Hacking the PSP Blog

Custom firmware settings to run Ratchet and Clank: size matters

Apparently there was a bit of uproar about an article on PSP Fanboy that reported Ratchet and Clank: size matters having major problems running on 3.10 OE (revision was not indicated). The PSP Fanboy reader that brought it to their attention claimed that his PSP would not start Ratchet and Clank: size matters unless he set the CPU speed to 333mhz and that the game would hang when attempting to try network play.

Well, gunntims0103 has decided to enlighten us as to which settings need to be selected in the recovery console in order for the game to play. Here's what he says are the correct settings:

Configuration

• Game folder homebrew (currently: 3.XX Kernal)
• Use NO-UMD (currently:disabled)
• Fake region (currently:America)
• Free UMD region(currently Enabled)

Advanced > Advanced configuration

• Plain modules in UMD/ISO (currently: Enabled)

CPU Speed

• Speed in UMD/ISO (currently:333)
  
• (apparently some user's use 266mhz, try that. I'm using 333mhz and its running perfectly.)
  

Plugins

• All Disabled!

Side Note - These are the settings to run the UMD of ratchet and Clank. DCEmu is not interested in the settings to run the ISO or any other copywritten illegal ISO.

Infrastructure in Ratchet and Clank: size matters still does not work on Custom firmware. It is rumored however to be working on Devhook.

Source: DCEmu

Gold PSP Coming This Week

Starting February 22 the champagne gold colored PSP will be available to the Japanese market. For those of you thinking about importing one of these units, Play-Asia will have them for sale for USD 199.90. The package contains the same items as a black PSP core pack: PSP Unit (PSP-1000CG), battery pack, and AC adapter. As I mentioned, you can get one of your own from Play-Asia, using this link.

Via DCEmu

It's here: NeoFlash's Spring Coding Contest 2007!

Homebrewers, it's time to get those programming books out, those photoshopping skills at the ready, and those tutorials from the devs at hand, because Dr. Neo's released the first info for this year's Spring Coding Competition.

Here's the information he gave for people, with a little sprucing up to make it easier to understand. There'll be a ton of winners, actually, with only a handful of people winning the grand prize: a Wii unit, a PSP, a DS Lite, or US$ 200. There are four divisions, two each for the DS and PSP: a game division, and an application division.

The rules are simple, according to Dr. Neo:

1. You can enter the GAME contest and APP contest both.
2. You must put the splash screen of "NEO spring coding contest 2007" to your production.
   

For the NDS App, the main concept is for MK5 GIGA system / MK motion cart and NEO2/3 applications,it's mean you will have more chance to win with an Apps using the full hardware function.

Second and third place finishers can choose any NEO product as their prize, while fourth to tenth in each division gets a "MK5-8G one set OR NEO2 one set OR Neo-PSP 8in1 Joypad one set OR SNK Converter one set" of their choice.

We advise you to check out the source for the latest updates on the info, but just remember that the contest will end on March 20, 2007, with prizes given out on April 20. Good luck!

Source: NeoFlash via PSPUpdates

DAX mixes it up: 3.03/3.10 OE mix for Undiluted Platinum

Wondering what's the latest with Dark_AleX? Well, according to him, he will be out with his chipped PSP for a month so he decided to come up with something that will be appreciated by every UP user: 3.03/3.10 OE Mix for UP.

In simple terms, this is just an OE update for UP users to have both the vsh for 3.03 and the kernel of 3.10 to launch PSP and PSX games.  DAX also mentioned that pressing L at boot and at recovery from sleep is kind of annoying so he fixed that as well.

A very simple yet valuable application. DAX has done it again. Here is the program's installation guide as well as some of its features:

Instructions:

• On the PSP original NAND, install 3.10 OE-A (or A', doesn't matter because the patches of A' will be applied)
• On the UP nand, install 3.03 OE-C
• Copy 303_10 mix to GAME150, and run it from the UP nand
• Done

Benefits:

• 3.03 vsh, which you can customize
• When you execute a psp or psx game, or a homebrew, OE will switch the nand to the psp one (containing 3.10 OE) automatically, so you will be able to play psx and psp games in the higher firmware, and since it will run on the psp nand, you won't have problems with psx games or with 333 MHz
• When you recover from sleep mode, OE will also be back to the nand you were, so you don't need to press L (in fact, you must not press it )
• You can access both flashes via usb in the recovery

Download 3.03/3.10 OE Mix for Undiluted Platinum

Source: PSPUpdates

Daedalus R9 Coming Next Weekend (Hopefully)

StrmnNrmn continues to tease us even more with yet another (brief) Daedalus R9 status update. His todo list is getting pretty small (at least what he's revealing) and at the end of his post StrmnNrmn says "as you can see, it's quite a short list now, so I'm still on track for releasing R9 by next weekend :)". As for what he's got left on that list, I've provided that information from his blog post below. Hopefully StrmnNrmn can stay on target an we'll see Daedalus R9 this weekend!

StrmnNrmn's remaining TODO items:

• I've been working over the weekend at fixing a number of outstanding graphical glitches, putting in place a system to automatically translate n64 blend modes to the psp. This should hopefully nearly eradicate nearly all of the purple and black textures that have shown up all over the place in previous releases. This is quite an interesting feature from a technical point of view, so I'll talk about this in a bit more depth once R9 is out.
• I have a few glitches in the new UI to fix (e.g. audio can't be disabled once the rom has started, controller can't be remapped once the rom has started).
• I need to hook up a few things to the new UI (e.g. 'reset to main menu', 'take screenshot' etc)

Source:  Retro Console Dev

Another option: Custom Firmware 1.53

In a time when Dark_AleX and Booster creations are, arguably, the cream of the crop, it is always nice to have other options for all of us in the homebrew community. Remember the year-old Custom Firmware 1.50: Media Edition? Well, eiffel56 informed us that he has released Custom Firmware 1.53. So what does this do?

This one is made for FW1.5 loyalists. Basically, it's a custom firmware which allows you to do more things on your FW 1.50, like starting nokxploited EBOOTS and so on. Here's what's new for this release:

• Recovery Menu
• Boot Menu
• Integrated uxMB
• You can start 1.00 style EBOOTS
• You can hide corrupt data icons
• You can start ISO/DAX files
• You can load your own plugins(PRX)
• Autoboot EBOOTs at startup
• Never turn off the backlight in XMB

The dev has provided us with an in-depth readme file that comes with the download. So if this creation tickles your fancy, we suggest that you understand and read the file. Anyhow, here's the download link for all of you guys.

WARNING: Firmware modifications can potentially damage your PSP beyond repair. Use this at your own risk.

Download Custom Firmware 1.53

Source: PSPUpdates