Emulating a 4th Gen or Higher CPU on 1st Gen CPU?

[AbnormalMatrix]

Hi,

I own an Intel Core i7 930 1st gen CPU. In the same computer I have a NVIDIA P106-100 (mining card) and a NVIDIA GT 170 (for display output) as GPUs. Normally I use the P106-100 GPU for Machine Learning as well as 3D rendering both of wich do not require video output from the GPU. This is something that I have been using for several months and has been just fine. However, after watching Linus' videos about gaming on the P106-100 I thought that that could be a nice addition. However, since I have a 1st gen CPU I am unable to select the P106-100 for high performance. I was aware of this when I bought it. I was just wondering if it would be possible to run a Virtual Machine of Windows 10 or an emulator that emulates a 4th gen or higher Intel CPU? Is this possible or am I crazy?

Thanks very much!

[Haro]

2 minutes ago, AbnormalMatrix said:

I was just wondering if it would be possible to run a Virtual Machine of Windows 10 or an emulator that emulates a 4th gen or higher Intel CPU?

different architectures  and i personally don't think it's possible ( i could be wrong)

Edited July 6, 2020 by TofuHaroto

[Bombastinator]

3 minutes ago, AbnormalMatrix said:

Hi,

I own an Intel Core i7 930 1st gen CPU. In the same computer I have a NVIDIA P106-100 (mining card) and a NVIDIA GT 170 (for display output) as GPUs. Normally I use the P106-100 GPU for Machine Learning as well as 3D rendering both of wich do not require video output from the GPU. This is something that I have been using for several months and has been just fine. However, after watching Linus' videos about gaming on the P106-100 I thought that that could be a nice addition. However, since I have a 1st gen CPU I am unable to select the P106-100 for high performance. I was aware of this when I bought it. I was just wondering if it would be possible to run a Virtual Machine of Windows 10 or an emulator that emulates a 4th gen or higher Intel CPU? Is this possible or am I crazy?

Thanks very much!

I would say yes.  It’s possible but also crazy.  The problem is the 930 isn’t fast by today’s standards.  Running emulation makes things more slow.  Emulation would likely run but it would be soooo Slow I think.  Are you trying to avoid specter meltdown mitigation problems for pre 3770k CPUs?

[Aragorn-]

I suspect the part you've missed is that its not the fact its a first gen CPU. Its the fact that it doesnt have integrated graphics.

 

These hacks with the mining cards use the same "hacks" that laptops with discreet GPU's use. A laptop has its main display connected to the iGPU which it uses for the desktop and suchlike. When you switch to playing a game and fire up the graphics chip, you cant physically connect the laptop LCD to the discreet card. Instead the driver uses the PCI bus to transfer the frame buffer output from the dGPU over to the iGPU for display. This was originally called "Optimus".

 

Someone has hacked up the desktop display drivers to do the same thing with a mining card and the integrated graphics on your i5 or whatever. Basically, it makes the nvidia driver thing its operating in laptop mode, so it can work its magic.

 

Since you dont have Intel integrated graphics, it doesnt work.

 

While in theory, theres nothing stopping the system doing the same thing between the P106 and the GT170, the drivers that exist arent designed that way, and writing a driver to actually do it would be an enormous undertaking.

[Bombastinator]

11 minutes ago, Aragorn- said:

I suspect the part you've missed is that its not the fact its a first gen CPU. Its the fact that it doesnt have integrated graphics.

 

These hacks with the mining cards use the same "hacks" that laptops with discreet GPU's use. A laptop has its main display connected to the iGPU which it uses for the desktop and suchlike. When you switch to playing a game and fire up the graphics chip, you cant physically connect the laptop LCD to the discreet card. Instead the driver uses the PCI bus to transfer the frame buffer output from the dGPU over to the iGPU for display. This was originally called "Optimus".

 

Someone has hacked up the desktop display drivers to do the same thing with a mining card and the integrated graphics on your i5 or whatever. Basically, it makes the nvidia driver thing its operating in laptop mode, so it can work its magic.

 

Since you dont have Intel integrated graphics, it doesnt work.

 

While in theory, theres nothing stopping the system doing the same thing between the P106 and the GT170, the drivers that exist arent designed that way, and writing a driver to actually do it would be an enormous undertaking.

Ah. It’s the iGPU that would need to be emulated.  Yeah, that’s going to kill things dead.  

[AbnormalMatrix]

Ok thanks for the replies!

I have a few questions:

Is it possible to emulate an iGPU? I understand it would be slow but I am willing to try it. Do you have any suggestions on what software could do this?

Also I came across this video:

That I don't really understand. Would that solve my problem?

Thanks very, very much for the help!

[Bombastinator]

Theoretically I guess.  In practice I got no idea.  People write all kindsof weird stuff.  It would likely be one of those can rather than should situations.  You can emulate a pentium core on a mips machine.  If you’ve got all week.  Can doesn’t mean functional.  I don’t think you get how incredibly slow it would run though.  You might want to watch the time LTT ran crysis on a 3950x with no gpu.

[AbnormalMatrix]

Ok thanks.

Do I still need iGPU with the method shown in the video?

Thanks!

[AbnormalMatrix]

Is there a way that I could use VT-d do virtualize the CPU?

[nick name]

So you want to game on the P106 and the use other GPU only for display?  I believe that would be through the hacked drivers they used in that LTT video you mentioned.  

 

If you're talking about a virtual machine that might be possible if you can assign hardware, but I couldn't tell you how.

 

Really it doesn't sound like emulation is what you want here.  

[nick name]

So doing a little research -- it looks like you were trying to reproduce the Optimus hack that relied on the system acting as a laptop would and I don't think that's what Linus did in their video.  I believe that in the LTT video they just tricked the driver installer to believe the P106 was a 1060.  And if that's all they did then maybe you can do the same driver hack and then just select in Nvidia Control Panel which card to run games on.  

[Aragorn-]

you cant just hack the driver installer to make it think its a 1060, as the P106 does not have a monitor connection. You NEED to use the Optimus hack to get the "1060" to transfer its framebuffer over to the card thats actually connected to the display.

The only way this is going to work, with performance thats actually acceptable to make any sense at all, is if the optimus driver could be hacked to allow ANY primary GPU, rather than just the intel one. The chances of that happening though, are likely very close to zero. Turning on a pre-existing feature in a GPU driver is comparatively childs play compared with modifying it to do something it was never actually designed to do.