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Switching between 64-bit and compatibility mode as you please

Started by _japheth, December 16, 2022, 02:29:49 AM

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_japheth


Hello,

for those who are interested in low-level stuff here's a little toy: A 32-bit PE binary that's launched in DOS,
and initially runs in long mode, compatibility sub-mode. With a simple far jmp it switches to 64-bit mode.

I had to adjust jwasm' to make it accept both 32- and 64-bit sections in one source module - there's no linker, AFAIK, that's capable to create such "mixed" binaries.




Dummheit, gepaart mit Dreistigkeit - eine furchtbare Macht.

jj2007

msdos.exe mon32x.exe gives me "illegal instruction" :sad:

Other 16-bit applications work just fine with msdos.exe, so I guess it's a bit more complex. Nice idea, though :thumbsup:

Quote2. Requirements
 
  to run an image with Dos32cm attached one needs:

   - a 64-bit CPU
   - an installed DOS
   - an installed XMS host
   - enough extended memory to load the image

_japheth

Quote from: jj2007 on December 16, 2022, 04:25:33 AM
[Other 16-bit applications work just fine with msdos.exe, so I guess it's a bit more complex. Nice idea, though :thumbsup:

Sometimes I wonder why you have to pollute so many threads with your troll posts ... I wouldn't go so far as to conclude that it "tells a lot about you", but it surely is an indication for ...

AFAIR I never posted nonsense in your precious Masmbasic forum?


Dummheit, gepaart mit Dreistigkeit - eine furchtbare Macht.

jj2007

Dear Andreas,

Nothing in my comment is aimed at denigrating you or your work, on the contrary, I admire what you are doing!

I am just expressing that I find the idea interesting, but that it apparently does not work in my simple 16-bit DOS setup. 

Instead of playing beleidigte Leberwurst for no reason at all, you might explain what you mean with "an installed DOS" on a 64-bit machine: DOSBOX? Some other emulator? And why does it crash with "illegal instruction" when launched with Toshiya's DOS emulator (not sure if it can be called an emulator)?

Quote from: _japheth on December 16, 2022, 02:29:49 AMI had to adjust jwasm' to make it accept both 32- and 64-bit sections in one source module - there's no linker, AFAIK, that's capable to create such "mixed" binaries.

This works fine with UAsm64 and the March 98 linker that comes with the Masm32 SDK:

.686p ; create 32 bit code
.model flat, stdcall ; 32 bit memory model
option casemap:none ; case sensitive
.code
.x64
MbX64 SEGMENT EXECUTE USE64
sometest proc far
  push rax


Probably you will now explain to me that I haven't understood anything, but if that makes you happy, so be it :thumbsup:

Gunther

Andreas,

thank you for this notable tool.  :thumbsup:

It works very well under FreeDOS 1.1 and 1.3 with HIMEM.SYS. However, it also works under VirtualBox 6.1, as the following output shows:

Mon32x loaded at 400000, rsp=408ff0
ax=200 bx=400000 cx=400020 dx=a si=402006 di=690200 bp=1161
(cmds: a,d,q):

It would be very nice to have the current JWASM also as DOS version. Is that possible?

Please excuse my late response. But my water cooling for the CPU was damaged and the replacement cooling only arrived in the mail yesterday. Because of this I wasn't online for a while and read
your post only today after the repair.

Quite incidentally: You shouldn't react to every humbug from Italy.
You have to know the facts before you can distort them.

_japheth

Quote from: Gunther on December 19, 2022, 07:55:43 AM
it also works under VirtualBox 6.1, as the following output shows:

thanks for the info, The last time I tried VBox wasn't able to support 64-bit in DOS ( or perhaps I was unable to create such a VM ). Will try again.

Quote
It would be very nice to have the current JWASM also as DOS version. Is that possible?

Yes.

I made a little benchmark demo ( attached ) that compares execution times in 32-/64-bit modes. Qemu - with KVM enabled - runs it with virtually no time penalty compared to pure DOS ( at least the 64-bit variants ).





Dummheit, gepaart mit Dreistigkeit - eine furchtbare Macht.

_japheth

Quote from: _japheth on December 19, 2022, 07:30:05 PM
Quote
It would be very nice to have the current JWASM also as DOS version. Is that possible?
Yes.

Dummheit, gepaart mit Dreistigkeit - eine furchtbare Macht.

Gunther

Andreas,

very special thanks for the new DOS JWASM.  :thumbsup:

Here are the results of the benchmark under VirtualBox:


running bm in 32bit...
time: 228 ms for 100000000 iterations
running bm in 64bit, 32-bit regs...
time: 229 ms for 100000000 iterations
running bm in 64bit, 64-bit regs...
time: 2011 ms for 100000000 iterations
bye


Thank you for sharing that code. Hopefully the test will be of some help for you.
You have to know the facts before you can distort them.

_japheth

Quote from: Gunther on December 20, 2022, 07:56:58 AM
Hopefully the test will be of some help for you.

It was actually meant as a demonstration only - how this tool could be used to test 32-/64-bit code in an environment with just 1 active core and no threads running in the background.

But your results are quite interesting - so I also created a VBox DOS VM and run the benchmark. The interesting thing is that on my machine ( AMD Ryzen ) the 32-bit register calculations are a lot slower ( 700 ms ), while the 64-bit register results are significantly faster ( 1070 ms ).
Dummheit, gepaart mit Dreistigkeit - eine furchtbare Macht.

Gunther

Andreas,

Quote from: _japheth on December 20, 2022, 06:17:39 PM
... so I also created a VBox DOS VM and run the benchmark. The interesting thing is that on my machine ( AMD Ryzen ) the 32-bit register calculations are a lot slower ( 700 ms ), while the 64-bit register results are significantly faster ( 1070 ms ).

that is indeed a bit strange. What does Qemu have to say about this?

Here are the values from me under plain DOS:

running bm in 32bit...
time: 253 ms for 100000000 iterations
running bm in 64bit, 32-bit regs...
time: 253 ms for 100000000 iterations
running bm in 64bit, 64-bit regs...
time: 2224 ms for 100000000 iterations
bye
You have to know the facts before you can distort them.

zedd151

Quote from: _japheth on December 20, 2022, 06:17:39 PM
... the 32-bit register calculations are a lot slower ( 700 ms ), while the 64-bit register results are significantly faster ( 1070 ms ).
Hmmm. Actually 700ms is faster than 1070ms. I.e., 32 bit faster than 64 bit. Either that was an error in your post, or I'm missing something.

_japheth

Quote from: zedd151 on December 24, 2022, 07:16:28 AM
Hmmm. Actually 700ms is faster than 1070ms. I.e., 32 bit faster than 64 bit. Either that was an error in your post, or I'm missing something.

I guess my English was too bad.  :undecided:

> that is indeed a bit strange. What does Qemu have to say about this?

Qemu, VBox and plain DOS are all virtually the same.
However, running the bm on an Intel machine (I5 3330) also gives that strange result. So it's pretty likely a AMD/Intel CPU difference.
Dummheit, gepaart mit Dreistigkeit - eine furchtbare Macht.

zedd151

Quote from: _japheth on December 25, 2022, 02:44:30 PM
Quote from: zedd151 on December 24, 2022, 07:16:28 AM
Hmmm. Actually 700ms is faster than 1070ms. I.e., 32 bit faster than 64 bit. Either that was an error in your post, or I'm missing something.
I guess my English was too bad.  :undecided:
It happens, no apology necessary. The numbers presented did illustrate the intention, even though it was erroneously worded. No harm, no foul.

Gunther

Andreas,

Quote from: _japheth on December 25, 2022, 02:44:30 PM
Qemu, VBox and plain DOS are all virtually the same.

Interesting enough.

Quote from: _japheth on December 25, 2022, 02:44:30 PM
However, running the bm on an Intel machine (I5 3330) also gives that strange result. So it's pretty likely a AMD/Intel CPU difference.

This is indeed quite strange. Unfortunately, I don't have access to an AMD CPU at the moment.
You have to know the facts before you can distort them.