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Linux hacked onto a PS5 to turn Sony's console into a Steam Machine — GTA V Enhanced Edition runs at 60 FPS on 1440pwith ray tracing (www.tomshardware.com)

submitted 2 days ago by commander@lemmy.world to c/pcgaming@lemmy.world

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[–] HeyJoe@lemmy.world 33 points 2 days ago (1 children)

"To be clear, GTA V Enhanced Edition, the game Andy tested on this, is natively available on PS5 as well, but where's the fun in that? Under the hood, the PS5 is essentially a locked-down x86-based PC that's very similar in architecture to a modern computer. If Sony's hypervisor weren't in place, you could probably boot Linux directly on it. In fact, Sony used to allow that back in the early PS3 days as "OtherOS.""

I'm not sure if this is being mentioned for people that may not know this or because they didn't know this. I thought it was public knowledge that they went with the same architecture that PC's use since the ps4. Innovation is dead and this was the easiest cheapest route for them. It's funny to mention the PS3 can load Linux since that was not the same architecture so it really doesn't compare. If anything i thought it was a special build for it to work on the PS3?

[–] themoken@startrek.website 3 points 1 day ago

I don't think the convergence to x86/ARM is really lack of innovation, it's more recognizing that being on a separate architecture doesn't really help you. The innovation is now in form factor (e.g. the Switch), peripherals (e.g. VR or alt controllers) or software (e.g. streaming). Now, having an x86 just means your base platform is cheap and you don't need a lot of custom work, although these platforms still get integration attention. Also makes ports much simpler.

The PS3 is actually a great example of the industry learning this lesson. The Cell architecture was really hard to leverage. It took years for any games/engines to use the Cell SPUs right.

As for Linux though, PS3 Linux was effectively just PowerPC Linux which was already fully supported years before in every major server distro. The Cell PPUs (main, boot cores) were pretty much off the shelf PowerPC. Similar to the Wii/WiiU.

Source: work in semiconductors, the Cell was one of my first platforms out of school.