First post, by Nazo
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I happened upon this while skimming over some stuff: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86#Virtualization
Apparently future processors in work by Intel codenamed Vanderpool and Silvervale and one by AMD codenamed Pacifica are supposed to make virtualization -- eg emulation -- a little more effective and less trying on the processor. This probably requires code to be written specifically to take advantage of this, maybe even a seperate version of the program rather than an "optomization" like SSE and co, but, I am wondering, how effective might this be? I mean, one must admit, we can do amazing things with a tool such as DOSBox, but, just try running a late 90s DOS game in it and see what happens... As systems move further and further away from DOS, it gets harder and harder to ever get real DOS support out of them, and even fake things like NTVDM are just not cutting it. Things such as VMWare are great for running another operating system or something, but, gaming? I wouldn't play anything more complex than QuadNet or so in VMWare or VirtualPC (and it works and looks better in DOSBox already.) However, what if it suddenly became massively easier so that the CPU doesn't have to stop and watch every little detail of this false system? I mean, it will still not meet those standards they mention, will still have to stop and watch a lot, but, perhaps it will no longer take a cpu 100x+ more powerful than the system it's emulating to get it perfect? (Mine is giving me roughly in the area of a very fast 386, or a really slow 486, give or take depending on what's actually being done. It's actually probably more than 100x more powerful than a 25MHz 486... Frequency alone makes it 100x, but, then actual capabilities of the core itself do more for each of those 2.5 billion cycles in comparison to the 486's mere 25 million...)
Well, I imagine someone is going to come along and dash my hopes, but, for now, I'm going to hope, considering how I haven't gotten any quality games to run in DOSBox without at least a frameskip of one (and that with hardware resizing, can't do some of the really nice software resizes available, though I do admit that OpenGLHQ could be worse without a doubt...) Mind you, my next processor will be the Venice most probably, so it's still out of reach for now even if Pacifica is released tomorrow... but, someday perhaps?
Anyway, this little peice of new just seemed interesting to me and like something that might benefit the sort of people who hang out here I might add, if it is true.