Hacking Is Wii and other PowerPC code on the XBox 360 doable?

[Maxternal]

Here's the deal as I see it:
PowerPC processors run in all the following:
1. Older Mac computers
2. GameCube
3. Wii
4. PS3
5. XBox 360

I know I'm over simplifying things a lot here but this is kinda the vague concept I have :

Since the GC, Wii, XBox 360 and at least earlier versions of the PS3 could run Linux and because of a little program called Mac-on-Linux there's no mystery on how Mac Software can be run on the other three.

Since PPC Macs are no longer produced, no one has really thought of making an emulator for either of these consoles although it would be a very efficient process since it WOULDN'T really have to EMULATE most of the code and could just run it natively. I'm sure, though, that just because of slower processor clocks and different Video hardware it would still be a little slow.

Wii can run GameCube games and homebrew natively.

A GameCube at least definitely can't take Wii, XBox or PS3 games because they're meant for something much more powerful. No one's every tried getting it to run less hardware intensive homebrew from the other consoles but that's usually just a matter of porting the code since so much of it's open sourced anyhow.

The same thing with the idea of PS3 or XBox 360 on Wii. It's just silly to think it would run software meant for something that much more powerful. Even PS3 on XBox or visa versa wouldn't leave enough head room for hardware emulation.

That only leaves one thing to question :

Would it theoretically be possible to develop a virtual machine program that would run on a XBox 360 and could take and run Wii games and homebrew?
The PS3 and XBox processors run a 4X the clock speed of a Wii and that's not even including the PS3's cells and the other 2 XBox cores. I figure that would be plenty of extra computation power to be able to emulate the differences in hardware. I'm not sure if the XBox's GPU is programmable but that would help, too. It would just be one short step from there to running GC software as I see it

There's also something Crediar was working on something called BroadOff to emulate Starlet which is the part of the Wii processor that isn't on the XBox.

I'm sure Nintendo (if not Sony and Microsoft) would go nuts if it was to be made, though.

Anyway, does that sound reasonable or am I the only one that thinks this is a good idea?
Any of the more techy guys willing to think about if it can or can't be done?
Better yet, any techy programming guys willing to give it a try?


Note : I started a similar topic here about the PS3 if anyone wants to compare notes. I don't expect much of a different response but just thought I'd throw the idea out there for discussion.

 

[DiscostewSM]

I'd say this.

Is it possible? I wouldn't doubt it.
Is it feasible? Probably not.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Making another thread for this I see. Not needed.
http://gbatemp.net/topic/326288-is-wii-and-other-powerpc-code-on-the-ps3-doable/

 

[Maxternal]

Making another thread for this I see. Not needed.
http://gbatemp.net/t...the-ps3-doable/

That's already noted at the bottom of the first post. That thread is about if it's doable on the PS3 and this is about the XBox. I just wanted to compare people's views on the two consoles on this subject.

Edit : I knew someone would bring that up.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

You'll get the same exact answer.

/thread

 

[Rydian]

Port the source?

No source, too complicated.

 

[DinohScene]

You can emulate the Wii on the 360.

Will it get any playable speeds??
Nope.

You'd need a pretty powerful PC for Wii emulation and even then it's not perfect.

 

[Maxternal]

I was thinking something more like making a virtual machine to run as much as possible natively since the procs are fairly similar. Emulation should be avoided.

You would still have to emulate the graphics hardware and stuff, though, the real question is whether having 4x the memory and clock speed AND two extra cores enough to get that done.

 

[Rydian]

I sorta' doubt it. While normal processors are good at doing a few complex threads, GPUs are meant to run tons of tiny ones (for pixel color calculations).

Swiftshader's an example of taking GPU/shader work and moving it to the CPU, but it's a highly-developed professional product (and obviously has a lot more leeway and resources on the PC than console hardware could give).

 

[DinohScene]

The CPU usually does most of the work on emulation.
You might get a few frames out of the emulator/virtual machine with Wii emulator but it won't be playable.

Otherwise it'll already been done before since the first hack to run unsigned code was available in ~mid '07.

Keep in mind that a 360 isn't a computer.
It's optimized for it's own games.

 

[Maxternal]

ok, makes sense.
What do you think about running Gamecube? I know it's not THAT much less of a work load but I would think it would be a little easier.

(A Wii is 1.5x a gamecube both in processor and GPU)

 

[DinohScene]

Exactly the same as I said before.

If it could be done it's been done before.

Kingkong Exploit, jTAG and RGH.

 

[Maxternal]

Yeah, I remember playing Wind Waker in slow motion on Dolphin on my Pentium 4. It was only a Hyper threaded 3.2ghz which SOUNDS fairly similar to one of the XBox's cores but it's kinda hard to compare PPC to x86, especially when they've taken the out of order execution out.

My brother-in-law's 4400+ (2 cores @ 2.2ghz) seems to run gamecube emulation at fairly normal speeds but it's still not perfect.

 

[DinohScene]

CPU speeds doesn't say much.

Normal computers are optimized for carrying out a lot of processes at once.
Gaming consoles serve only one purpose.
Games and nothing more.

If I where to compare my laptop 2x2.2Ghz to my 360, 3x3.7Ghz then my 360 would win.
Yet it cannot run Win 7.