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A German hacker duo has managed to run GTA Vice City on an internet router. Most tech enthusiasts focus on running Doom on systems that aren't designed to run it, but these hardware modders have taken on a different project. Grand Theft Auto Vice City was first released on the PS2 in 2002, and it has been ported to several different platforms, including PCs, mobiles, and even the Nintendo Switch.
However, this is the first time that someone has tried running the Grand Theft Auto game on a WiFi router. It shows how much the community still adores the classic title. There are countless mods that are still being released for it, and Rockstar Games itself has re-released it multiple times.
With that in mind, here's how the hardware modders managed to achieve the seemingly impossible feat.
GTA Vice City running on WiFi router with eGPU and Debian Linux
German hardware modders Manawyrn and tSYS, who run a joint project called KittenLabs, shared their experience running GTA Vice City on a TP-Link TL-WDR4900 wireless router. They successfully turned the router into a mini PC with the help of an AMD Radeon HD 7470 graphics card and Debian Linux as an operating system.
They chose this particular router because it has a PowerPC e500v2 32-bit CPU, which is very performance-oriented for a router. Although this performance is insufficient to run modern titles, running a 22-year-old game isn't an issue.
To connect the GPU, Manawyrn and tSYS had to create a custom miniPCIe breakout PCB and wire it into the router using enameled copper. The hackers then installed OpenWrt on the router, but the limitations of the OS forced them to bootstrap a version of Debian Linux.
Following some incompatibility issues with an RX 570 GPU, an older Radeon card (HD 7470) with legacy drivers was eventually used to provide adequate compatibility with the 32-bit OS.
The hardware modders chose to run an unofficial edition of Grand Theft Auto Vice City called reVC, a reverse-engineered version of the game that Rockstar had DMCA'd in the past. There were still many glitches to overcome, and the project came to a halt for several months. They used a Wii U port of reVC but needed many more patches and tweaks to get GTA Vice City running properly.
Although the framerate is low and there are frequent stutters, the fact that the game runs at all is a major achievement. You'll notice that there aren't any NPCs around. This is because they had to be removed for the game to run properly. Interactions with in-game NPCs break the game, resulting in graphic artifacts, but the soundtrack remains, and driving works as it should.
Despite being over two decades old, GTA Vice City still remains quite popular among fans. There's been a recent boost to its popularity as Rockstar is returning to Vice City with GTA 6, its highly-anticipated upcoming game.
Check out our other Grand Theft Auto articles:
Vice City gangs in GTA 6 || Mistakes in Vice City || Lore-friendly Vice City mods || Strange Vice City facts || GTA 6 trailer 2 release date
For The Biggest GTA 6 Map Leaks, Click Here.
