Question about CPU instruction sets...

[dave4shmups]

I've seen build videos using older CPUs, like the AMD Phenom II X3 B77, and the guy who does these videos sometimes says that you can't play the latest games on this CPU because it doesn't have the latest instructions.  Why isn't this a problem for CPUs in game consoles, like the Xbox One and the PS4??

[Lurick]

It is a problem for them too.... I don't know of any last generation console that can play current generation games. Consoles are built with a specific set of hardware and games are written for that hardware and that generation. I would argue that the problem is the opposite in that PC games have much less of a problem because with each generation of CPUs, GPUs, etc. released you can still play older and newer games in most cases without having to upgrade. It's when you get really far back in time (10-15+ years) that you have games which utilize newer instruction sets that won't work with really old hardware.

[dave4shmups]

On 2/8/2019 at 3:51 PM, Lurick said:

It is a problem for them too.... I don't know of any last generation console that can play current generation games. Consoles are built with a specific set of hardware and games are written for that hardware and that generation. I would argue that the problem is the opposite in that PC games have much less of a problem because with each generation of CPUs, GPUs, etc. released you can still play older and newer games in most cases without having to upgrade. It's when you get really far back in time (10-15+ years) that you have games which utilize newer instruction sets that won't work with really old hardware. 

Gotcha.  I promise that I'm not a console fanboy at all, so I apologize if I came off as one.  Who writes the instructions for all CPUs?  AMD and Intel, respectively?  I'm sure there are different ones for ARM-based processors.

[BLAfH]

On 2/8/2019 at 11:44 PM, dave4shmups said:

I've seen build videos using older CPUs, like the AMD Phenom II X3 B77, and the guy who does these videos sometimes says that you can't play the latest games on this CPU because it doesn't have the latest instructions.  Why isn't this a problem for CPUs in game consoles, like the Xbox One and the PS4??

Because developers for those consoles simply don't use those new instructions.

 

Those instructions are optimizations to solve certain problems in a faster way. They won't allow you to do something completely new. So by not using them, you loose some performance. Which isn't that much of a deal in console development, as they mostly target 30 to 60fps anyway, and can optimize more than on PC (as they know exactly what hardware is inside a PS4, not like a PC where you have to support AMD and Intel CPUs, DualCores to 32 Cores, Radeon and GeFore, and so on..).

 

[Lurick]

10 hours ago, dave4shmups said:

Gotcha.  I promise that I'm not a console fanboy at all, so I apologize if I came off as one.  Who writes the instructions for all CPUs?  AMD and Intel, respectively?  I'm sure there are different ones for ARM-based processors.

Nah, it's a valid question

As far as I know, most instruction sets are shared between the companies but implemented slightly differently by each company. I found this thread which seems to talk about it very well:

https://www.quora.com/If-AMD-and-Intel-share-the-same-instruction-set-why-is-an-Intel-CPUs-performance-in-1080p-gaming-still-better-than-Ryzen

[dave4shmups]

Is this mostly a problem with older AMD CPUS?  The reason I ask is because of this video: 

And because there's another channel that I follow where the guy is using a Dell Optiplex that has an Intel i5-3570, and he never has CPU issues when running the latest games.