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tux
13-09-2004, 07:22 PM
Here's the scenario: Run any application on any OS on any type of processor with no performance hit. Sounds like a dream, right? Linux apps on Windows, Mac apps on Linux, Intel codebase on a PowerPC chipset... Impossible!

Not according to Silicon Valley startup, Transative Corp. They claim their QuickTransit software will allow applications to run transparently on multiple hardware platforms including Mac, PC, mainframes and servers with no user intervention and almost no performance hit.

The company claims QuickTransit eliminates the need to port software from one platform to another. Software applications written for one platform will run on almost any other, without any modifications to the underlying program.

"This opens up a whole new world of things you can do, because previously software was tied to (a) particular processor," said president and CEO Bob Wiederhold. "It gives you access to a much greater diversity of software. One of the key breakthroughs is performance. You can't tell the difference between a translated application and a native application."

"It's pretty darn impressive," said analyst Jim Turley. "It's remarkable because it's unremarkable (to see it in action): It just works." Turley said he watched a Windows laptop running the Gimp image editor for Linux. The software quickly and efficiently performed a series of processor-intensive graphics transformations and effects, Turley said. "There was no performance hit," he said. "I was expecting a lag, some symptom that things were not as they should be, but that was not the case. There was no hand-eye delay. It seemed completely normal. It responded really quickly."

more information (http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,64914,00.html)

news source neowin.net (http://www.neowin.net)

Crisp_N_Dry
14-09-2004, 08:06 PM
Sounds awesome but I'm not sure this software would be applicable for games. I have no idea whether they have posted results on games tests but since modern games are the biggest system hog of any type of software available. I'd imagine that their software will have a tough time keeping up when compared with a game running on it's native platform. Not that i'm knocking the idea, it's an excellent concept if there truly is little performance hit but I wouldn't get my hopes up to see Doom3 running on Linux for example.

Traveler
14-09-2004, 08:50 PM
It does indeed sound too good to be true, however I read the article and if it really does what it says it does, then: oh boy oh boy!

I think its a bit unfair to throw in Doom III as a testcase, since the average pc doesn't even run Doom III without having to set most options to minimal, but they do mention something about running a linux version of quake III on a Apple PowerBook. And with pretty good results too. Given the fact that quake is still used in benchmarks, I'd say its worth a few thumbs up!

WILL
15-09-2004, 12:40 AM
...I wouldn't get my hopes up to see Doom3 running on Linux for example.
Sorry man, this might be a bit unfair to quote, but we are talking about id Software, right? The same company that has been making Linux ports of practically every first person shooter they've released from the first Doom to Quake III? :twisted:

However, I do get your point. I think that it is highly possible to do this considering that the software or game isn't hardware dependant or optimized towards speific harware that isn't there. Put simply 3D Now! enhanced code will not run very well on an Intel chip(unlless I missed something and Intel managed to be able to get it from AMD in recent years?).

Has anyone used a program called VMWare? Basically this program runs virtual drive images off of the BIOS and hardware almost completely independant of the OS that it's running it. It's actually quite amazing to see Linux running inside a Window on XP or not to mention the other way around. :shock:

Side note on Doom 3 for Linux. I can only imagine how much nicer it would be to run a Linux copy considering the speed increase. ;)

tux
15-09-2004, 07:24 AM
the thing what gets me is what about all the api calls to the os?

tux
15-09-2004, 07:25 AM
Has anyone used a program called VMWare? Basically this program runs virtual drive images off of the BIOS and hardware almost completely independant of the OS that it's running it. It's actually quite amazing to see Linux running inside a Window on XP or not to mention the other way around. :shock:

yeah thats emulation, and thats really slow :(