A general purpose Apple Silicon layer for x86-64 PCs (github.com)
116 points by iceboundrock 14 hours ago
iceboundrock 14 hours ago
A general purpose Apple Silicon layer for x86-64 PCs. It is a UEFI boot program with an arm64-to-x86-64 translator, a Metal driver for NVIDIA GPUs and a model of Apple silicon hardware. macOS and most apps start, but it is slow and needs much more testing, as of v0.1.0
stingraycharles 11 hours ago
Is the intent to support running macOS on it, or rather for e.g. Linux that targets Apple Silicon?
perfsakuya 10 hours ago
To support running the Apple Silicon version of macOS on x86-64 PCs.
userbinator 9 hours ago
yjftsjthsd-h 13 hours ago
So, basically an emulator layer that doesn't need a host OS? (I'm not really interested in running Darwin, but that's a cool concept)
userbinator 9 hours ago
I guess one could call it a "bare-metal/type 1 emulator" much like VMs can run in a "bare-metal/type 1 hypervisor".
cromka 13 hours ago
"An ahead-of-time and just-in-time compiler translates arm64e code to x86-64."
No, not the same, actually. It's more of a Rosetta, but other way round, if I understand this right.
yjftsjthsd-h 11 hours ago
Rosetta is an emulator (or, I suppose, a series of emulators), i.e. a piece of software that makes a computer pretend to be another kind of computer. This is also a bit of lower level software that makes a (x86_64) computer pretend to be a different kind of computer (aarch64), in this case, by AoT and JIT translation, though that's an implementation detail. What distinction are you trying to make?
stavros 10 hours ago
throwaway27448 10 hours ago
Is this not how qemu works? Is rosetta not considered an emulation layer? For all its name suggests otherwise, I would certainly refer to wine as an emulator, and it also uses these techniques.
zbentley 10 hours ago
jamesy0ung 12 hours ago
I noticed Golden Gate still ships with an x86_64 kernel (not kernelcache), I wonder if this is any useful
james@Jamess-MacBook-Pro ~ % sw_vers ProductName: macOS ProductVersion: 27.2.1 BuildVersion: 26B131 james@Jamess-MacBook-Pro ~ % file /System/Library/Kernels/kernel /System/Library/Kernels/kernel: Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64 james@Jamess-MacBook-Pro ~ % strings /System/Library/Kernels/kernel | grep "Darwin" @(#)VERSION: Darwin Kernel Version 27.2.0: Wed Oct 14 23:40:09 PDT 2026; root:xnu-13432.41.4~25/RELEASE_X86_64 Darwin Kernel Version 27.2.0: Wed Oct 14 23:40:09 PDT 2026; root:xnu-13432.41.4~25/RELEASE_X86_64 Darwin
vintagedave 12 hours ago
This is fascinating. If x64 isn’t supported in Golden Gate why is this present?
ykl 10 hours ago
Rosetta 2 is still supported, and the way Rosetta 2 works requires that various system components that x64 apps might depend on also be available in x64. x64 code that is running as arm64 translated by Rosetta 2 can’t call into native arm64 code due to ABI differences, so Rosetta 2 must translate the x64 version of system libraries as well.
My impression was that this did not require the kernel though, just system frameworks, so I don’t know why there’s a full x64 kernel in there!
stingraycharles 11 hours ago
Not saying this is the reason, but we build and test and release our software on platforms nobody uses, as it catches rare compiler / memory / UB bugs we otherwise wouldn’t have (eg win32 and FreeBSD)
1over137 10 hours ago
ndiddy 11 hours ago
Reminds me of how some of the dev versions of Snow Leopard still boot on PowerPC.
amelius 2 hours ago
Can't the title just say "emulator"?
I thought this was a PCIE card with an Apple M series chip on it.
rbanffy 13 hours ago
Sounds like a great use for those new Epyc processors with 256 cores…
schmeichel 13 hours ago
Huge. I have been desperately looking for a project like this to be able to use https://github.com/seedds/nxnative to be able to play my copy of BOTW on IOS. Thank you for sharing this, I will be trying it this evening.
sneurlax 13 hours ago
Is this really needed? I got it working on macOS pretty easily without this. It's all in private repos tho, not exactly easy to share by URL unless you're willing to sign up for a gitea.
orionblastar 13 hours ago
This repository needs a star and a follow. It stops Intel Macs from becoming obsolete, but it is slow and buggy.
code_duck 11 hours ago
Apple still supports the latest ones up to Tahoe, and probably security updates for a few years. You can install Windows 10 (no idea about 11) but that is only updated through next year. After that, there's Linux, of course.
1over137 10 hours ago
macOS does get some security updates for the non-latest version, but it does not get all security updates.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/11/psa-apple-isnt-actua...
rbanffy 13 hours ago
I don’t think there is anything that can make Intel Macs not obsolete. Embrace it - that’s their charm and you should use them as they were intended to be used, and experience them as they were designed, as artifacts of their time.
iceboundrock 13 hours ago
I installed CachyOS on my MacBook 16,1, and it feels much faster than with macOS, but the D side is still hot though.
LeFantome 11 hours ago
No thank you. They can sit in a museum 30 years from now. Today, they are still amazing and productive machines (once you get macOS off them).
bigyabai 9 hours ago
Many (most?) Intel Macs still receive microcode updates, Mesa support and recent kernel changes.
The only obsolete part is macOS, which is removable.