Testing x86 application emulation on Windows on ARM
Reviews of Windows on ARM devices pretty much always states that the access to applications is limited and the x86 emulation isn't the best solution. But how do those applications actually work (or not) on WoA laptops? Let's go through various apps and see.
Lenovo IdeaPad 4G 14Q8C05 Windows on ARM laptop review
Windows on ARM is Microsoft's adventure into moving its operating system and its ecosystem to a different CPU architecture. Previous attempts like Windows RT failed so it begs the question will Windows on ARM
succeed? Let us check how Lenovo IdeaPad 4G 14Q8C05 laptop with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8c ARM SoC runs Windows 11 on ARM.
Running old World of Warcraft clients on Apple silicon devices
On Intel-based Apple devices it was possible to run old WoW clients through the Wine translation layer. With Apple Silicon and the removal of 32-bit executable support this is no longer possible, but thanks to Microsoft and Parallels there is an alternative.
Benchmarking Final Fantasy XIV on M1 Mac Mini
Final Fantasy XIV does support macOS but the game version isn't native to macOS not to mention Apple Silicon. It's pretty much a Windows version run via Wine wrapper. How does it perform on Apple M1 and how much performance is being lost?
Generating memes and infographics with Pillow
Pillow is used for simple operations on images, like resizing, converting to other file formats, and so on. It also can be used to generate custom graphics like infographics or composites of multiple images - memes, infographics, and more. Let's take a look at how it can be done.
Resolution and graphics quality scaling in WoW for Apple M1
Apple silicon is quite capable and even the base M1 can run WoW pretty easily if you keep the settings a bit down. Let's see how performance scales with resolution and quality settings in Dragonflight pre-patch.
WoW Dragonflight PTR and Classic on Windows on ARM devices
There are few Windows on ARM devices with Qualcomm ARM CPUs plus a few user-converted Android phones or tablets. Those are mostly higher-power variants of mobile phone chips so the performance isn't great but at least the devices are fanless and have quite long battery life. Let's see how they handle ARM-native WoW.
Laptop DDR4 caveats - x8 layout versus x16 versus single and dual channel
Laptop vendors from time to time skimp on RAM for their laptops. If you get a single-channel configuration you can lose a lot of performance. For DDR4 even with the JEDEC standard, there are two memory layouts available and the cheaper one is also slower. So let's go over all those cases.
Ray tracing and API scaling on Intel Arc A380
After my initial benchmarks of Intel Arc A380 GPU I've decided to double check some of the results - mainly checking API scaling and getting more ray tracing data.
Intel Arc A380 - first look at Intel discrete graphics card
Intel is entering the discrete graphics card market with the Arc series. Some cards are already out so let's look at entry level Arc A380 and what Intel is planning to release.