PowerPC emulation on x86 possible?

[bloodline]

Uhh.. no, I think the PPC970 and Power 5 hold their own pretty well against the equivalent x86 chips. Even when you talk about the G3 and G4, the x86 doesn't "pump through" instructions quickly enough to emulate the PowerPC at real-world speeds. You won't get an x86 emulating a PowerPC keeping up with a Pegasos or AmigaOne. Not with high-end desktop x86 chips, anyway.

Yeah, I would bet the top of the range PPC970 would hold it's own against the equivilent speed AthlonXP (for example).

But I still think my price performance ratio holds.

[lempkee]

why start the plan on killing amigaos before its out? , this is yet another example on how bad everything is if its not on an x86 ..

i am pretty sure there is a possibility of dooing it and i am pretty sure people will get very pissed off at it , so if you want to piss off anyone in the amiga market or morphos or mac etc, sure then do it, make everything x86 and lets move over to windows forever.....yay!

[bloodline]

lempkee wrote:
why start the plan on killing amigaos before its out? , this is yet another example on how bad everything is if its not on an x86 ..

i am pretty sure there is a possibility of dooing it and i am pretty sure people will get very pissed off at it , so if you want to piss off anyone in the amiga market or morphos or mac etc, sure then do it, make everything x86 and lets move over to windows forever.....yay!

I really don't understand your problem. the PPC is just a CPU... It holds no emotional attachment. It's not like the Amiga Custom Chips, where I can understand the love that people have for them.

The PPC is just like the x86... when it comes to choice of CPU you only have one thing to consider (Providing compatibility is not an issue). Price Vs Performance.

I use the x86 because it's cheaper for me to do so. (not to mention the range of drivers and applications available to me that I need to get a job done).

I also do not see the need to limit AmigaOS to One CPU as you seem to. I would rather people have the choice to choose what Hardware they run it on.

Ok, so I'm Pro Choice... does that make me a bad person?


@Lempkee
Why is everthing x86 instantly windows? You are so biggoted

[that_punk_guy]

x86 != Windows

[MarkTime]

well I think its fairly obvious that people want PPC emulation so that they can a) illegally run Mac OS X, and b) in this community anyway, illegally run OS 4, and c) possibly write an illegal emulator for the Gamecube

Now, with that said, emulation of the PPC is certainly not illegal, and if more than 1% of people actually want to work on the emulator for academic purposes in learning CPU design, or even just to run PPC Linux, or an OS that doesn't have EULA instructions against running on your x86 box.

Then I would even defend the effort.

But I doubt you'll get to the 1% level.

With that said, I simply understand how the PPC emulation conversation *could* offend someone.
I am not offended, and I know everyone here, was in fact, discussing it on pure technical curiosity level.

[xeron]

bloodline wrote:
But I still think my price performance ratio holds.

Well, speaking as someone who has written a few emulation cores, I think you're off in fantasy land as I said earlier.

[bloodline]

xeron wrote:

bloodline wrote:
But I still think my price performance ratio holds.

Well, speaking as someone who has written a few emulation cores, I think you're off in fantasy land as I said earlier.

I'm probably still in my little room, damn this wall is boring ;-)

I'm still interested in the technical aspects of this though. I don't doubt your technical prowess when it comes to emulation cores (what CPU's, if I may ask?). Since I have only read the theory behind them I have no experience in making them.

But from what I have read, a Dynamic compilation could provide really good performance.

I'm facinated but the Block approach to dynamic compilation.


-Edit- My answer to you, is that I don't know, but from theory I don't see why is would be a big problem. Since you have the experience to prove me wrong, I would urge you to write a PPC emulator and prove me wrong.  I'm far more interested in the technical aspects than being right or wrong.

[dammy]

by lempkee on 2003/11/7 9:59:15

why start the plan on killing amigaos before its out? , this is yet another example on how bad everything is if its not on an x86 ..

What are you smoking before you read AO?  This thread is talking about the possibility of PPC being run at a reasonable level on x86 and you automatically see it as a way to kill off OS4?  You must have pretty low expectations on OS4 if you think this is going to kill it off.

Dammy

[xeron]

bloodline wrote:
I'm still interested in the technical aspects of this though. I don't doubt your technical prowess when it comes to emulation cores (what CPU's, if I may ask?).

Interpretive: Signetics 2650, Z80 and 6809 on 68000. Signetics 2650 on x86.
JIT: only theory, although I did write some test code that executed a small subset of 68000 on x86, which worked better than I expected.

But from what I have read, a Dynamic compilation could provide really good performance.

Really good is relative. Obviously it beats interpretive, as UAE and MorphOS prove, however the fastest 68000 is significantly slower than the average desktop x86 or PPC processor. The G3 and G4 PowerPC cores, however, are not only several orders of magnitude faster, but have a lot of registers and a totally different FPU to the x86. While the large cache on the x86 helps a lot, having to use memory as PowerPC registers is an overhead.

I'm not saying you can't push PowerPC code through an average desktop x86 quite quickly. As I stated elsewhere, you could probably run a wordprocessor on top of MacOS 9 or so and it would be a bit sluggish (Note: pure conjecture). But when you compare it to an actual G3 or G4, you just are not going to get the same sort of performance. Maybe with a high-end server chip, but your price/performance equation is out of the window by then.

All IMHO, of course.

[bloodline]

@xeron

well I think you should give it a go, I really want to see how it performs :-)


Side note, if you fancy earning a bit of cash, and playing around with a 68K JIT on the x86... then there is the AROS Emulation bounty open :-)


-Edit- I am willing to conceed that my Price performance ratio only holds until there is a low priced PPC970 board available... Pegasos2 for example.

[xeron]

bloodline wrote:
@xeron
Side note, if you fancy earing a bit of cash, and playing around with a 68K JIT on the x86... then there is the AROS Emulation bounty open :-)

I never fancy doing anything that involves x86 assembly, even for cash. Besides, i'm somewhat busy organising an OS4 show, doing the websites for a UK AmigaOne dealer and a second hand guitar shop, and after that I'm going to start writing applications for OS4. Thats around my full-time job.

[xeron]

bloodline wrote:
-Edit- I am willing to conceed that my Price performance ratio only holds until there is a low priced PPC970 board available... Pegasos2 for example.

But I was talking about G3s and G4s.

[bloodline]

xeron wrote:

bloodline wrote:
-Edit- I am willing to conceed that my Price performance ratio only holds until there is a low priced PPC970 board available... Pegasos2 for example.

But I was talking about G3s and G4s.

I was ina bit of a sticky situation a few weeks ago. I had to get a Laptop for music.

I had to decide which Laptop to get. I only had just over £1000 to spend.

It was a toss up between  the PowerBook G4 876Mhz with 256meg RAM (40Gig HD + 12" screen) or a Pentium P4 3Ghz with 512Meg RAM (40Gig HD + 15.1" Screen + DVD-R/RW).

Not sure what to get, I decided to try out Reason and Logic (the music software I will be using, many thanks to a friend of mine for providing the Mac versions of the software to try) on both machines.

On the basis of that simple test, I was able to decide which one to get.

[lempkee]

bloodline: please name one operating system that is tied to the x86 and dont name windows and linux.

when people starts a thread like this , just when things starts to look better, well its just like amithlon in 2001, it made people LEAVE! and they wont come back ..why? because they belive os4 will be emulated asap because of a thread like this, and everyone knows that by emulating a ppc will make the x86 even more popular and especially WINDOWS! .

linux never was a contender and never will be, it will remain as a geek os just like what it was designed to be.
anyone remeber the "UAE can do 3d?" thread that appeard here some time ago? , well did you notice who started it?  and did you know that warp3d is out for uae because of it or hehe something?

well its just so typical, we have an excuse not to jump ship and then people make uae the same, soon there will be wos and pup support, soon it will have nova, soon it will have morphos...

getting tired? , yes u should.

anyway X86 = windows , linux = geek , amiga = emulators , beos died and became an x86 os which is kinda nice but i think that only because it DIED or heh..the ppc plattform around it.

[itix]

Sysspeed just shows 2500 mips coz the JIT skips the fake instructions from Sysspeed so it thinks it's that fast..... same as on mos .... but the actuall speed is much lower.

Very true. Those speed testers are not reliable with JIT. Pegasos
G3@600MHz gave 3200 MIPS with SysSpeed.

Measuring the real performance of virtual CPU is very difficult. I
tried Bloodline's speedtest and test loops were completed in less than
1/50th of second.

Real world applications are needed to test emulation performance in
meaningful way.

[dammy]

by lempkee on 2003/11/7 12:10:59

when people starts a thread like this , just when things starts to look better, well its just like amithlon in 2001, it made people LEAVE! and they wont come back ..why? because they belive os4 will be emulated asap because of a thread like this, and everyone knows that by emulating a ppc will make the x86 even more popular and especially WINDOWS! .

Dude, your really Windowsphobic.  If you really think that people will chose x86 (I'd say 95% of us already own atleast one x86 already) over PPC , that tells me two things.

1. x86 is that much superior to PPC, people will conceed to this if they use it (like they don't use it already).

2. The software and OS that is available to PPC is that inferior to those on x86.

If either of those two are true,  any PPC platform and those OSs tied to PPC platforms are DOA because they can not compete.

well its just so typical, we have an excuse not to jump ship and then people make uae the same, soon there will be wos and pup support, soon it will have nova, soon it will have morphos...

I'm still trying to figure out who "we" is that your referring to.  Is it the few hundred people that have not bought a x86 already that still like/love the Amiga?  If so, more power to you but your limiting yourself and you should respect other's choices as they do yours.   If people want to try to code  a good PPC JIT for x86, more power to them as more choices are better then a single choice which isn't really a choice.  If you want to buy a Peg or a A1, more power to you.   I don't see the x86 guys jumping up and down about a x86 JIT for PPC, nor would I expect to see them to do so.  

anyway X86 = windows , linux = geek , amiga = emulators , beos died and became an x86 os which is kinda nice but i think that only because it DIED or heh..the ppc plattform around it.

Be died because of management snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.  Be management decided to go IABe which they can no clue on how to do a STB OS and alienated the Be Devs.  Sure reciepe for distaster, which happened.  If anything, BeOS exploded in popularity (compared to when it was PPC only) when it went x86 because it allowed so many more devs to pitch in an code without having to buy some exotic (and expensive) BeBox.   Again, Be went with giving people choices, and until their management got stupid, that choice was working.

Dammy