The scourge of x86 emulation

Slightly related but this project (FEX) is amazing. I've been running Armada OS on multiple ARM handhelds and they're viable little linux machines now except with amazing battery life.

Most problems I run into are anti cheat related (EAC, etc.) but those can be circumvented for now. Feels kind of insane how far x86 emulation has come.

For reference , Fex is a translation framework for x86 to ARM much like Apple’s Rosetta2 and Microsoft’s Prism.

Valve sponsor development as it’s also the way the new Steam Frame supports x86 games. It’s also being used (as a fork) in Crossover Beta to replace the use of Rosetta2.

The intro of this article repeats the common assertion that

> ARM is the most relaxed, allowing significant hardware optimizations; and x86 is the most strict, enforcing a very strong coherency model that doesn’t allow a lot of room for optimization

but I've seen some compelling arguments that a relaxed model doesn't necessarily have much of a benefit, https://fgiesen.wordpress.com/2026/08/25/memory-ordering-in-...

As noted in the article, Apple solved this problem six years ago by simply adding an x86-compatible memory ordering mode to their chip when x86 emulation became important. Yet another way Apple's chips lead the industry.

Great article ! This is the kind of content I always hope to find on HN's front page.

I really wonder how things are organized at Apple to allow for vertical integration to work so well. That feature alone must have involved so many people from so many different teams.