9.9. Simulating a Symmetric Multiprocessor (SMP) Machine

Bochs can now simulate an SMP machine when you use --enable-smp in the configure command. SMP support was added by Bryce Denney, who was very interested in watching a multiprocessor operating system work at a low level. It should also be helpful to operating system developers who are writing SMP drivers, or just for users who want to test drive an SMP machine to see what it looks like.

Starting with Bochs 2.2.6 you can set up the number of processors in the bochsrc. See Section 4.3.4 how to set up the number of processors.

It is important to understand that configuring Bochs for 4 processors will NOT make your single-threaded applications run faster in general! On the contrary, it has to spend time simulating idle processors as well as the ones doing your task. The point is to simulate an SMP system, not to speed up a uniprocessor application.

What was required to make SMP work in Bochs?

What needs to be done to improve SMP support?