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Doom isn’t the only game getting ported to devices that were never intended to run a video game. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Rockstar Games’ massively popular open-world crime game released in 2002, is also getting in on the fun. Thanks to a skilled tinkerer, the classic game is now playable on a router with a few modifications
on March 3, modders Manawyrn and tSYS have taken a TP-Link TL-WDRR4900 (a router I used and still own) and turned it into a tiny PC capable of running software and video games. This is possible because the TL-WDRR4900 contains a PowerPC e500v2 32-bit processor. This CPU offers a lot of performance, more than enough for an internet router released in 2013 and just enough to run older games.
Even with the relatively powerful hardware in the TP-Link router, getting Vice City to work on it wasn’t easy. Because this thing didn’t have a video card in it (remember it was a router and never needed one) the modders had to create and add a custom-built mini PCIe breakout and connected that inside of the router. This let them attach an external AMD Radeon HD 7470 graphics card and bam, they now could connect the router to a display and run software.
Well, not quite. As documented in great detail on KittenLabs, a lot of problem-solving was needed to get Vice City running smoothly on a router. At one point, they contacted the person behind a Vice City WiiU port for help as the Nintendo console’s innards share some similarities with the TP-Link’s CPU.
When it was all said and done, the pair were able to play Vice City on a decade-old router using Linux, a modified version of the game’s source code, and an external GPU. So, not the easiest way to play GTA: Vice City, and the performance isn’t perfect. But still, it’s an impressive accomplishment and one that is just as cool as all the weird hacks and portsfolks have created for Doom over the years. Now, when can someone get Vice Cityrunning on a cash register?
