Russian 720 MHz CPU Elbrus-4C can run Doom 3 BFG @1080p

[glxextxexlg]

Jaw dropping:

[TiberiusDuval]

Was that emulated x86 code?!? Pretty impressive if so.

[glxextxexlg]

Was that emulated x86 code?!? Pretty impressive if so.

Nope the guys at MCST compiled the whole id Tech 4 engine to elbrus instruction set. Thanks to carmack's opensource philosophy... When the CPU works in emulation mode (its more like a translation rather than emulation) there's a 10% to 20% performance penalty. Its amazing that they converted linux, C++ standard library, standard c library, open source amd drivers, all the libraries this game uses and the game itself to a totally different architecture and achieved 20-30 fps with a 720 mhz CPU.. Intel where the hell are you?

[duby229]

Nope the guys at MCST compiled the whole id Tech 4 engine to elbrus instruction set. Thanks to carmack's opensource philosophy... When the CPU works in emulation mode (its more like a translation rather than emulation) there's a 10% to 20% performance penalty. Its amazing that they converted linux, C++ standard library, standard c library, open source amd drivers, all the libraries this game uses and the game itself to a totally different architecture and achieved 20-30 fps with a 720 mhz CPU.. Intel where the hell are you?

Well, as far I can tell It's an ARM processor. I don't think there was much porting involved. Most x86 instructions are more complex than most arm instructions, so the arm processor will seem to have higher IPC, but each instruction is doing less work and there will be more instructions executed. Plus the GPU is a radeon 6950 VLIW4 architecture. It should be able to run that game at hundreds of FPS. 20-30FPS seems really slow.

[bridgman]

I thought the Elbrus native instruction set was VLIW with compiler scheduling of functional blocks, more like Itanium than ARM.

http://elbrus2k.wikidot.com/elbrus-2000

[duby229]

Ah yeah, you are right. I made the mistake of looking at the product model number and assumed it related to the core architecture....

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2920988/russias-homegrown-elbrus-processor-and-pc-would-be-fantastic-in-1999.html

It's an Elbrus ARM-401.... So yeah, my bad.

[glxextxexlg]

It should be able to run that game at hundreds of FPS. 20-30FPS seems really slow.

I very much doubt opensource amd drivers can achieve hundreds of fps even with a 3+ ghz core i7 with doom3 BFG edition unofficial linux port which uses opengl 3.2 core profile.

[asdfblah]

Nice...
There are some articles downplaying this CPU or not showing all the information. This seems to be a powerful CPU, judging by the clock speed and the 65nm technology... Wonder if they will move to 32nm. Though as I read elsewhere, if their objective was to avoid backdoors... they should start their own factories. Even more reason to do so, when some of their own (Russian/Soviet) scientists started and developed the technologies used these days to build CPUs.
I wonder, how do you know that they were using the open-source drivers?

[bridgman]

I think it has to be open source drivers -- nobody makes closed source drivers for AMD gfx running on the Elbrus native instruction set.

[dungeon]

I wonder, how do you know that they were using the open-source drivers?

Stop the video at 0:48 and read it