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by dpark 3308 days ago
> the new operating system will include x86 emulation, giving it the ability to run 32-bit Windows desktop applications unmodified.
1 comments

a) only 32bit b) At what speed though? x86 emulation isn't trivial, and arm seems to be sufficiently different in architecture to incur a large translation overhead.
Microsoft has had videos out for a while of their x86 emulation. They have a demo of loading Photoshop CC, and it looks close to native speed, though I notice a bit of window refresh. Looks usable, but I'd like to see more demos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_GlGglbu1U&t=80s

Not only that, but if you are making UWP packages (for the windows store? I'm not sure if they are standalone as well), you can ship both x86 and ARM binaries together. I'm probably butchering the details, but the presentation and accompanying HN discussion was interesting[1]. The video is pretty cool, as they demo real running x86 and ARM binaries on the same system, and explain some seriously cool stuff WRT x86 emulation.

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14318406

But isn't Photoshop a prime example of a program you'd want to run in 64bit mode? Mo'ram mo'better?