With the rise of RISC-V products, more companies are exploring the potential of this open-source CPU architecture. However, gaming on RISC-V remains a significant challenge due to compatibility issues with existing software. Nonetheless, developers from Box86/Box64 have managed to run The Witcher 3 on a RISC-V platform, specifically the Milk-V Pioneer motherboard paired with an AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT.
The open-source nature of RISC-V has spurred interest and innovation, with various new products being introduced. For instance, a new RISC-V mainboard for the Framework Laptop 13 has been announced, signaling growing momentum for this architecture. Despite RISC-V’s ongoing development, its presence in gaming is minimal due to early-stage limitations.
The Box86/Box64 developers achieved a noteworthy feat by running The Witcher 3 on the Milk-V Pioneer, equipped with a SOPHON SG2042 64-bit CPU. However, the gameplay experience was far from seamless. The setup could only manage a maximum of 15 frames per second (FPS), resulting in very choppy gameplay.
This performance limitation arises from the fundamental differences between RISC-V and the x86/x64 instruction sets that most applications and games rely on. To run The Witcher 3, the developers utilized Box64 for emulating x86 instructions, along with DXVK and Wine to bridge compatibility gaps. Some x86 instructions proved difficult to translate efficiently, causing substantial hardware resources to be devoted to instruction translation.
Had these performance bottlenecks been avoided, the RISC-V setup might have delivered a more playable experience. Despite the current limitations, this effort showcases the potential for gaming on RISC-V as the architecture continues to evolve and optimize.
