A full-system simulator is a computer program that simulates computer systems at such a level of detail that complete software stacks from real systems can run on the simulator without any modification. A full system simulator effectively provides virtual hardware that is independent of the nature of the host computer. The full-system model typically has to include processor cores, peripheral devices, memories, interconnection buses, and network connections. Full system simulation can speed the software development process by making it easier to detect, recreate and repair flaws. [1] A computer program is a collection of instructions that describe a task, or set of tasks, to be carried out by a computer. ... This article or section cites very few or no references or sources. ... In computer hardware, a peripheral device is any device attached to a computer in order to expand its functionality. ... The terms storage (U.K.) or memory (U.S.) refer to the parts of a digital computer that retain physical state (data) for some interval of time, possibly even after electrical power to the computer is turned off. ... This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ...

The defining property of full-system simulation compared to an instruction set simulator is that the model allows real device drivers and operating systems to be run, not just single programs. Thus, full-system simulation makes it possible to simulate individual computers and networked computer nodes with all their software, from network device drivers to operating systems, network stacks, middleware, servers, and application programs. An Instruction Set Simulator (ISS) is a simulation model, usually coded in a high-level language, which mimics the behavior of a processor by reading instructions and maintaining internal variables which represent the processors registers. ... Windows XP loading drivers during a Safe Mode bootup A device driver, or a software driver is a specific type of computer software, typically developed to allow interaction with hardware devices. ... An operating system (OS) is a set of computer programs that manage the hardware and software resources of a computer. ... Computer software (or simply software) refers to one or more computer programs and data held in the storage of a computer for some purpose. ... A protocol stack is a particular software implementation of a computer networking protocol suite. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Computer software (or simply software) refers to one or more computer programs and data held in the storage of a computer for some purpose. ...

The use of multi-core processors is driving the need for full system simulation, because it can be extremely difficult and time consuming to recreate and debug errors without the controlled environment provided by virtual hardware. [2] A multicore processor is a chip with more than one processing units (cores). ...

Examples of full system simulation include:

• PDP-11 simulator in 1980s
• g88 in late 1980s for modeling a uniprocessor M881100-based system, capable of booting Unix
• gsim in early 1990s for modeling multiple processors with shared memory.
• Simics: starting from 1994, modeling systems using Alpha, AMD64, ARM, EM64T, IA-64, MIPS, PowerPC, SPARC-V9, and x86 CPUs
• SimOS: for MIPS-based multiprocessors
• SimNow: AMD full-system simulator for x86 and x86_64 systems

Simics is a full-system simulator from Virtutech capable of running unchanged production binaries of the target hardware at high-performance speeds. ...

See also

• Computer architecture simulator
  • instruction set simulator