Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[HailMary]

sgolds-

Not true. Real Mode and Virtual 8086 mode are not supported.

Yes, but Protected Mode is supported, and Protected Mode still supports segmentation, and it uses hardware support (registers and tables) to implement it. Many apps don't use this, and use a flat memory model, but the fact that it supports it means it can't be designed out.

The segmentation which is supported in Compatibility Mode is an emulation layer which translates to the same 64-bit mechanisms used in 64-bit mode. The fundamental design of Long Mode is not at all dependent on any Protected Mode segmentation.

That is not how I interpreted it. Read Chapter 4 in Volume 2 (System Programming Manual), and let me know if you still think this is the case afterwards.

The dropping of Legacy Mode would still be a good thing. I'm sure that simplifies quite a few things, but segmentation will remain. It probably isn't that big of a deal though other than the chip designers have that much more to verify as functional. Based on what I read, the segmentation logic is completely bypassed when the bases are set to 0, which is going to be 99% of the time in today's software.