4 ms·

What difference does the ISA make in this respect?

• babypuncher 3y ago
  I think the theory is that an open ISA like RISC-V would promote a similar culture of openness around the software and hardware implemented with it. I'm skeptical that is how it would play out in practice though.
• bullen 3y ago
  Very little, broad stroke RISC ISA was nailed between 6502 and ARM-1 (1975-85), conclusion is 32-bit is enough for eternity. Same with IPv4, just add a byte for the internal mask (/24) and be done with it, long (64-bit) is way overkill... and IPv6 choose 128-bit. I say 4GB RAM per process is enough. Competition (also eternal growth) only works when you have infinite free energy. Now we are at the end of the curve, current Risc-V (64-bit) is not perfect by any means (lacks vector/SIMD), BUT it removes the real morons (lawyers and "owners") from the picture somewhat. The practical evidence is: Vision Five 2 software is going forward fast, the GPU is stalled for some reason, probably related to Imagination (PowerVR dumped by Apple and bought by the Chinese governement) being British, but who knows. Pinetab-V uses the same chip (JH7110) so it's also grid locked by the GPU drivers. TH1520 also uses Imagination GPU but a bit beefier, that one will have more trouble since the CPU is a new architecture and the JH7110 uses the same as the SiFive Unmatched. I tried to help by building my 3D MMO engine for them. I sent the profiling data, they wanted to see the OpenGL call stack and I lost hope because it works on ALL machines I have tried (PC Nvidia/Radeon, Raspberry 4 and Jetson Nano). I mean they have the game executable right there a 10MB download away? Popcorn time at the end of the world, at least I tried.