Bochs x86 PC emulator / News: Recent posts

Brief summary of changes:

• Bugfixes for CPU emulation correctness (MONITOR/MWAIT, VMX/SVM, x87, AVX-VNNI, AVX-512, CET)
  • Critical CPU emulation bugfixes for SHA and GFNI instructions, ADOX and XRSTOR/XRSTORS instructions (prevented boot of Win10)
    ! SVM: Implemented SVM VM_CR_MSR and INIT redirect (required for booting SMP with SVM)
    ! Implemented VMX MBE (Mode Based Execution Control) emulation required for Windows 11 guest
    ! Implemented VMX 'Shadow Stack Prematurely Busy' control
    ! Implemented MSR IA32_SPEC_CTRL Virtualization VMX extension
    ! Implemented Posted-Interrupt Processing VMX extension emulation
    ! Implemented Linear Address Separation (LASS) extension
    ! Implemented 57-bit Linear Address and 5-Level Paging support
    ! Implemented User-Level Interrupt (UINTR) extension
    ! Implemented Intel AMX extensions (AMX, AMX_INT8, AMX_BF16, AMX_FP16, AMX_COMPLEX)
    ! Implemented Intel instruction sets:
  • MOVDIRI/MOVDIR64B, AVX512 BF16, AVX IFMA52, VNNI-INT8/VNNI-INT16, AVX-NE-CONVERT, CMPCCXADD, SM3/SM4, SHA512, WRMSRNS, MSRLIST, WAITPKG, SERIALIZE
    ! CPUID: Added Xeon Sapphire Rapids CPU definition
• Improved 64-bit guest support in Bochs internal debugger, added new internal debugger commands
• Bochs debugger enhanced with new commands (setpmem, loadmem, deref, ...)
  Enhanced magic breakpoint capabilities. Refer to user documentation for more details.
• Updated Bochs instrumentation examples for new disassembler introduced in Bochs 2.7 release
• USB: Fixed/added USB 2.0 Compliance to all devices. Hub still needs a few additions
• USB: xHCI: added the ability to have more than one model of xHCI hardware. Currently there are two.
• USB: Added experimental MSD UASP emulation
• USB: Added OHCI as an EHCI Companion option. Now allows UHCI or OHCI specified as a configuration parameter.
• USB: Added the USB Debugger support for xHCI and UHCI
• Disk images: Allows large VHD image files
• Fixed and enhanced the Floppy Disk emulation, VGA emulation fixes
• Expand maximum resolution for Banshee and Voodoo 3 from 1600x1280 to 1920x1440
• LGPL'd VGABIOS updated to version 0.9a (several VBE fixes / additions)
• Documentation updates and fixes

Brief summary of changes:

• Bugfixes for CPU emulation correctness (CPUID/VMX/SVM fixes to support
  Windows Hyper-V as guest in Bochs)
• Improvements for the plugin handling to simplify Bochs extensions
• Added "multiple NICs" support to the NE2000 and E1000 devices
• Added experimental FTP service for networking modules 'vnet' and 'socket'
• Fixes and improvements for all supported Voodoo graphics adapters
• Added USB keyboard emulation with most of the keys supported
• GUI "cmdmode": create a headerbar event with key combo starting with F7
• LGPL'd VGABIOS updated to version 0.8a (new VGABIOS for Voodoo Banshee)

Brief summary of changes :

• Improvements for the plugin handling to simplify Bochs extensions
• Added "multiple NICs" support to the NE2000 and E1000 devices
• Added experimental FTP service for networking modules 'vnet' and 'socket'
• Fixes and improvements for all supported Voodoo graphics adapters
• Added USB keyboard emulation with most of the keys supported
• GUI "cmdmode": create a headerbar event with key combo starting with F7
• LGPL'd VGABIOS updated to version 0.8a (new VGABIOS for Voodoo Banshee)

Bugfix release

Changes in 2.6.11 (January 5, 2020):

• General

  • Added 64-bit support to the NSIS installer script
  • Several fixes in the build system based on Debian patches

• CPU / CPUDB

  • Bugfixes for CPU emulation correctness
  • Many critical bugfixes for Protection Keys, AVX512*, VMX/SVM, SHA, GFNI emulation
  • ! Implemented CET (Control Flow Enforcement Technology) emulation according to Intel SDM rev071... read more

Intermediate (bugfix+) release

Brief summary of changes:

• CPU: Bugfixes for CPU emulation correctness (critical bugfixes for
  PCID, ADCX/ADOX, MOVBE, AVX/AVX-512 and VMX emulation)
• CPU: implemented AVX-512 VBMI2/VNNI/BITALG, VAES, VPCLMULQDQ / GFNI
  instructions emulation
• VMX: Implement EPT-Based Sub-Page Protection
• CPUID: Added new CPU models Skylake-X, Cannonlake and Icelake-U
• CPUID: Implemented side-channel attack prevention reporting and
  corresponding MSR registers, enabled for Icelake-U
• Added basic support for the i440BX PCI/AGP chipset.
• Added basic Voodoo Banshee / Voodoo3 emulation support.
• Added basic DDC support for the VGA-compatible adapters.
• Implemented HPET emulation (ported from Qemu).

Intermediate (bugfix+) release

Brief summary of changes:

• CPU: implemented new instructions and x86 architecture extensions.
• Bugfixes for CPU emulation correctness.
• Added Android host platform support.
• Added USB EHCI device emulation support.
• Added USB floppy (UFI/CBI) support.
• Added ethernet module 'socket', designed to interconnect Bochs instances.
• Show textconfig at runtime in the Bochs VGA window (gui console).

Intermediate (bugfix+) release

Brief summary of changes:

• Bugfixes for CPU emulation correctness (critical bugfix for x86-64
  emulation).
• Memory type calculation support for Bochs debugger and instrumentation.
• Added Pentium (P54C) and Broadwell ULT CPU models.
• Full save/restore support for enhanced gui debugger settings.
• Added Oracle(tm) VM VirtualBox image support (VDI version 1.1).
• SB16: Ported OPL3 emulation from DOSBox.
• Major rewrite of the lowlevel sound code (mixer thread, more detailed
  configuration, WAV file output).
• Bugfixes in the floppy, lowlevel cdrom, rombios, slirp and win32 gui code.

Intermediate (bugfix+) release

Brief summary of changes:

• CPU: implemented AVX-512BW/AVX-512DQ/AVX-512VL extensions emulation.
• CPU: implemented AVX512-IFMA532 instructions emulation.
• CPU: implemented AVX512-VBMI instructions emulation.
• Bugfixes for CPU emulation correctness
• The VGA update timer and the status LED timer now always use the
  realtime mode independent from the 'clock' option setting.
• Added native SDL2 GUI support to Bochs. To enable configure with
  --with-sdl2.
• Write enhanced gui debugger settings to file on exit and restore on
  initialization.
• USB xHCI model now emulates a NEC/Renesas uPD720202 device
• ROM BIOS: fixed int74_function() for 4-byte (wheel mouse) packets.
• LGPL'd VGABIOS updated from CVS (fixed building VBE modes list)
• Visual Studio workspace files updated to VS2013Ex format.

Bugfix release

List of changes:

• CPU / CPUDB

  • allow sandy bridge configuration even when AVX is not compiled in

• Configure and compile

  • fixed compilation error when 3dnow support is enabled
  • speedup Visual Studio build by almost 20% by adding /Gr compiler option

• Misc

  • fixed minimizing win32 gui window and resolution change while minimized
  • added compiled SeaBIOS 1.7.5 image into Bochs tree along with Bochs BIOS images
  • documentation fixes and updates

Intermediate (bugfix+) release

Brief summary of changes:

• CPU: extra 5-10% emulation speedup with new trace linking optimization
• CPU: implemented new instructions (e.g. AVX-512, SHA, XSAVEC)
• CPUDB: added 2 new CPU models
• Bugfixes for CPU emulation correctness (including some critical ones)
• Gui debugger output window now can be used as a log viewer
• Added built-in slirp (user-mode networking) support (ported from Qemu)
• Added global sound config option and volume control support to the devices
• Added new experimental gui 'vncsrv" using the LibVNCServer library
• Rewrite of the bximage utility in C++ for image creation, conversion and resize

Bugfix release

List of changes:

• CPU
  • VMX: implemented VMENTER to non-active guest state (HLT, SHUTDOWN, WAIT-FOR-SIPI)
  • VMX: fixed write of guest segment access rights VMCS fields (32-bit field
    was truncated to 16-bit)
  • CPUID: Don't report Architectural Performance Monitoring in CPUID.
    Reporting true capabilities without actually supporting them breaks Win7 x64 installation.
  • CPUID: Fixed bx_generic CPUID std leafs (all std leafs > 2 were corrupted)
  • CPUID: Enable all supported VMX capabilities for bx_generic CPUID configuration.
  • CPUID: Enable X2APIC support for Ivy Bridge CPUDB configuration.... read more

Intermediate (bugfix+) release

Summary of changes:

• CPU / CPUDB
  • Bochs is fully aligned with rev45 of the of Intel(R) Architecture Manual.
  • Implemented Supervisor Mode Access Protection (SMAP) support
  • Implemented VMX APIC Registers Virtualization and VMX Virtual Interrupt Delivery
  • Implemented VMCS Shadowing and #VE exception secondary VMEXIT controls emulation
  • Implemented RDRAND and RDSEED instructions
    ! CPUDB: Added AMD FX-4100 (Zambezi) configuration to CPUDB
  • Bugfixes for CPU emulation correctness (critical fixes for SVM and AVX2 emulation)... read more

Brief summary of changes:
- More than 10% CPU emulation speedup !
- Support for AMD's SVM hardware emulation (including extended XAPIC support).
- Implemented support for new x86 ISA extensions.
Bochs is fully aligned with rev043 of Intel(R) Architecture Manual.
- Improved emulation accuracy (critical fixes for APIC, VMX and AVX/XOP emulation).
- Bochs internal debugger: new command to show state of a device from the debugger.
- ROM BIOS: improved PCI boot ROM support (for VGA and other devices)
- Networking:
- Ported Intel(R) 82540EM Gigabit Ethernet adapter emulation from Qemu.
- Added PCI network boot ROM support to all network adapters.
- Added TFTP support to the 'slirp' networking module.
- Harddrive: added support for VirtualPC disk images, fixed sparse disk images.
- Sound:
- implemented PC speaker beep using the lowlevel sound interface.
- SDL audio output support.
- Added ability to set log action per device from .bochsrc.
- Moved disk imaging, networking, sound and USB devices to subdirectories
in the iodev folder.

Bochs is a highly portable open source IA-32 (x86) PC emulator
written in C++, that runs on most popular platforms. It includes
emulation of the Intel x86 CPU, common I/O devices, and a custom
BIOS. Currently, Bochs can be compiled to emulate a 386, 486,
Pentium/PentiumII/PentiumIII/Pentium4 or x86-64 CPU, including optional
MMX, SSEx and 3DNow! instructions. Bochs is capable of running
most Operating Systems inside the emulation, for example Linux, DOS,
Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP or Windows Vista.... read more

Bochs is a highly portable open source IA-32 (x86) PC emulator written in C++, that runs on most popular platforms. It includes emulation of the Intel x86 CPU, common I/O devices, and a custom BIOS. Currently, Bochs can be compiled to emulate a 386, 486, Pentium/PentiumII/PentiumIII/Pentium4 or x86-64 CPU including optional MMX, SSEx and 3DNow! instructions.
Bochs is capable of running most Operating Systems inside the emulation including Linux, DOS, Windows® 95/98 and Windows® NT/2000/XP or Windows Vista.

Brief summary of changes since release 2.3.7:

• Added graphical Bochs debugger frontend for most of the
  supported platforms.
• Thanks for Chourdakis Michael and Bruce Ewing.
• Many new CPU features in emulation
• Support for > 32 bit physical address space and configurable
  MSRs
• VMX, 1G pages in long mode, MOVBE instruction
• Bugfixes for CPU emulation correctness, debugger and CPU
  instrumentation.
• New config interface 'win32config' with start and runtime menu
• USB: added OHCI support, external hub and cdrom
• Added user plugin interface support.

Bochs is a highly portable open source IA-32 (x86) PC emulator written in C++, that runs on most popular platforms. It includes emulation of the Intel x86 CPU, common I/O devices, and a custom BIOS. Currently, Bochs can be compiled to emulate a 386, 486, Pentium/PentiumII/PentiumIII/Pentium4 or x86-64 CPU including optional MMX, SSEx and 3DNow! instructions.
Bochs is capable of running most Operating Systems inside the emulation including Linux, DOS, Windows® 95/98 and Windows® NT/2000/XP or Windows Vista.... read more

Bochs is a highly portable open source IA-32 (x86) PC emulator
written in C++, that runs on most popular platforms. It includes
emulation of the Intel x86 CPU, common I/O devices, and a custom
BIOS. Currently, Bochs can be compiled to emulate a 386, 486,
Pentium, Pentium Pro or x86-64 CPU, including optional MMX,
SSE/SSE2/SSE3 and 3DNow! instructions. Bochs is capable of running
most Operating Systems inside the emulation including Linux, DOS,
Windows 95/98 and Windows NT/2000/XP.... read more

Bochs is a highly portable open source IA-32 (x86) PC emulator written in C++, that runs on most popular platforms. It includes emulation of the Intel x86 CPU, common I/O devices, and a custom BIOS. Currently, Bochs can be compiled to emulate a 386, 486, Pentium, Pentium Pro or AMD64 CPU, including optional MMX, SSE, SE2 and 3DNow! instructions. Bochs is capable of running most
Operating Systems inside the emulation including Linux, DOS, Windows 95/98 and Windows NT/2000. ... read more

Bochs is a portable x86 PC emulation software package that emulates enough of the x86 CPU, related AT hardware, and BIOS to run Windows, Linux, *BSD, Minix, and other OS's, all on your workstation. It's been nearly one year since the last stable release:
We have improved the accuracy of the simulation in many ways, notably in the cpu, fpu, and vga areas; 3DNow! and PNI instructions are now supported, and Bochs includes a new disassembler that supports all IA-32 instruction sets; On the I/O devices side, Bochs now provides experimental PCI VGA and USB cards, 16550A uarts and gameport emulation; New types of disk image can be used as harddisks: stackable, commitable or growing. Bochs can also use VMWare 3 cow disk images; Sdl, x11, win32 and wxwindows display libraries now support 15, 16, 24 and 32 bpp color depth, and the x11 vga font is not needed any more.... read more

It's been a busy 6 months since our previous release! Bochs is now running about twice as fast as version 1.4.1. Also, we can now emulate MMX, SSE/SSE2, and even AMD x86-64 instructions if you turn on the appropriate configure options. We also added two new graphical interfaces, SVGALIB and wxWindows. The wxWindows interface lets you edit all bochsrc options in a graphical form. Macintosh users will be happy to find binaries for MacOSX and MacOS9. Also we now support plugins for several platforms and cleaned up and improved the documentation.... read more

March 27, 2002: Bochs 1.4 is the latest release of the Bochs x86 Emulator. This version delivers features that many people have been wishing for: booting from a CDROM, VESA BIOS Extensions, improved networking, keyboard mapping for non-US keyboards, and a working serial port. You'll also notice several new buttons on the GUI, copy, paste, and snapshot, which let you copy text between the system clipboard and the Bochs screen. And we have a new cross-platform interface using a library called SDL (Simple DirectMedia Layer).... read more

The Bochs x86 Emulator project has gone from very inactive only a few months ago to very active recently. Bochs is a portable 386/486/Pentium/PPro emulator that allows you to run most x86 operating systems in emulation. Some people use it to run other OSes without repartitioning or rebooting, for example running Windows applications from FreeBSD, or to run x86 operating systems on non-x86 hardware. Bochs is also popular among OS developers since they can step through emulated kernel code in the Bochs debugger without leaving their development environment, and has been used as an educational tool in university classes on OS design.... read more

On 5/10/2001 the Bochs project was listed as the 10th most active project on all of SourceForge for the week! We've had lots of visitors since Kevin redirected www.bochs.com traffic to the new site.

Anyone who hasn't seen the new Bochs Homepage at http://bochs.sourceforge.net should go look immediately. It's great! Click on "Home Page" or type the address and then bookmark it. :) Thank you Tim for getting this launched.

I'm experimenting with the "Tasks" section of the site, to see if it will be useful for us. If you see a task that would interest you, let me know. Many more ideas for tasks can be found in the bugs and feature requests trackers.... read more