Could there be a "windows" CPU

[JCBiggs]

Been interested in CPU architectures lately, as it appears that's the next area of improvement  with the chips approaching the limits of physics.  It appears that x86 is a really dirty architecture with tons of instructions that dont get used, hence the advent of RISC-V.  But my question is,  with windows being the most common PC platform in the world, and windows requiring certain program calls to work correctly, why dont they just build a CPU with nothing but the instructions windows uses?  And the optimization that would come along with that.  Is that even possible?

[Skiiwee29]

but that doesnt tell the whole story. You have software developers who release software on Windows that use certain instructions that windows may or may not use itself. You would really limit software development as a result and what could run properly on that architecture. 

[truecrafting]

You mean Microsoft CPU's well the reason that i can think off why Microsoft hasn't done this is because getting in the cpu game in this time is difficult with AMD and INTEL battling it out and do you know how expensive companies like intel and amd pay for RnD yeah microsoft is rich but financially building and secondly they are a software company why would they build their own CPU's when they have Intel & AMD to produce it since amd and intel has been in the game decades long. 

[truecrafting]

7 minutes ago, Skiiwee29 said:

but that doesnt tell the whole story. You have software developers who release software on Windows that use certain instructions that windows may or may not use itself. You would really limit software development as a result and what could run properly on that architecture. 

Just imagine the monopoly Microsoft will get when they release their own by optimizing cpu's to run better on Windows and get performance cuts when you use intel/and cpu's

 

[Skiiwee29]

1 minute ago, truecrafting said:

Just imagine the monopoly Microsoft will get when they release their own by optimizing cpu's to run better on Windows and get performance cuts when you use intel/and cpu's

 

no one would buy them and they would run themselves out of business if they did that. 

[truecrafting]

Just now, Skiiwee29 said:

no one would buy them and they would run themselves out of business if they did that. 

Sadly most companies think about their money rather than the consumer 

 

[Skiiwee29]

1 minute ago, truecrafting said:

Sadly most companies think about their money rather than the consumer 

 

How would they think about money here if they would lose it all becasue everyone would stop buying Microsoft products and switch to Linux or Apple? Why would people want to buy or use software that would degrade or restrict what they can and can not use on it? It would be bad for business for them, not just us as consumers. 

[JCBiggs]

13 minutes ago, Skiiwee29 said:

but that doesnt tell the whole story. You have software developers who release software on Windows that use certain instructions that windows may or may not use itself. You would really limit software development as a result and what could run properly on that architecture. 

I thought about that, but my thought process was that, if software runs "in windows"  then it should be designed to use nothing but the "windows" instruction set.   

 

That very issue of using instructions that may not be very common, could lead to some issues down the road in intel were to trim down the X86 architecture.

 

Im not sure why it would be a "bad" thing.  I think of it like AVX.  its faster and more effiecient so what if they entire windows OS was essential coded with "avx"  and the processor had the architecture to match it perfectly.  Across millions of computers the power savings alone would be massive.  

[Skiiwee29]

1 minute ago, JCBiggs said:

I thought about that, but my thought process was that, if software runs "in windows"  then it should be designed to use nothing but the "windows" instruction set.   

 

That very issue of using instructions that may not be very common, could lead to some issues down the road in intel were to trim down the X86 architecture.

 

Im not sure why it would be a "bad" thing.  I think of it like AVX.  its faster and more effiecient so what if they entire windows OS was essential coded with "avx"  and the processor had the architecture to match it perfectly.  Across millions of computers the power savings alone would be massive.  

if they did that, it would invalidate and make 99.99999% of the software out there useless and unable to be ran on that platform...

[GoodBytes]

Just to let you know.

Microsoft wants to open Windows to other CPU architectures. Right now the focus is on ARM based CPUs.

Microsoft has been working with Qualcomm and still are, actively, to make next generation of ARM Snapdragon CPUs to have the needed technologies to run properly Windows 10, and its x86 translation layers, to run 100% of Windows 10 compatible programs.

 

So far, a soft lunch was done, with laptops/convertible, which you can buy now, powered by the Snapdragon 835 CPUs. The end result is a low end Core i3-Y performance when running Windows 10, and running native ARM64 programs, which is great feet for a chip that is nothing special done to it for that to happen. But when it comes running x86 programs, due to the translation layer, it gets Atom CPU performance. Some program like Chrome, has difficulties, other web browsers like Firefox are fine.

 

We should see Snapdragon 850, a modified 845 with a focus on laptops usage and not be aggressively power saving to run Windows 10 on ARM better. The end result is an up to 30% faster compared to the 835. However, we need to wait and see, as the "30%" is a goal from Qualcomm

 

The real changes will come with the Snapdragon 1000 coming up next year, which was designed for a number of years to be focused for laptops and not phones, and features added technology to improve Windows performance and the translation layer. So we will wait and see. We are far from it now.

 

Some people managed to install Windows 10 on ARM on a Raspberry Pi 3. You can find YouTube videos on this. It runs, but due to lack of any drivers including the microSD card, disk performance is unbearably slow taking the OS ages to load itself and stuff, but the CPU is not under intense load, which is a good sign or possibility that, if there were drivers, it could be done.

[JCBiggs]

1 minute ago, Skiiwee29 said:

if they did that, it would invalidate and make 99.99999% of the software out there useless and unable to be ran on that platform...

I understand what youre saying, since it would no longer be considered a general purpose CPU.  but arent "apps" already going this way?   I mean ARM had the same generic issue, that has be pretty much solved now.   I guess this raises the question of how much access does/should software have to the bare metal below.  Personally I think the OS should be the layer the separates hardware and 3rd party software (for security reasons) 

[JCBiggs]

btw, my question was really more of a power/execution efficiency question.

 

 

[GoodBytes]

2 minutes ago, JCBiggs said:

  Personally I think the OS should be the layer the separates hardware and 3rd party software (for security reasons) 

Well you don't have a choice... if not... you can only run 1 process at a time... and I mean 1 process at a time... no desktop environment, no background programs, no services, no nothing.

[JCBiggs]

1 minute ago, GoodBytes said:

Well you don't have a choice... if not... you can only run 1 process at a time... and I mean 1 process at a time... no desktop environment, no background programs, no services, no nothing.

i guess I worded that wrong. I meant, the OS should interpret and run everything, and never give software access to cpu instructions that it doesnt have built in.  In other words, software should be written for windows, not for the CPU. 

I know this wouldnt work with very high performance software, and im not advocating the extinction of x86 at all.  you still need highly  optimized direct CPU access software for alot of high end work.  

[GoodBytes]

2 minutes ago, JCBiggs said:

btw, my question was really more of a power/execution efficiency question.

 

 

Well, like I said, everything is possible. A translation layer could be made to emulate x86 programs, given that the CPU is powerful enough to run that decently. ARM Snapdragon highest end CPUs shows the most potential, as in, it is there, it works decently, and delivers an acceptable experience (if you get a system with an SSD), with really impressive battery life and a seriously good LTE modem built-in if you care about that, especially with devices with the coming up 850 models, and that really push for high potential of the coming up 1000 model which should seriously deliver the performance that should (this is all on paper) a great experience for most of your average user even running x86 programs (but it won't be on phones, as it would consume too much power).

[JCBiggs]

interestingly...

 

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/06/18/microsoft_e2_edge_windows_10/

 

Quote

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Updated Microsoft has ported Windows 10 and Linux to E2, its homegrown processor architecture it has spent years working on mostly in secret.

 

[GoodBytes]

7 minutes ago, JCBiggs said:

i guess I worded that wrong. I meant, the OS should interpret and run everything, and never give software access to cpu instructions that it doesnt have built in.  In other words, software should be written for windows, not for the CPU. 

It's called Android. And that is what it does. It has its own custom Java runtime. All apps and games can made in variety of languages, but the compiler ends up compiling in Java binaries (for the custom Java run time layer that Android has, won't run on normal Java runtime due to the high amount of modifications), and runs on it. The problem is performance. Android took AGES to deliver acceptable performance on your mid-high range phone.  And Windows does have something like this, it is called C# (but totally its won thing, not based on Java). But C#, while faster than Java (no idea how it compares to Android system) is also demanding compared to C/C++, and so for gaming or any programs that is demanding, it will have a serious performance drop.

 

[JCBiggs]

that article makes it appear like they are already doing almost exactly what I was talking about. I just didnt have the technical knowledge to put it into words. 

[N1tro199]

Are we forgetting Apple.

 

Up to 2006, Apple was using their own processors built by IBM. They moved away from that model because they couldn't keep up with the market.

 

It has been tried before but when you limit yourself to one market, you are more vulnerable as you are dependent of that market.

[JCBiggs]

2 hours ago, N1tro199 said:

Are we forgetting Apple.

 

Up to 2006, Apple was using their own processors built by IBM. They moved away from that model because they couldn't keep up with the market.

 

It has been tried before but when you limit yourself to one market, you are more vulnerable as you are dependent of that market.

wouldnt apples reasons for doing such be exactly them same what im talking about in my post?  apple is moving away from intel to their own chips again, by 2020, for speed and power efficiency.  i dont like apple too much but the were, and will be able to get away with less battery and ram with custom built CPU's.  Id just like to see that same efficiency built across all of windows.  

I wonder if you could have  GPCPU co-processor.  have a "smart"  power efficient operating system chip with a co processor chip that does heavy lifting when programmed to do so.  something on a completely different die, like an add in pcie card. 

[N1tro199]

36 minutes ago, JCBiggs said:

wouldnt apples reasons for doing such be exactly them same what im talking about in my post?  apple is moving away from intel to their own chips again, by 2020, for speed and power efficiency.  i dont like apple too much but the were, and will be able to get away with less battery and ram with custom built CPU's.  Id just like to see that same efficiency built across all of windows.  

I wonder if you could have  GPCPU co-processor.  have a "smart"  power efficient operating system chip with a co processor chip that does heavy lifting when programmed to do so.  something on a completely different die, like an add in pcie card. 

My feeling is that, if we do see this kind of move from let's say Microsoft, then part manufacturer will start to disappear and you will be stuck using the Microsoft processor with the OS. Just like Apple.

 

Windows is compatibility oriented. Ok it's not perfect but you can salvage parts from pretty much everywhere and get away with it. Unlike apple, that if the CPU isn't from the supported list, you're screwed.

 

But I get the point where Microsoft should probably work closer with the CPU manufacturers to optimize the hardware and software relation.

[JCBiggs]

2 hours ago, N1tro199 said:

My feeling is that, if we do see this kind of move from let's say Microsoft, then part manufacturer will start to disappear and you will be stuck using the Microsoft processor with the OS. Just like Apple.

 

Windows is compatibility oriented. Ok it's not perfect but you can salvage parts from pretty much everywhere and get away with it. Unlike apple, that if the CPU isn't from the supported list, you're screwed.

 

But I get the point where Microsoft should probably work closer with the CPU manufacturers to optimize the hardware and software relation.

well if you look at the way manufacturing is accomplished, there is really no reason microsoft would put anyone out of business. you still need all the same stuff, it would just be a proprietary design.  I honestly think the desktop as we know it is going away and your gonna have everything SOC and more powerful hardware will just be a module you plug in (like a thunderbolt GPU case)