Rsp Architecture - Nintendo Ultra64 Programmer's Manual

Chapter 2
2.

RSP Architecture

This chapter explains the significant architectural details of the Reality
Signal Processor (RSP). It is not intended to be a comprehensive hardware
specification, but it does describe the hardware features in sufficient detail
for software development.
Standing alone, the RSP is an extremely powerful processor; a fixed-point
RISC CPU capable of over
As part of the RCP, the RSP is an integral part of the graphics/audio/video
processing pipelines.
Recommended background for this chapter includes a solid foundation in
computer architecture, including RISC processors and SIMD (Single
Instruction, Multiple Data) machines.
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This is not a misprint. At 62.5Mhz with an 8-element vector pipeline, the RSP could perform 500,000,000
multiply-accumulate operations per second. Since the RSP dual-issues scalar instructions, you could also do
another 62,500,000 scalar operations during that same second. That is more than three times the performance
of the Cray supercomputers from twenty years ago.
Revision 1.0
half a billion
arithmetic operations per second!
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