2024 could be the year the PC finally dumps x86 for Arm, all thanks to Windows 12 and Qualcomm’s new chip::We’ve already reported on Qualcomm’s new 12-core Arm uberchip, the Snapdragon X Elite, and its claims of x86-beating performance and efficiency. But it takes two to tango when it comes a maj
Having used an ARM Mac, and the pains of countless utilities and apps that are x86/x64 only, as well as the pains of virtualising x86/x64 operating systems, I’m not a fan. I can virtualise ARM just fine on x64 but not the other way around.
(Edit: I’m not referring to OS utilities and apps - Apple have done a fine job with porting the OS to ARM, but the same can’t be said for the wider ecosystem - especially FOSS and niche developer toolchains).
People probably said the same thing when Apple dropped PowerPC for x86, there’s going to be an awkward transition period but when it becomes a standard you’ll feel differently.
yeah, but were not talkin some niche audience like apple powerpc products. lets not pretend apple had actual marketshare.
this is messing with legacy windows products that are deeply ingrained the world over. it will be far messier than that apple crap
I had a Mac G4 just before the transition from PPC and while that was painful (since x86 emulation sucked) this is a whole different kettle of fish.
These days I’m running all sorts of VMs for research and UTM or QEMU on macOS ARM just doesn’t cut the cheese. On a laptop, sure, ARM is fine. Heck, even in a data centre it’s fine, but on workstations, ARM is too sluggish for virtualisation or anything except ARM. Not to mention the shocking state of Windows 11 on ARM and how loads of Windows components don’t actually function properly or even run. Defenders GUI doesn’t even open!
This doesn’t mean what you think it means, haha
Haha thank you for pointing that out! I’m European and clearly awful at American slang. I won’t edit my post as that’s too funny a mistake to remove.
Apple yes, windows? Not so sure, in windows there’s alot of x86 games and everything, people just won’t drop that you know? And with Linux gaining traction in gaming community x86 going to live at least another decade, ONLY way people going to drop x86 if you can launch x86 apps on arm without terrible drop off performance, while apple have that, others don’t, so until then except mobile devices only apple and niche laptops gonna be on arm, because gaming and other legacy software people not gonna drop until you can launch it on arm without terrible drops of performance
Also 68k for PPC 🙂
Apple is a pretty closed system made for graphics designers and people who don’t like choices. It isn’t as simple to make it happen for the pc market.
I also doubt Microsoft will go arm on the next console. They’ve been enjoying all the easy ports to PC for their games and having to port over games based around arm to run on x86 would probably cost a lot more money and time. Game makers wouldn’t like it.
I’m confused, my M1 MBP had like 1-2 things max that were x86 still that I needed and those ran fine on Rosetta.
I know docker is a bit more annoying but it’s not that bad IMHO.
Came in to say the same, and I run all sorts of weird shit. Rosetta is so seamless the only way I know it’s an x86 thing is that it takes a while to launch the first time.
That’s because macs don’t have games. They’ve had 3 iterations of ARM processors and I still can’t download steam natively. If I could, most of my steam library wouldn’t run natively.
Steam runs absolutely fine on my m1. I haven’t checked if it’s running Rosetta or native arm code, but I can’t tell at all so it doesn’t matter. All my Mac games run fine on steam, unless they are old and 32 bit. But macs dropped 32 bit support a while ago even on intel chips. The games run great too.
I’m guessing the ARM version will be for regular people that just go to the main websites. Maybe the x64 version will become enterprise only.