Emulation and Linux Gaming on the PS3

When I first started reading about installing Yellow Dog Linux I noticed a lot of complaints about the limited memory or the lack of hardware accelerated OpenGL support on the PS3. Fortunately, it turns out that you can do quite a lot with what we have available. The following is a list of various computers and game system emulators*, native Linux games, and source ports that I have used successfully on my PS3:

System -> Emulator

That leaves a few I haven’t been able to run:

  • Atari Jaguar (almost runs in sdlmess — not fast enough or 100% accurate)
  • Intellivision (should be working in sdlmess, I think, not sure why not)
  • Nintendo 64 (if possible would probably require accelerated video)
  • Nintendo Gamecube (if possible would require accelerated video)
  • Nintendo DS (desmume might work eventually?)
  • Sega Saturn (yabause runs very slowly, not playable)
  • Playstation (err… what’s the point?)

Haven’t tried yet:

  • Apple IIGS

Aside from running emulators …

Java 5 and 6 plugins for Firefox run various Java games well including: Runescape MMORPG, multiplayer games on flyordie.com (online Chess, Reversi, 3D Pool, etc).

Installed Opera and Java 5 plugin OK. Seems a little faster than Firefox but could just be me. See this post by Paul (ppietro) on the Yellow Dog Community Board for setup instructions.

Various native Linux games:

SuperTux, Freeciv, Mega Mario, Rocks’n'Diamonds, Blob Wars: Metal Blob Solid, Pingus, FreedroidRPG, Battle for Wesnoth, Ri-li, Solarwolf

These source ports of early “3D” FPS games can all run smooth on the PS3 without OpenGL:

(Of the above FPS games, I had to compile all from source except for vavoom)

* There are some legal issues surrounding emulation and the use of game and/or system ROM images. A good summary can be found in this Wikipedia entry.

I need a little help with setting the video-mode for a ps3 on fedora 9. When I’m in root and put in video-mode I can only choose 480p. And when you mention “video=ps3fb:mode:3 rhgb
(this section may look different depending on how you installed Fedora 9)” in your post on fedoraforum.org, Mine is different and that does not appear on the editor screen. Can you help??

Just wanted to say thanks for all the tutorials. I did this Opera one, and it worked great. I think I have a new favorite browser!
Thanks…..Mark

Hey Billb…Whats going on with the Yellow Dog Forum? Its been down for a few days now. Do you know whenit will be back up?

I installed port audio prior to snes9x-gtk as instructed, but I sitll get no sound. Help?

@dan, in snes9x-gtk, look in Options -> Preferences -> Sound and make sure your playback rate is 44100 or 48000 — I think it defaults to 32000 and that doesn’t work on the PS3.

hey bill. First time here and all of your tutorials and helpful links are the reason I can do all this from my couch. Thanks in advance. Anyway, I was tryin to get GTK 1.51 and Port audio. I tried installing the RPM for port audio and I keep getting an error at the end. I was hoping you could help me out. I get:

Error Resolving Dependencies

Unable to resolve dependencies for some packages selected for installation.
In the details Tab:

Missing Dependency: libjack.so.0 is needed by the package portaudio

thanks again for all your help.

@danb, I see — that is provided in the fedora-extras repo (fc6), so if you haven’t added the additional third-party repos as described here:

http://blogs.ydl.net/billb/2008/03/02/third-party-repos-for-ydl-6/

Then the installer won’t pick up the dependency. There may be other RPM packages I have made that require the third party repos as well. There’s a post on the YDL community board that describes them in more detail here, plus how to install software on YDL in general:

http://www.yellowdog-board.com/viewtopic.php?t=3017

Once you have them set up properly, the installer should pick up the dependency and add it automatically.

jack-audio-connection-kit.ppc 0.103.0-1.fc6 fedora-extras
Matched from:
libjack.so.0

Also, I have a new version of the portaudio rpm that I haven’t posted yet — here’s a direct link:

http://pleasantfiction.ipower.com/ps3linux/ps3bodega/portaudio-19-5.ppc.rpm

(still need to add the 3rd party repos first, at least fedora-extras anyway)

And when you have snes9x-gtk installed, look in Options -> Preferences -> Sound and make sure your playback rate is 44100 or 48000 — I think it defaults to 32000 and that doesn’t work on the PS3.

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