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

In light of Sony's heavily-rumored decision to pivot away from PC releases, one security engineer took matters into his own hands and turned the PS5 into a PC. Andy Nguyen ported Linux to a PlayStation 5 console, hacking through several layers of hardware and software barriers thanks to full-chain exploits. Not only did he manage to get Linux running, but the modded console actually performs well in games.

As the video below shows, that's a PS5 Slim running full-fat Linux with no illusions. Now that it's a PC, it can do anything a standard computer can, which includes running GTA V Enhanced Edition via Steam. It's set to 1440p resolution, with ray tracing enabled as denoted by the "High RT" preset in settings. The gameplay is steady at a smooth 60 FPS with barely any fluctuation, and even the sound is working.

Andy says this Linux-PS5 (LinuxStation 5?) supports 4K HDMI and audio output, and all USB ports are working. The CPU is sitting at 3.2 GHz, while the GPU is at 2.0 GHz, but both can go higher — the CPU can boost to 3.5 GHz, and the GPU can boost to 2.23 GHz. But the PS5 Slim doesn't have the thermal headroom to keep up with those numbers and simply overheats if pushed any harder.

To achieve this, Andy used a PS5 running significantly older firmware, between 1.0 and 2.0, that was released around five years ago. The author used the 'Byepervisor' exploit to say bye to the hypervisor Sony uses on its console, gaining kernel-level control to run unsigned code. GPU acceleration is still incomplete, and some functionality remains limited, but the community's efforts are impressive nonetheless, as Andy demonstrates.

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."

In a way, this is a tease of what the upcoming Steam Machine will be since it'll feature similar performance and run SteamOS, based on Linux. Through Proton, it can play pretty much any Windows game, sometimes with even a slight FPS bump. The Linux-PS5, therefore, is like the best of both worlds because it can go back to being a regular exclusives-playing machine after the tinkering phase is over.

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