A virtual machine executive (VME) system operating on a target platform that includes a virtual machine monitor (VMM) and a dynamic compiler, in particular, a trace compiler (TC). System embodiments include a virtual machine monitor configured to record a trace corresponding to a selected cycle, and configured to transform the trace into a representation of a trace tree; and a trace compiler cooperating with the virtual machine monitor to compile the representation of the trace tree into a compiled code segment of native machine code executable on the target platform, in which the trace is a linear instruction sequence traversing at least a portion of a method, a loop, or a branching node.