AI on PS4 Linux: Run text to image generators (Stable Diffusion) on PS4 Linux

AI (Artifical Intelligence) isn’t a new concept, but, with OpenAI’s Sora taking the world by surprise with its capabilities, the idea of AI and what its capable of, has undergone a complete change. So, it is only natural for any PS4 Linux enthusiast to wonder – can PS4 Linux run AI models? Well, thanks to forum member, misfit-mischief, we have an idea of what to expect.

misfit-mischief posed this question on the forum back in July 2023. But, since then, he has been able to run Fastsdcpu on PS4 Linux. Now, let’s look into Fastsdcpu.

What is Fastsdcpu?

The expanded form of that term would read “Fast Stable Diffusion CPU.” For most, this would explain everything. For the others, Stable Diffusion is an AI-based text-to-image generator.

Now, what does “CPU” mean here? Well, obviously, this means that the developer, Rupesh Sreeraman, has optimised the model to run mainly on CPU power. This is extremely helpful for us PS owners. How you ask? Well, for the unversed, PS4 has an APU (Accelerated Processing Unit), which combines the traditionally separate CPU and GPU into a single chip. Because of this though, the PS4 Linux scene hasn’t been able to make complete use of the potential that the GPU part of PS4’s APU could offer. This, for the time being, restricts us to depend majorly on the CPU (CPU part of the APU) power. That’s where Fastsdcpu is a boon.

As for “fast” in the term, remember, AI models generally, depend heavily on the GPU, rather than the CPU. So, I believe it would have been a huge task to modify the Stable Diffusion model to use the CPU. While it would be relatively fast, it can’t be as fast as the GPU variants. Moreover, remember, you can’t expect a PC like speeds on PS4 Linux, atleast not yet.

Now, without further ado, let’s get into the tutorial to understand how you can get started.

Fastsdcpu on PS4 Linux: Samples

misfit-mischief shared a few sample images that he generated using Fastsdcpu on PS4 Linux. Here they are:-

How to setup Stable Diffusion on PS4 Linux with Fastsdcpu?

You can directly check out misfit-mischief’s tutorial. Or, can continue here. As for the requirements, a PS4 running Linux should be sufficient to get started. This should work virtually on any distro.

Step 1. Setup pre-requisites for Fastsdcpu

1. Setup atleast 8GB swap space (Detailed instructions).
2. Complete these steps, based on our distro:-
   1. Ubuntu-based distros:
      1. Open a terminal, type sudo apt update -y and press Enter.
      2. Type sudo apt install python3-pip git qtbase5-dev and press Enter.
   2. Fedora-based distros:
      1. Open a terminal, typesudo dnf install python3-pip git qt5-qtbase and press Enter.
   3. Arch-based distros:
      1. Open a terminal, type sudo pacman -Syu and press Enter.
      2. Type sudo apt install python3-pip git and press Enter.
3. Next, open the terminal in a convenient folder, type git clone https://github.com/rupeshs/fastsdcpu.git and press Enter. This will create a folder by the name fastsdcpu and add the files to it.
4. Change directory by typing cd fastsdcpu and press Enter.
5. Type pip install -r requirements.txt and press Enter. Wait for the installation to complete.

Step 2. Install and run Fastsdcpu on PS4 Linux

1. O the terminal open in the fastsdcpu folder, type sudo chmod +x install.sh and press Enter.
2. Type ./install.sh and press Enter. Wait for it to complete the installation.
3. Once complete, sudo chmod +x start.sh start-webui.sh and press Enter.
4. To run Fastsdcpu, type ./start.sh and press Enter. This will open the GUI, where you can continue. If that doesn’t work, type ./start-webui.sh and press Enter. This will display an IP on the terminal. Simply, copy the IP to your web browser and press Enter. This will bring up the Web-based GUI.
5. misfit-mischief recommends downloading and using the LCM-LoRA model.

That’s it! Once the model is downloaded, you can get started with text to image generation on PS4 Linux.

Conclusion

Just a disclaimer, everyone, use AI effectively and responsibly. We have all seen what its capable of. AI is like fire, a good servant, but a bad master. Anyways, thanks to misift-mischief for all his work, and for sharing it on the forums. As always, if you do face any problems, post them below or on the forum thread.