Kitten Labs researchers have demonstrated that it is perfectly possible to transform a simple TP-Link Wi-Fi router into a gaming PC. Indeed, after a few days of tinkering and installing a version of Linux, these experts managed to run the cult game GTA Vice City perfectly.
Taking old games and trying to run them on anything and everything has become an essential practice in recent years. For example, we no longer count the improbable ports of Doomthe father of FPS released in 1995.
In the past, we have mentioned on numerous occasions the exploits of several hackers to carry the title of Id Software on incongruous devices such as the screen of an exercise bike, a TI-83 calculator, the notepad of Windows, a keyboard key or even recently a connected toothbrush!
But this time, Doom will not be in the spotlight, but a certain GTA Vice City, a cult episode of the Rockstar Games saga. Indeed, researchers from Kitten Labs have demonstrated that it is perfectly possible with a little cleverness and engineering to transform an old TP-Link Wi-Fi router into a gaming PC able to rotate the title. Explanations.
GTA Vice City on a router, it’s possible
First of all, these experts set their sights on the TP-Link TL-WDR4900 Wi-Fi router (released in 2013). Appreciated by users for its good performance, the members of Kitten Labs chose it above all for its NXP-Freescale QorlQ P1014 processor, which in reality is a PowerPC e500v2 32-bit SoC.
Of course, the power of the router isn’t everything. Lacking a slot compatible with GPUs for PC, it was necessary to use trickery to install an eGPU. After adding a miniPCIe connection, the teams launched a version of Debian Linux with additional kernel modules enabled (necessary to support AMD graphics drivers).
After a first failed experience with a Radeon RX 570, Kitten Labs fell back on a old Radeon HD 7470 with a former pilot. First step validated, the system begins to work. All that remained was to obtain a version of GTA Vice City capable of running on Linux/PowerPC. They then opted for a reverse-engineered version of the title called ReVC (whose files are publicly available).
After encountering various problems once the game launched (graphic corruption, crashes during interactions with NPCs, etc.), after a few months they managed to get the title running perfectly. You can appreciate the whole process in the video available in the article.
Source: KittenLabs