RCP is one of two main chips for the Nintendo 64

Nintendo 64

The , often referred to as N64, was Nintendo′s third home video game console for the international market. Named for its 64-bit CPU, it was released in June 1996 in Japan, September 1996 in North America, March 1997 in Europe and Australia, September 1997 in France and December 1997 in Brazil...

 (the other being the NEC VR4300). It was developed by Silicon Graphics

Silicon Graphics

Silicon Graphics, Inc. was a manufacturer of high-performance computing solutions, including computer hardware and software, founded in 1981 by Jim Clark...

 for Nintendo, and little is known about it or the way it works.

The RCP features a vector processor

Vector processor

A vector processor, or array processor, is a central processing unit that implements an instruction set containing instructions that operate on one-dimensional arrays of data called vectors. This is in contrast to a scalar processor, whose instructions operate on single data items...

. It handles the audio and video of the Nintendo 64 and can perform very well in operations such as: real-time edge anti-aliasing

Anti-aliasing

In digital signal processing, spatial anti-aliasing is the technique of minimizing the distortion artifacts known as aliasing when representing a high-resolution image at a lower resolution...

, high frame-rate on complex images, automatic load-management, advanced texture mapping

Texture mapping

Texture mapping is a method for adding detail, surface texture , or color to a computer-generated graphic or 3D model. Its application to 3D graphics was pioneered by Dr Edwin Catmull in his Ph.D. thesis of 1974.-Texture mapping:...

, real-time depth buffering, etc.

During the development of GoldenEye 007, a weapon (RCP-90) was included as an in-joke amongst the developers.