Bochs 2.3.6 released

[Robert]

PC emulator

 

Changes in 2.3.6 (December 24, 2007):

 

Brief summary :

 

+ More than 25% emulation speedup vs Bochs 2.3.5 release!

 

- Thanks to Darek Mihocka (http://www.emulators.com)

for providing patches and ideas that made the

speedup possible!

 

+ Up to 40% speedup vs Bochs 2.3.5 release with trace cache optimization!

 

- Lots of bugfixes in CPU emulation

- Bochs benchmarking support

- Added emulation of Intel SSE4.2 instruction set

 

Detailed change log :

 

CPU

- Added emulation of SSE4.2 instruction set, to enable use --enable-sse=4 --enable-sse-extension configure options to enable POPCNT instruction only use configure option --enable-popcnt

- Implemented MTRR emulation, to enable use --enable-mtrr configure option. MTRRs is enabled by default when cpu-level >= 6.

- Implemented experimental MONITOR/MWAIT support including optimized MWAIT CPU state and hardware monitoring of physical address range, to enable use --enable-monitor-mwait configure option.

- Removed hostasm optimizations, after Bochs rebenchmarking it was found that the feature bringing no speedup or even sometimes slows down emulation!

- Merged trace cache optimization patch, the trace cache optimization is enabled by default when configure with --enable-all-optimizations option, to disable trace cache optimization configure with --disable-trace-cache

- Many minor bugfixes in CPU emulation (both ia32 and x86-64)

- Updated CPU instrumentation callbacks

 

Bochs Internal Debugger and Disassembler

- Many fixes in Bochs internal debugger and disassembler, some debugger interfaces significantly changed due transition to the param tree architecture

- Added support for restoring of the CPU state from external file directly from Bochs debugger

 

Configure and compile

- Renamed configure option --enable-4meg-pages to --enable-large-pages. The option enables page size extensions (PSE) which refers to 2M pages as well.

- Removed --enable-save-restore configure option, save/restore feature changed to be one of the basic Bochs features and compiled by default for all configurations.

- Added new Bochs benchmark mode. To run Bochs in benchmark mode execute it with new command line option 'bochs -benchmark time'. The emulation will be automatically stopped after 'time' millions of emulation cycles executed.

- Another very useful option for benchmarking of Bochs could be enabled using new 'print_timestamps' directive from .bochsrc: print_timestamps: enable=1

- Added --enable-show-ips option to all configuration scripts used to build release binaries, so all future releases will enjoy IPS display.

- Enable alignment check in the CPU and #AC exception by default for --cpu-level >= 4 (like in real hardware)

 

SF patches applied

[1857149] Define some IPL values by Sebastian

[1850183] Get memory access mode in BX_INSTR_LIN_READ by Lluis Vilanova

[1841421] pic: keep slave_pic.INT and master_pic.IRQ_in bit 2 in sync by Russ Cox

[1841420] give segment numbers in exception logs by Russ Cox

[1801696] Allow Intel builds on Mac OS X

[1830658] Fix >32GB disk banner by Samuel Thibault

[1813314] Move #define IPL_* and typedef ipl_entry by Sebastian

[1809001] Save PnP Option ROM Product Name string in IPL Boot Table by Sebastian

[1821242] Fix for #1801285, Niclist.exe broken by Sebastian

[1819567] Code warning cleanup

[1816162] Update comment on bios_printf() by Sebastian

[1811139] Trivial Fix when BX_PCIBIOS and BX_ROMBIOS32 not defined by Myles Watson

[1811190] Improve HD recognition and CD boot by Myles Watson

[1811860] Implement %X in bios_printf by Sebastian

[1809649] printf %lx %ld %lu by Myles Watson

[1809651] move BX_SUPPORT_FLOPPY by Myles Watson

[1809652] dpte and Int13DPT fixes by Myles Watson

[1809669] clip cylinders to 16383 in hard drive by Myles Watson

[1799903] Build BIOS on amd64 by Robert Millan

[1799877] Fix for parallel build (make -j2) by Robert Millan

 

these S.F. bugs were closed

[1837354] website bug: View the Source link broken

[1801268] Reset from real mode no longer working

[1843250] Using forward slashes gives invalid filename

[1823446] BIOS bug, local APIC #0 not detected

[1801285] Niclist.exe broken

[1364472] breakpoints sometimes don't work

[994451] breakpoint bug

[1801295] NSIS installer vs Windows Notepad

[1715328] Unreal mode quirk

[1503972] debugger doesn't debug first instruction on exception

[1069071] div al, byte ptr [ds:0x7c18] fails to execute

[1800080] Wrong "BX_MAX_SMP_THREADS_SUPPORTED" assertion

>> Get it HERE.