Hello
Is it possible to access 64bit
address space in 32bit mode?
I assume you are talking about x86?
For example, opcode prefix
0x66/67 could let code running in 16bit mode to access
32bit data/address.
This is more complex than just instruction prefix. You
need the CPU to be setup in big real mode via the GDT, so
you basically have a 32-bit environment setup via GDT etc.
Also the prefix opcodes have different meaning in different
modes. I don’t think there is a way to make 32-bit code
access 64-bit data via instruction prefix even if a 64-bit
GDT was setup with paging enabled.
Or, establishing page table is a
must requirement for accessing 64bit address space.
For x86 you have to have 64-bit versions of the IDT,
GDT, and you need to enable paging to enter 64-bit Long
Mode.
In a 32-bit x86 world you can access up to 64 GB of
physical memory via using 32-bit page table using PAE [1].
PAE is a 32-bit virtual address space, but with support
for a 36-bit physical address. I think in the olden days
of 32-bit x86 EFI servers would have custom EFI code that
enabled paging in 32-bit and carved out a chunk of the
32-bit memory space that could be mapped to 36-bit
physical addresses. I think this was platform specific
code and I don’t know of any open source version. The
32-bit Long Mode EFI does not have paging enabled, so
adding PAE means enabling paging yourself.
The edk2 has the opposite version of this code so you
can call 16-bit really mode (Legacy BIOS) from 32-bit
Protected mode, or 64-bit Long Mode. This is the code to
Thunk for 32-bit/64-bit mode to 16-bit code [2]/