StarCraft running on PS3 using Yellow Dog Linux, Qemu, Windows 95

Posted Mar 1, 2009 at 8:46AM by QJ Staff Listed in: PS3 Tags: Crysis, Linux, Yellow Dog Linux, YouTube
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Linux may be taboo for a lot of us, but you'd better be prepared to give it a shot to try out this impressive trick. Using Yellow Dog Linux on the PlayStation 3, efaustus9 used Qemu to emulate Windows 95 on the platform, allowing him to run StarCraft. Here's a vid:



Don't expect to run Crysis with this setup though. As you can see from the vid, the game's already lagging a bit. Linux and Qemu take up too much of the Cell processor to run anything more high-end. The YouTube page of the vid has the necessary tutorials you'll need to do this setup yourself.



Related Articles:



Via Joystiq

 
 
 

Comments [refresh]

by joseph881 - 2009-03-01 03:22
» Processing Power

That is some serious number crunching going on there. An OS emulating another OS that is running a game.

by leq - 2009-03-01 04:18
» and

Not to mention the fact that linux doesn't even have GPU access

by LowsNameBrand - 2009-03-01 04:32
» Impressive

Wonder if it could hand AOE 1 or 2...

by tuomi - 2009-03-01 04:32
» not really impressed

I ran starcraft on my 386 machine so im not really impressed by this..

by Flamesack112 - 2009-03-01 04:54
» I forgot what 95 sounded like

Great little trick. Albeit not anything new.

by the by - 2009-03-01 06:38
» surely

you could be able to run up to pentium4 games from this only using the software emulation only(due to the fact that you can't use the GPU), but i've one question, why windows 95, and not windows 98?

by whaleshark - 2009-03-01 06:45
» Due to the fact

that Windows 95 is less power hungry. If he was running 98, the game would be nearly unplayable. without GPU access... that game would run like *****. but on windows 95, it runs a bit better.

by milo128 - 2009-03-01 07:11
» wouldn't he

be able to run nes emulators too?

by arishay - 2009-03-01 07:20
» Correct me if i'm wrong please,

But it is retarded that anyone is trying to run x86 on the PPC platform at all. Two different chip designs, not compatible with eachother at all. The cross instruction references must be so out of this world that it probably brings the thing to a crawl during heavy computations. Now, you couple this with graphics and we have absolutely no good access to the RSX onboard...why bother. This isn't exactly even reportable news. People do things like this with linux every day. I mean, yea let me commend the guy for installing something and reading the howto guides. That must have been like jumping through loops.

by NathanDrake - 2009-03-01 08:14
» yup

Yeah, people been doing that for ages. You can check out youtube videos of Linux PS3's running emulators for NES, SNES, GBA, Arcade, Mega Drive and so on. They run pretty darn well.

by HakatoX - 2009-03-01 10:19
» derrrrrr......

you obviously dont understand how much it takes to run this.... sure your 386 can run it.....

but what the little mind fails to understand is the fact that there is on OS running and emulating another OS ..... you know what... I am just gonna let you be a blissful little man

by Xeinix - 2009-03-01 14:14
» Would you be able...

to run Fall Out 1 and 2 and Diablo 1 and 2 with this. That would be cool. I believe they are about as old as StarCraft, can't remember though.

by LowsNameBrand - 2009-03-01 15:13
» I still wanna know about..

AOE 1 or 2

by the by - 2009-03-01 18:24
» ok......

'Re: whaleshark

» Due to the fact



that Windows 95 is less power hungry. If he was running 98, the game would be nearly unplayable. without GPU access... that game would run like *****. but on windows 95, it runs a bit better. '



ok, lets look at a basic pc's setup......



it took a single core to run win 98, so by rights, it would take a single core/dual core to run linux......thats only 3 cores for the whole thing, so i don't understand why you couldn't do this unless there is a problem with the memory handling all this, due to having the two OS running at the same time and playing the game of course?



the GPU shouldn't really be needed for software emulation, as you still have another 3 cores at least?(allowing for two cores to run background services i.e xmb etc?)



and also, if MOD/scientists are using the ps3 to run certain software, that would probably a lot more advanced than the guy here has just done, then surely it would cope?



at the end of the day, its a powerful pc running old software!?

by Navani - 2009-03-01 18:24
» Ooohh

One Must Fall 2097!! Jazz Jackrabbit!!

by tuomi - 2009-03-01 23:23
» well yes i do

Given that my 386 had a 12 MHz CPU it would take more than 266 operations per 386-operation to make it more sluggish than it was on my 386 so what's your point? You think Qemu isnt more well-written than that?

by hush404 - 2009-03-02 03:18
» BULL tuomi

The minimum requirements for StarCraft were at least 60mhz! Running on my old 75mhz P1 - it would bogg down a bit. I can really see you running it on 12mhz and having anything even remotely playable.



and yeah I bet Qemu is a hell of a lot better written than the hardware and conjoining software of a 30 year old machine.

by dbozan99 - 2009-03-02 11:53
» why it works

I think that the main reason that this works is because Starcraft uses software mode rendering.



And really, this is awfully silly anyway. I mean, why not just pull out a computer made in the last 11 years or so, and play some starcraft.



the only real requirements are:

a cd drive or alternative

a computer with about 100mhz or so

Windows 95+ or Mac OS 8+ (probably even works on OS 7...I don't remember)

by EugeneE - 2009-03-03 13:52
» Dos games

Well, those games are Dos games so you could use Dosbox on Yellow Dog Linux.

by EugeneE - 2009-03-03 14:35
» Cool

So, if we can run Starcraft on PS3 using Yellow Dog Linux thru Qemu because it uses software rendering then we might be able to run other games.

by tuomi - 2009-03-04 06:52
» haven't

Well I haven't said it wasn't sluggish or that it was playable. Just that i ran it, probably thanks to my massive 16mb RAM expansion cards fitted into fullsize ISA-slots.

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