Alright an extremely weird question... But is it possible to use console hardware like PS4/PS5 to use as GPUs to assist rendering?

[New_World_Inc]

This is just something I want to try. It's a shot in the dark but I have an old PS4 and I want to make use of the hardware in that to create an external GPU.

[mMontana]

The right question to me is: are you capable to achieve that?

I'm surely not, unless install some cluster computing node instead of Sony OS.

[TylerD321]

I doubt it is possible because the CPU and GPU are on the same chip (or are the same thing) as an APU. I feel like you would need a custom firmware to make this work. If I remember correctly, though, you used to be able to use PS3s for Folding@Home but they took that functionality away in the newer model playstations - ps4&ps5. This leads me to believe it would be possible on a ps3 but not a ps4/5.

[thevictor390]

Sure this is theoretically possible. Folding@Home did exactly this (is that still a thing?). First you need a workload you can distribute across multiple PCs. Then, you need software compatibility. You can go the official route and develop your own custom Playstation software and get it published officially like Folding@Home did, or you can jailbreak the console, run Linux on it or something, and then it might be possible to run an off the shelf solution.

 

If you're doing this privately then the hacky method is the only reasonable one, but again, you will first need something to work on that can already be clustered. There is no way to transfer data off the console fast enough to make it act like an external GPU directly, nor is it powerful enough to warrant that.

[adm0n]

13 minutes ago, New_World_Inc said:

This is just something I want to try. It's a shot in the dark but I have an old PS4 and I want to make use of the hardware in that to create an external GPU.

No matter what you do, you won't be able to use the GPU in the PS4 in the same way you'd be able to use a GPU with a thunderbolt eGPU. The GPU in the PS4 is already connected to the CPU. So the best you could achieve is some form of connection to the CPU, which then lets the GPU calculate and hand its result back through the CPU to you. Which would be horrendously slow, not to mention you'd need complete control of the hardware as well as write your own firmware/software for everything.

 

The GPU in the PS4 is also pretty slow by today's standards, so if you just want a better GPU, I think there are better alternatives for you.

 

Something more feasible would be rendering a game on the PS4 and streaming it to your PC. I don't know if sony supports this in any way, but if you'd get a linux distro installed on the PS4, that would be well in realms of possibility.

[jaslion]

So firstly the os is so locked down this isnt happening.

 

Secondly we have the xbox one/ps4 cpu/apu combo purchasable from ali express and they are weak. Also due to being amd you have almost no gpu accelerarion possibilities. As in even lets takes a older blender that has nvidia rt and amd opencl. A single rtx 2060 is well over 10x faster than even multiple vega 64's rendering togheter.

 

Making a gpu inst a simple task either. You need a lot of people to develop it and make drivers to make it function.

 

 

Simply put its literally impossible

 

Just sell the ps4 and get a gpu for 200$ even less a rtx 2060 is available and king for compute tasks at that price