, 2017 @03:48PM (#14318920)
http://support.xbox.com/en-US/games/game-setup/play-xbox-360...

> Xbox 360 games run within an emulator on Xbox One, which means you'll be able to use most features from both systems while playing games, such as screenshots, broadcasting, and Game DVR.

Re:Windows 10 on ARM by Kipters on Thursday May 11, 2017 @04:43PM (#14319336)
AFAIK you're right, developers have to upload a separate build for Xbox One-compatible games
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by _asummers on Thursday May 11, 2017 @05:16PM (#14319596)
Which is why they're slowly trickling them out a few at a time (though there's some gems in there!).
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by gcb0 on Thursday May 11, 2017 @04:58PM (#14319448)
from your quote, it's probably neither.

looks like api translation like wine does. ...which is rather easy if you wrote the original api.

Re:Windows 10 on ARM by AgentME on Thursday May 11, 2017 @11:34PM (#14321237)
The Xbox 360 used the PowerPC cpu architecture, and the Xbone is x86, so there has to be emulation or recompilation involved.
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by Ezhik on Thursday May 11, 2017 @04:04PM (#14319036)
They actually did namedrop Dave Cutler in the main keynote earlier, although in the context of talking about the Linux Subsystem.
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by bborud on Thursday May 11, 2017 @04:36PM (#14319272)
That must kill him inside.
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by discreteevent on Thursday May 11, 2017 @04:56PM (#14319433)
I would think not. It finally showcases the flexibility he put in to the core of NT.
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by qb45 on Thursday May 11, 2017 @06:20PM (#14319981)
Not that "finally", Windows NT was designed specifically to support POSIX and OS/2 alongside Win32 apps and the first few versions actually shipped it.
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by DaiPlusPlus on Friday May 12, 2017 @06:15AM (#14322711)
Though WSL required more work than WSU or OS/2: they needed a new lightweight process model, for example. That's more serious internal work.
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by monocasa on Thursday May 11, 2017 @06:15PM (#14319952)
Eh, the WSL stuff avoids most of the NT subsystem style flexibility.
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by jameskegel on Thursday May 11, 2017 @06:12PM (#14319941)
I interpreted that as sarcasm, actually.
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by bborud on Friday May 12, 2017 @03:54PM (#14327351)
He isn't known for being a fan of Unix.
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by killin_dan on Thursday May 11, 2017 @10:00PM (#14320926)
Yeah I'd hate to be tied with extreme scale emulation efforts that serve millions of users built by multi billion dollar corps. Shame! /s
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by PopsiclePete on Friday May 12, 2017 @12:05PM (#14325164)
Maybe it's punishment for screwing up? I just picture him grinding his teeth and cursing under this breath the whole time....
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by deskamess on Thursday May 11, 2017 @03:42PM (#14318867)
They make a very good Android emulator as well.
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by mihular on Thursday May 11, 2017 @04:52PM (#14319407)
Which is, sadly, discontinued. It's still available for download though but the latest OS is 6.0 and many versions missing.
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by 0xFFC on Thursday May 11, 2017 @04:59PM (#14319461)
They pressured google. That was the point. Google does not give a flying fuck about developer experience. I am not saying that is wrong or right. I am saying this was the case for Google for many years. They just didn't give fuck about the experience.

But look at the timing. Everyone was nagging on google for years about slow emulator. They didn't do shit for years. Microsoft released an emulator, which was superior in almost all aspect. Just after that Google released new emulator. and now it does make sense to discontinue that project.

Re:Windows 10 on ARM by sangnoir on Friday May 12, 2017 @05:03AM (#14322417)
> But look at the timing.

Coincidentally, that was around the same time that Microsoft filed an Amicus brief supporting Oracle (in Oracle v. Google) arguing that APIs should be copyrightable[1].

Did that Project Astoria implement Android APIs? Would Google go after Microsoft in court had they officially released this? My guess is "yes" to both these questions. Nothing says wilful infringement louder than submitting a legal document to the courts spelling out why you think what you're doing (Astoria) is wrong.

1. http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20130221153759...

Re:Windows 10 on ARM by quickben on Friday May 12, 2017 @01:27AM (#14321624)
I think you are wrong on the Google front. Google did everything to please devs. Take apple for example, they won't think twice about refusing your app. Google OTOH, since the early days, lacked so much in the Appstore, that they let all sort of trash inside. They just wanted the devs more than quality.
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by godzillabrennus on Friday May 12, 2017 @01:59AM (#14321739)
Wait till you have someone file a wrongful copyright complaint against your Google Play App. Google took ours down two weeks ago and won't respond to our appeals despite clearly owning the copyright for all work done on the app.
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by oridecon on Friday May 12, 2017 @02:32AM (#14321859)
Just like Chrome extensions that get removed without warning and you can't even get an answer of why and how you can fix the situation (submitting it for manual review fixes nothing).
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by NTripleOne on Friday May 12, 2017 @05:04AM (#14322421)
Are you the developer of Frozen Elsa Anna Lego Movie Pregnant Tooth Extraction and Foot Doctor 7 by any chance?
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by jazoom on Friday May 12, 2017 @08:37AM (#14323422)
I'm guessing you never had to use the old emulator.
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by bitmapbrother on Thursday May 11, 2017 @07:22PM (#14320331)
How many platforms does that Microsoft emulator work on? One? Unlike Microsoft, Google supports 3 development platforms and so their new emulator also had to support 3 platforms. Also, the new emulator was written from scratch and that takes time.
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by flukus on Thursday May 11, 2017 @08:10PM (#14320527)
> Unlike Microsoft, Google supports 3 development platforms and so their new emulator also had to support 3 platforms

No it didn't. If platform specific solutions make sense then we should use platform specific solutions. Not everything has to be cross platform and 100% identical across all platforms.

Re:Windows 10 on ARM by bitmapbrother on Thursday May 11, 2017 @10:35PM (#14321017)
Except when you develop a cross platform IDE and emulator that requires feature parity across them all.
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by flukus on Thursday May 11, 2017 @10:55PM (#14321091)
Feature parity does not mean the exact same tools on every platform. Trying to be identical across 3 platforms always means adopting the lowest common denominator and always results in being equally shit on every platform.

It's astounding that people still try to ignore the last 30 years of evidence of this.

Re:Windows 10 on ARM by bitmapbrother on Friday May 12, 2017 @01:38AM (#14321670)
So Linux users should get the shaft because they're the minority? Android Studio and the emulator work very well on all 3 platforms.

>Trying to be identical across 3 platforms always means adopting the lowest common denominator and always results in being equally shit on every platform.

In that case we're fortunate that Xcode isn't cross platform.

Re:Windows 10 on ARM by flukus on Friday May 12, 2017 @02:49AM (#14321943)
> So Linux users should get the shaft because they're the minority?

Linux users should get the best possible experience on the system, so should the windows users. If a better emulator is available on windows why should they get shafted? Linux tools even have the advantage that they may not need full emulation in the first place, but instead we end up with the worst of both worlds.

> Android Studio and the emulator work very well on all 3 platforms.

In my experience nothing about android development works very well on any platform. I'm not a huge fan of MS, but windows phone development and tools are an absolute dream in comparison.

Re:Windows 10 on ARM by bitmapbrother on Saturday May 13, 2017 @09:41PM (#14333811)
>Linux users should get the best possible experience on the system, so should the windows users. If a better emulator is available on windows why should they get shafted? Linux tools even have the advantage that they may not need full emulation in the first place, but instead we end up with the worst of both worlds.

You seem to be under the impression that if you develop a cross platform solution that it's going to be inherently inferior. I disagree with that and the new Android emulator is proof of that. It's superior to the MS Android emulator in every way and it's also available on all 3 platforms.

>In my experience nothing about android development works very well on any platform.

In that case you probably don't have much experience developing for Android.

>I'm not a huge fan of MS, but windows phone development and tools are an absolute dream in comparison.

If developing for windows platform is a dream then why is their app store a cesspool filled with horrible looking apps?

Re:Windows 10 on ARM by AlphaSite on Friday May 12, 2017 @09:34AM (#14323800)
Ive previously done iOS development (on the side) and tried Android development in the last few weeks and it feels like a massive, horrible hacked together pipeline. Why go through this horrible hack of a pipeline, recompiling and modifying .class files when you can instead create a compiler which does it directly?
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by adrianN on Friday May 12, 2017 @03:46AM (#14322135)
So you could spend three times as much money and design completely different products for each platform, or you could have one codebase with a limited number of special cases for the different platforms and invest the saved money into making a better product...
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by flukus on Friday May 12, 2017 @04:22AM (#14322258)
How did you calculate 3 times as much? No one said nothing can be shared across platforms.

And again, we've got 3 decades of evidence that show precious few good cross platform solutions, so investing the saved money into making a better product doesn't seem to work.

Re:Windows 10 on ARM by pjmlp on Friday May 12, 2017 @01:26AM (#14321620)
That is no excuse for letting the emulator stagnate for several years, without any kind of visible change in regards to performance.

They hire PhDs capable of sorting out the incredible whiteboard and phone CS exercises for something.

Also apparently all those Phd weren't able to do what GenyMotion guys and girls were happily developing.

Re:Windows 10 on ARM by bitmapbrother on Saturday May 13, 2017 @09:47PM (#14333816)
How many platforms is GenyMotion available on?
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by mihular on Friday May 12, 2017 @02:17AM (#14321800)
Well, Intel introduced HAXM a long time ago. It made it run quit faster.
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by mihular on Thursday May 11, 2017 @05:41PM (#14319772)
It'd make sense if Hyper-V wasn't monopolistic. You can't run both at the same time, or better, no other virtualization host is allowed when Hyper-V is on. Which sucks.
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by sjark on Thursday May 11, 2017 @06:17PM (#14319966)
The problem there if I am not mistaken is the CPU Virtualization extensions that can't handle multiple hypervisors using them at the same time.
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by tinus_hn on Thursday May 11, 2017 @06:23PM (#14319995)
That's true but it sure is convenient for Microsoft, and they are exploiting it as far as they can with the Credential Guard feature.
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by IntelMiner on Friday May 12, 2017 @05:16AM (#14322467)
Sure is convenient for Red Hat, that you can't run KVM and Xen at the same time

Sure is convenient for VMware that you can't run Virtualbox and VMware Workstation at the same time

Absolutely a business decision by Microsoft, and not a limitation of the x86 chip

Re:Windows 10 on ARM by mihular on Friday May 12, 2017 @02:16AM (#14321794)
Also other virtualization hosts on the desktop don't have this problem at all. You can run all of the others at the same time.
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by cobalt on Thursday May 11, 2017 @05:08PM (#14319537)
where do you see it discontinued?
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by mihular on Thursday May 11, 2017 @05:39PM (#14319760)
I suggested an improvement and got back an email.

https://blog.rthand.com/post/2017/05/02/good-bye-visual-stud...

Re:Windows 10 on ARM by Koshkin on Thursday May 11, 2017 @04:12PM (#14319096)
From the documentation: Make sure “x86” is selected as the architecture. [...] Remember to make sure your APKs have code built for x86!
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by nailer on Thursday May 11, 2017 @03:50PM (#14318935)
Where can I download it? Latency on Bluestacks is awful.
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by deskamess on Thursday May 11, 2017 @03:54PM (#14318965)
https://www.visualstudio.com/vs/msft-android-emulator/

If not using Visual Studio, search for 'Acquire on its own' on the page. There is a link in that section.

Re:Windows 10 on ARM by satysin on Thursday May 11, 2017 @03:55PM (#14318968)
https://www.visualstudio.com/vs/msft-android-emulator/

It uses Hyper-V so you will need a Pro version of Windows.

Re:Windows 10 on ARM by tuxidomasx on Thursday May 11, 2017 @04:36PM (#14319276)
I've always been kind of bummed out that Hyper-V is disabled on the OS layer for basic Windows versions, even if the hardware supports it.
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by tracker1 on Thursday May 11, 2017 @05:02PM (#14319489)
They have to justify the extra price somehow... I don't blame them too much, odds are you are a "pro" user if you want/need Hyper-V. I really like Hyper-V (except the network weirdness no occasion).
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by ReverseCold on Thursday May 11, 2017 @06:53PM (#14320183)
If only they'd add GPU passthrough on non server Windows editions...

At the very least make it a pro feature.

Re:Windows 10 on ARM by vetinari on Thursday May 11, 2017 @04:59PM (#14319456)
Because it breaks other VMs - Vmware, Virtualbox, Intel Haxm. They don't work if Hyper-V is enabled.
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by SparkyMcUnicorn on Thursday May 11, 2017 @04:45PM (#14319354)
A better bluestacks alternative would be anbox.
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by petecox on Friday May 12, 2017 @04:29AM (#14322281)
I believe Anbox employs Linux kernel modules, so WSL would need to load those to work under Windows.
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by geocar on Friday May 12, 2017 @05:15AM (#14322464)
... or implement the interfaces provided by Anbox.
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by IamCarbonMan on Friday May 12, 2017 @12:18AM (#14321411)
It would be if it worked on anything except Ubuntu that is. Maybe a month ago when I tried it was different, but there was no amount of installing and tweaking I could do to get it to work on Arch.
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by Splines on Thursday May 11, 2017 @11:28PM (#14321207)
Don't forget they also did Xbox (x86) --> Xbox 360 (PPC) emulation. It worked pretty decently well too.
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by United857 on Friday May 12, 2017 @01:40AM (#14321673)
Makes me wonder why they don't do original Xbox emulation on Xbox One -- seeing that both are X86.
Re:Windows 10 on ARM by IntelMiner on Friday May 12, 2017 @05:19AM (#14322478)
Likely that the games would look rather poor when upscaled to 1080P from 240P/480i

Also probably licensing issues, for games with tech that old

Re:Windows 10 on ARM by mtgx on Friday May 12, 2017 @07:25AM (#14323001)
My hope is Microsoft will use these emulation skills for security, too. I'd like to be able to instantly run an app of my choice in a secure virtual environment. Everything should be wiped out when I close the app by default, but I'd also want an option to keep the app's contents persistent.

I think they're kind of doing this already with Windows Defender App Guard [1] thing, which for one is a mouthful, second, it should have nothing to do with the exploitable Windows Defender code [2].

It should be part of Windows' lower-level systems, so that not much can interact with it, and it should be available for all apps, not just Microsoft's own apps. Windows on ARM, Project Centennial, App Guard, and more, prove that Microsoft has the ability to do that.

If they don't do it, it will only be for political reasons like not wanting Chrome users to benefit from the same technology, or wanting to sell it as "value-add" to enterprise customers, or whatever (basically the same BS they're pulling with Bitlocker).

[1] https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2016/09/27/application-g...

[2] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/05/windo...

Re:Windows 10 on ARM by johnchristopher on Thursday May 11, 2017 @03:42PM (#14318862)
Yeah. Well. When can I get a PC version of fable 2 then ? :-(