I've been attempting to find hardware that would allow me to run x86 software on real hardware inside of a VM. I have not been able to find much aside from pic related, which is called the Mustang 200. It's a PCIe card with dual x64 processors and RAM. Unfortunately it only seems to come with botnet CPUs. You can find all the details here: h ttps://www.ieiworld.com/en/product/model.php?II=564
This card is close to what I want but it seems to be pretty locked down. It's intended for "cloud computing" but my hope was to use it instead for running legacy software inside of a VM. Basically, I want to build a computer using a POWER9 or similar non-botnet cpu then use an x86 add-on card for all software that would not run natively on the new architecture.
Has anyone here done or built a similar set-up before? These type of add-on cards were popular back in the day in Mac circles but I don't see any available these days aside from this one I've found. To me such an add-on card seems like the best way to bridge the gap between x86/AMD64 and a new architecture be it POWER9 or RISC-V. Since things have stagnated so much in the last decade I don't think you'd lose enough performance for it to matter in most daily tasks.
Why would you need real x86 hardware this powerful for legacy applications? Spend the money on a higher core count POWER9 and use QEMU.
Luis Cooper
That card and those Xeon Phi cards are just embedded computers that communicate over PCIe so you might as well have a seperate box and hook it up over a virtual network with a USB3 male to male cable. It's a small decrease in speed for better selection and cost, there are tons of those Intel NUCs to choose from.
If I had to make one that works with coreboot I'd get a macbook 2,1 motherboard and hook it up over firewire or USB2. Those motherboards are very cheap and flashes easily. It might even fit in a 5.25" form factor.
I'm curious how much would people here pay for a 2.4 ghz dual core x86 coprocessor that fits in a 5.25" bay. Or would you just make one yourself?
Those thinkpads that work with coreboot all have larger motherboards and are a pain in the ass to flash so it's not as good an option.
When I speak of "legacy applications" I mean everything up to current day x64 software. I want something in the machine that can run existing software while my OS/GUI and native applications run on the new architecture. Emulation is great where it can be used, and the end goal would be to use it for everything it's suitable for in the hopes that it'll get nearly perfect over time.
My ideal card would be as
described but in a form factor small enough to fit inside of a desktop case and later a laptop. Something like this would allow us to move away from the current *nix/Windows affair while still retaining support for it. Given how badly software has stagnated as of late you don't even have to have amazing specs to satisfy 99% of use cases. If gaming can be done at acceptable frame rates you're golden. Anything intensive like rendering video and heavy math are going to be some of the first things you port to the native architecture anyway.
I just see a way out of the current mess we're in. Why not down size the entire shebang (CPU/RAM/GPU/Sounds) to a simple competent within a larger/better machine? It makes sense to retain support for all that software while begin able to isolate it away from the rest of the machine.
I would pay about what I give for a mid-high end graphics card for something like this. Bonus points for something that allows me to upgrade the CPU/RAM without too much trouble. Also dedicated sound/GPU hardware would be nice. I could see higher end models offering things like that while the low-mid range models would offload that stuff to the CPU.
Pretty sure that the CPU card link would be the bottleneck. Running it via dynarec on your powerful CPU is a better solution. Now, some on-die memory just for this purpose (like a user controllable L3: L4) would make sense. t. Winbabby
William Cox
To follow up on this, it's better to pool money to pay some devs to convert some software to use Altivec (maybe bountysource?). RPCS3 (maybe some other emulators), x264/x265/AV1 and gzdoom are probably the only software I use that might need it.
Asher Sullivan
You're still using x86 processors, which are botnet by design.
Andrew Thomas
Why use x86 if you're planning to move away from x86 in general? Just use a VM. Chances are if you can't compile your software for POWER it's probably shit.
Jacob White
What about nonfree software? I'm not going to build my life around your licensing fetish.
Blake Barnes
No they aren't, stop spreading bullshit. Even POWER can be backdoored.
Don't want backdoor shit don't use computers at all. It's that simple.
Ian Butler
x86 is botnet you fucking (((shill))). Intel Management engine. Even if it wasn't, x86 is such a shit architecture that it would still warrent a switch to POWER.
Jordan Rodriguez
>x86 is botnet you fucking (((shill))). Intel Management engine. Huh. I didn't know my VIA CPUs had an Intel ME.
Ryan Long
Aren't VIA chips underpowered? Pre-PSP AMD processors would make a better choice.
Camden Wilson
That's the life you actually chose! You have chosen to give control of your computing to the owner of the software. This is not a secret, you're expected to understand this for every single piece of non-free software that you choose.
Mason Thomas
I put all nonfree software in docker, including vidya games. Your move.
Matthew Hughes
Pick one you faggot. What's next, you're going to tell me the Pentium MMX or K6 is backdoored?
Jason Martin
A virtual machine or some other kind of sandbox isn't going to give you any meaningful control over the software, the only control that gives you is to limit its reach to within the sandbox. Your ability to study its code and modify any part of it is practically impossible, that control belongs to the owner of the software and you have chosen this way for your own life. You can change this if you want but something tells me that you will refuse.
Justin Evans
I don't care about my ability to study or modify the nonfree software that I use. I don't trust it and I don't have to because I'm not using it for anything critical. I have other things to waste my time on.
Angel Morris
Then there's no problem for you. You don't care about POWER because you actually like x86.
Ayden James
I'm interested in open architectures and there's nothing that I particularly like about x86, other than some of its implementations being fast. Why are you posting lies on the internet? Stop that.
Gabriel Gonzalez
You have admitted that you don't use your computer for anything critical and that you refuse to change your x86 based non-free software. This implies that you like the x86 and that you're not interested in other computers except for minor academic reason. If you had a more serious attitude about other computers, you would not be so tightly wedded to your x86 computer as implied by your x86 only software.
Nolan Mitchell
It is. Look up SMM.
Cameron Gutierrez
I have admitted that I use nonfree software for nothing critical. But even if I wasn't using computers for anything critical this wouldn't invalidate my point.
Elijah Moore
What is your argument? You are still cucked by proprietary. You don't have the freedom to run it natively on POWER right now, how can you be so retarded.
Jeremiah Rivera
>Pretty sure that the CPU card link would be the bottleneck. Which is why some of these cards are using 10Gbps links instead. I don't really care about the bottleneck as long as I have support. Really all you need is the ability to output screen grabs every 60ms or so that can be embedded into the native GUI.
Here come the licensecucks right on time to stop any progress. No one cares that the software is proprietary/closed source. The idea is to give yourself a safe place with a condom wrapped around it to run that software inside of something safe/open source/free/auditable.
I am considering I have machinery that requires early Windows/DOS/x86 software that doesn't run well in any emulator to run. This is a valid use case and one many are stuck in.
Ethan Diaz
Good point. Does 80486 not have SMM?
Jacob Nelson
Looking into this the best macbook that works with libreboot is from the first generation of their CoreDuo mobile line, it's a 2.16ghz dual core from 2006 that can only take 4 gigs of ram. If it was a later generation I'd have given serious thought to this as libre hardware sells for a decent premium.
It's a real shame the x200 is slightly too big for the 5.25" form factor. Much better specs, support for virtualization and dealing with the power supply is less of an issue.
I'd probably sell a basic model for around $250-300. Compared to other libre x86 systems that have FSF's RYF certification it's pretty cheap. Could be used as a tiny standalone computer as well.
This thing wouldn't be perfect as it is intended to help users who want to wean off x86 but have a niche program they can't stop using. Plus not everyone interested in libre computing can get emulation to work perfectly for all use cases or compile software for a different architecture.
It would have its own PCI lane so connectivity isn't an issue.
this is where the problem is. the cpu has direct links to the ram, and everything else on the system. pci is fast, but no that fast. there is a reason why you cannot simply upgrade your computer by plugging in more cpu's on cards that are on the pci bus. graphics cards work because the i/o makes sense, they take an input, do a shitton of work, and output, a cpu on the otherhand needs to take in massive amounts of i/o for relatively trivial tasks.
tldr; this would work, but it would probably end up being slower than emulating, and even if it wasn't, you would take a massive performance hit. imagine putting a newer generation i7 on one of these pci cards, it would immediately be bottle necked by the pci bus.
Aaron James
If you want to avoid SMM, you have to use a regular 386 (not the special laptop version that's got power management shit). I guess they made versions at up to 40 MHz, and you might even be able to play Doom on that (the 3-episode release, up to and including version 1.2, i.e. before they changed the engine for Doom II). Much fast, so games!
Jason Turner
The idea is to self contain the CPU on the add-on card though. If the CPU has RAM available to it on the card the bottleneck can be worked around. All you really need is an update of the output from time to time. This could simply be a screen capture every few ms that can be sent to the main GPU/CPU. I/O can be on the slow side as long as it runs fast enough once it's on the card. Plus, we do not need i7 level of performance. As long as it's good enough to run things like photoshop, old DOS software, and other proprietary software at a decent speed it'd be fine.
On your other point (emulation) the idea here is to use thing until emulation becomes good enough. With such an add-on card it doesn't matter how well the new CPU emulates x86 software. You have plenty of time to work on that and make it better with the peace of mind of having the real thing tucked away inside of the machine if it were ever needed. The ideal situation would be one where you'd eventually not need to the add-on card at all. But we all know that'll never be a reality because certain edge cases simply won't run in emulation due to reasons beyond our control. For those cases you use the card, for everything else you use the host machine.
Caleb Hall
if the add-in card is running it's own ram and your envisioning this as something you'll vnc into you might as well just buy a seperate x86 system, stick 2 motherboards in the case, and pretend they are the same computer, vnc'ing into the x86 machine when necessary
Christian Baker
Sounds great, now you know what would be even better? Shrinking that motherboard down to a smaller size so I could fit it into a standard connector, like I don't know, a PCIe slot. Then I'd have the added advantage of being able to use it in any machine I wanted. I could even drop in multiple cards if I felt the need and needed all that processing power.
Oh wait, that's exactly what this thread is about. I know I can do this with multiple machines. I think you're all missing the point which is: With an add-on card you could make it a standard feature. You could take it one step further and make it normalfag friendly and integrate it with a new OS on a non-botnet platform. You could even sell these machines to normalfags who'd buy them because they know their old games/software will run on it because of that nifty add-on card.
But I guess all that is dumb. Let's all argue about which license is the cuck license, suck Stallman cock, and talk about how GNU HURD is going to come out any day now and change literally everything.
Some versions don't, but the high end ones do. You would have to get an early 486.
Levi Wood
The latest Isaiah architecture chips were pretty good. Athlon 64 level IPC (but with lowish clocks), up to quad-core. Quite functional for a basic desktop.
Wouldn't it be possible to get one of those old Mac PC cards to run in a modern non-x86 mobo?
Dominic Diaz
Aren't those proprietary and/or super obscure? Don't think you can get anything non-x86 with ISA slots nowadays.
Jason Nelson
If I recall correctly, the firmware on those cards may only work with Macs. I don't own any Power Macs with PCI slots or any Mac expansion cards, so I wouldn't know. As for the hardware onboard the cards, it appears to be a standard Socket 7 system- just running off a PCI slot. I think you could even upgrade the RAM and CPU with standard parts.
Why are you so adamant about it being in a card form factor? It only made sense back in the Macintosh days due to hardware limitations that required the video port be on the card to switch seamlessly between OSes.
Look at this diagram for the Mustang-200 card, the PCIe 4x lane is wasted on it. It needs their custom OS to run on the card and software in order to turn the host into a 10GbE router to be used properly. It's a stupid idea.
If someone using a RISC-V or POWER9 based computer absolutely needed to run something on x86 hardware instead of emulation the obvious answer would be a cheap PC stick. If you want a more elegant solution get a USB 3.0 PCIe card that has an internal USB port and plug it in there.
I want them to be able to run in tandem or separately. I realize this card isn't exactly what I want and I'd never shill for it. It seems like a dumb idea but it does have the hardware in the form factor that I'm seeking.
It doesn't have to be a PCI port but it does need to interface with the mainboard/CPU somehow. I am not saying you need to limit it to just x86 either, you could have similar cards with a variety of things: MIPS, RISC-V, a M68K, Z80s, FM chips. x86 seems like the killer application though because you gain so much software support along with it.
Your argument boils down to software you can't run natively is shit and you shouldn't use it anyway. That's great but you'll never see mass adoption of a new architecture without support for the old. Emulation simply isn't going to cover everything and when it doesn't a cheap add-on card starts to look like a good option. Normalfags aren't going to pick up another computer or have a server laying around.
If such a thing exists it's going into my next build simply because I need real x86 hardware for a variety of things I do. Some will eventually be workable on POWER9 but until that software is optimized it doesn't make sense not to run it on the real deal. Plus I can think of a lot of tasks I could use it for while it was idle. It basically becomes free processing power at that point and you could utilize for a bunch of stuff outside of this one use case.
Isaac Green
x86 emulation has been really good for a long time, you're better off keeping the money such a card would cost.
Mason Wood
How's your emulation of x86 on arm/power/riscv going? Show numbers. In my experience x86 emulation on x86 is unbearably slow.
Oliver Wood
I'm not the only one who mentioned using USB 3.0 to do this.
No I'm asking you why you want an addon card when there's a $50-60 PC that can stick into a USB port at speeds more than sufficient for your use case. Wait for the next generation of Ice Lake compute sticks, plug 4 of them into a PCIe USB 3.0 card and you've got the same thing the Mustang-200 is(not counting single thread performance) for less than half the price without needing their software to use it.
Not only can you upgrade this system very easily for the next decade or more it costs only $60-70 to start right now. What you want, a modern x86 addon card that provides compatibility to non x86 systems, doesn't exist and will never be built.
