A developer has found a method to enable the first virtualization of Windows 10 on ARM running successfully on an Apple M1 Mac and finds the performance to be “pretty snappy.”
The 8-Bit discovered that developer Alexander Graf was able to make some tweaks to get his M1 Mac running the OS as a virtualization and even highlighted that “It’s pretty snappy here 😄.”
Who said Windows wouldn't run well on #AppleSilicon? It's pretty snappy here 😁. #QEMU patches for reference: https://t.co/qLQpZgBIqI pic.twitter.com/G1Usx4TcvL
— Alexander Graf – @agraf@fosstodon.org (@_AlexGraf) November 26, 2020
Graf also noted that “Windows ARM64 can run x86 applications really well. It’s not as fast as Rosetta 2, but close.”
He was able to achieve this by running the Windows ARM64 Insider Preview by virtualizing it through the Hypervisor.framework. This framework allows users to interact with virtualization technologies in user space without having to write kernel extensions (KEXTs), according to Apple.
Moreover, this wouldn’t have been possible without applying a custom patch to the QEMU virtualizer. QEMU is an open-source machine emulator and virtualizer. It’s known for “achieving near-native performance” by executing the guest code directly on the host CPU. So it goes without saying that only ARM guests can be perfectly virtualized on an ARM machine like the M1-supported Macs…
When it comes to virtualizing ARM Windows on ARM Macs using Graf’s method, you can even run Windows apps (even x86 ones) that are not available on the Mac.
MacDailyNews Take: With ARM Windows already virtualized on Apple M1 Mac, however early it may be, Intel gets more irrelevant with each passing day. Just wait until the Apple M2, M3, etc.