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32-bit x86 processors themselves have two legacy modes: real mode and virtual 8086 mode. Real mode causes the processor to mostly act as if it was an original 8086, while virtual 8086 mode allows the creation of a virtual machine to allow the running of programs that require real mode in order to run under a protected mode environment ...
The 64-bit extensions to the x86 architecture were enabled only in the newly introduced long mode, therefore 32-bit and 16-bit applications and operating systems could simply continue using an AMD64 processor in protected or other modes, without even the slightest sacrifice of performance [49] and with full compatibility back to the original ...
The primary defining characteristic of IA-32 is the availability of 32-bit general-purpose processor registers (for example, EAX and EBX), 32-bit integer arithmetic and logical operations, 32-bit offsets within a segment in protected mode, and the translation of segmented addresses to 32-bit linear addresses. The designers took the opportunity ...
An x86-64 processor acts identically to an IA-32 processor when running in real mode or protected mode, which are supported modes when the processor is not in long mode. A bit in the CPUID extended attributes field informs programs in real or protected modes if the processor can go to long mode, which allows a program to detect an x86-64 processor.
However, "client" versions of 32-bit Windows (Windows XP SP2 and later, Windows Vista, Windows 7) limit physical address space to the first 4 GB for driver compatibility [16] even though these versions do run in PAE mode if NX support is enabled.
[11]: 14 In this mode, the processor acts like an older x86 processor, and only 16-bit and 32-bit code can be executed. Legacy mode allows for a maximum of 32 bit virtual addressing which limits the virtual address space to 4 GiB. [11]: 14 : 24 : 118 64-bit programs cannot be run from legacy mode.
These instructions are also available in 32-bit mode, in which they operate on 32-bit registers (eax, ebx, etc.) and values instead of their 16-bit (ax, bx, etc.) counterparts. The updated instruction set is grouped according to architecture ( i186 , i286 , i386 , i486 , i586 / i686 ) and is referred to as (32-bit) x86 and (64-bit) x86-64 (also ...
In computing, protected mode, also called protected virtual address mode, [1] is an operational mode of x86-compatible central processing units (CPUs). It allows system software to use features such as segmentation, virtual memory, paging and safe multi-tasking designed to increase an operating system's control over application software.