Efficient X86_64 Emulation With Box86 - Hackaday

It’s also commonly used with for example ARM, OpenRISC, and RISC-V systems to run applications that are only available for x86 or x86_64.

Unlike QEMU, both offer dynamic recompilation and redirection of dynamic library calls to native libraries, including those for SDL and OpenGL.

Both are available on GitHub under an MIT license, with Box64 probably the most interesting these days as applications and games have moved on to a 64-bit only world.

As essentially a translation layer, it does not offer full compatibility with every bit of software out there, but it’s already good enough to run Steam, GoG, and Epic Game Store clients and install and run Windows games via Wine for x86.

A simple set of benchmarks comparing it with QEMU and FEX (another emulator) shows it to run both more applications, and with significantly better performance.

Posted in Software Development Tagged box64, box86, wine