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If I compile QEMU in Linux running on a 486 processor, will it be able to emulate the Pentium processor features on it (like MSR)?
And, if it doesn't, is there any way to emulate the Pentium features on a Am486-DX4-120?
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If I compile QEMU in Linux running on a 486 processor, will it be able to emulate the Pentium processor features on it (like MSR)?
And, if it doesn't, is there any way to emulate the Pentium features on a Am486-DX4-120?
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You can use QEMU as virtualizer or machine emulator. If you use QEMU as machine emulator, then it should provide full emulation of the emulated architecture, including model specific registers of Intel® hardware. I'm going to make a bold guess that the performance when doing so will be slow beyond nightmare, though.
QEMU uses TCG to dynamically translate code to the target emulated CPU. I see an 'i386' target in the source code (http://git.qemu.org/?p=qemu.git%3Ba=tree%3Bf=tcg%3Bh=908dcb62d14a58909dd8ab0a4854471a5ea85ed9%3Bhb=HEAD) but can't really tell what CPU features are exactly supported, or how you would specify them. It's possible but not sure if implemented. I do know if you wanted to, you could specify x86_64 as the CPU type even on a 32-bit system.
– LawrenceC – 2014-04-16T19:17:21.217