The z386 project aims to implement the Intel 80386 processor core on an FPGA. Recent optimizations have significantly improved its performance, including the implementation of early start memory access and a reduction in branch jump cycles from 9.25 down to six through microcode refinements. These changes resulted in approximately a 39% increase in DOOM benchmark scores, though the project still falls short of original hardware speed and cannot yet boot Windows.
- Implementation of early start memory access for FPGA cores
- Optimization of store queues and branch jump timing
- Significant performance gains in gaming benchmarks
- Implementation of early start memory access for FPGA cores
- Optimization of store queues and branch jump timing
- Significant performance gains in gaming benchmarks
The article shows how to check if a Linux CPU supports AES‑NI, Intel’s hardware‑accelerated AES instruction set. It explains what AES‑NI is, why it speeds up encryption, and then lists three easy methods: use cpuid and grep for “aes”, grep the /proc/cpuinfo file, or run lscpu and look for the “aes” flag. If none of these commands report AES‑NI, the CPU relies on slower software encryption, which is still secure. The first CPUs to expose this feature were Intel’s Westmere chips in 2010. In the CPUID specification the flag is simply called AES (bit 25 of ECX). The “NI” (New Instructions) part is just a marketing name for the feature set. There isn’t a distinct “aes_ni” bit in the CPUID leaf. So, when you run <tt>lscpu | grep -i aes or cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep aes</tt>, the presence of aes tells you that the CPU supports AES‑NI. There is no separate aes_ni flag because the kernel already uses the more concise aes.
Datto S4X1 and S4X2
