eli5: What does people mean when they say that a computer system runs on different architecture from another computer? Like when somebody says that an emulator can run N64 games faster theoretically but because of different architecture in practicality it cant?
In: Technology
I’ll expand on the language metaphor that others have used. An “architecture” determines how the hardware works at a very basic level. It’s the language that the computer thinks in.
When you emulate another kind of computer, there’s basically one level of indirection going on. The emulator is creating a digital version of a different computer, for example a nintendo 64, that has to have all the different hardware of that computer in digital form. The languages that the two computers think in might not have a 1-1 mapping for words though. If I translate english to spanish, I can’t just go word by word. I have to consider the different grammar and adjust accordingly. That translation process takes time. Similarly, the digital hardware being emulated has to actually be running on the physical hardware of your actual computer. So the instructions are essentially being interpreted twice. First, they are interpreted by the emulated computer, and then translated to your computers language after.
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