PSP Hacks · Hacks, Cracks, Mods, Homebrew, Utilities

I usually steer away from posting work-in-progress updates; I like raw releases - in spite of that, this article provides some interesting insight towards the development & debugging process taken to further optimize the fantastic emulator which we call Daedalus! StrmnNrmn has been putting in some serious work and continuing to improve his N64 emulator, as proven by the recent release of Daedalus R8.

Some of the hardest problems to identify and fix are various graphical issues that crop up when running certain roms. Sometimes it’s unhandled combiner modes (this is what results in the purple-and-black textures seen in so many screenshots). Other times there are black or white polygons, or scrambled textures and so on. Sometimes the screen is just totally black :)

When I’m trying to figure out what’s causing a particular problem my first step is to recompile Daedalus with the Display List Debugger enabled. If you’ve been playing with the source, this is done by setting CFLAGS = $(DEBUG_DLIST_CFLAGS) in the Makefile, and linking in Source/PSPGraphics/DisplayListDebugger.o.

The debugger is accessed by pausing emulation and hitting the right trigger button. You need to have PSPLink set up in order to use it, as I didn’t want to clutter up the display with various debbuging output. When the debugger is activated, it keeps the emulator paused and replays the current display list over and over. The first thing is does is dump out a list of all the commands in the display list to a logfile which looks something like this (I’ve edited it somewhat to create a simple example):

…if we still have your attention, check out the full article here.

Hello everyone, I know some people would like to have a tool for encoding pmp or pmp_avc on the Mac.

This is true… And now easily accomplished! Thanks to La’fear, PEnGUIn does just that - all on the Mac!

It’s a easy, small software. And there are two parts PEnGUIn(Encoder) and PEnGUIn(Muxer) included.
PEnGUIn(Encoder) is a frontend program for mplayer, mencoder and x264(modified for compatible with pmp_avc_muxer). It means that you still need to download these binaries for mac seperately. And the other, thanks for Jonny’s efforts, according to his souce codes of Perl Modules and then I can produce PEnGUI(Muxer). About PEnGUI(Muxer), I just make a Cocoa GUI based on Perl Modules of Jonny.

If you’re using a Mac, you can easily fetch these required packages (mplayer, mencoder, x264) using DarwinPorts. Once installed you’d execute something similar to “port -v install <package name>” - read their documentation, you’ll see what I mean…

Once you’re good to go, fetch the PEnGUIn package below and specify the path to mplayer & mencoder via the preferences menu item.

Download: PEnGUIn Toolkit 1.11a

Thanks to Brian for the heads up.

- source: penguintool

I received note yesterday that LOAD magazine is back with a brand spanking new issue for your PSP. It’s been awhile since we’ve posted any PSP magazine - especially LOAD; however, I feel this one is worth mentioning. Check it out if you’re interested!

So as normal I guess, there was a bit of a delay, but the new LOAD magazine is here; a music spectacular.

In this issue we look over a fantastic new band, with their debut LP just released, The Shys are a band on the up and we’ve got an exclusive interview and album review. Coupled with the magazine you’ll get two great tracks from the album and an exclusive live performance video from their recent UK tour.

There’s also an update on bands we’ve previously featured and a fantastic competition where you can win up to four games of your own choice.

Last but not least, we’re even more versatile this issue, you can now download our magazine in PDF format, ideal for simpler viewing from home or a quick view online.

Enjoy…

Download LOAD Issue #4:
Magazine Only (1MB)
Music Edition (8MB)
Multimedia Edition (33MB)

Update: Maverick has addressed many of the issues you discovered & reported with the earlier release of PSP ISO Shrink, thus the release of v2.32 - from the ChangeLog:

• The Auto PSP detection so it no longer accesses the A:\ drive when checking for the psp
• Decompression issue resolved
• The “ISO not showing issue” in the drop down list
• PSP detection now begins once you start the app

Download: PSP ISO Shrink v2.32

Yup, another one… From developer Maverick comes PSP ISO Shrink v2.3 (PSPISOS). Requiring the .NET framework PSP ISO Shrink provides an easy-to-use graphical interface supporting ISO to DAX/CSO compression, and vice versa; it also yields the functionality to directly transfer the resulting ISO image to your PSP’s memory stick without any hassles.

Quoted from the README:

PSPISOS was created to make it very simple to compress, transfer and manage your ISO compression. Not only does PSPISOS manage the compression to different formats, but it also manages the PSP memory card through intelligent PSP detection and game management.

Give it a try, leave your feedback/comments below.

Download: PSP ISO Shrink v2.32

HelloPRX was written by Sousanator to add a simple, yet personal, touch to your PSP. Much like your cell phone, which is probably customized with a welcome/hello message, this PRX module does the same. Used in conjunction with custom firmware, Harleyg’s for example (with the SCE intro off), you’ll be able to create your own welcome message everytime your PSP starts.

In the words of Sousanator:

This is a simple prx for Custom Firmware, to load up on boot up.
When you start up, it will display a custom message(of your choice), then go to your regular XMB. Currently its says Hello in ASCII text, but you can can it to anything else, (Including ASCII graphics)

Add to the config.txt
# Extra PRX’s to load on boot.
loadmodule0 = “ms0:/psp/system/Hello.prx”
or loadmodule1 = “ms0:/psp/system/Hello.prx”
or loadmodule2 = “ms0:/psp/system/Hello.prx”
etc..

Please report any problems, and/or Bugs
Bug Report - This does not work with LordSturm’s Casual custom firmware, This should be fixed in a later version
Bug Report 2 - AIOmod does not work with this

Now all we need is it to play a short mp3 or display an image! :)

Download: Hello PRX

- source: dcemu

And the weekend finale…. drum-roll please… GTA-less “Hello World” on firmware 2.0, 2.01, 2.50, 2.60, 2.70, 2.71, and… 2.80! Yes, you read correctly - all 2.XX firmware! What does this mean? Well, I’ll just quote you the entire readme:

Finally, it’s here! As of today, the world of homebrew is no longer restricted to owners of Grand Theft Auto.

Following the publication of a new proof of concept TIFF vulnerability by NOPx86, a team of PSP developers has been working hard to turn it into an opening for homebrew on the PSP. We’re pleased to announce that the wait is over, with the release of a Hello World demo that runs on all PSP firmwares that are capable of viewing TIFF images!

To install, just unpack this ZIP file to your PSP’s PHOTO folder, and then attempt to view hello_world.tif. Hello World will launch automatically. You may find that occasionally the full screen doesn’t show - this is a known problem, just restart your PSP by holding the power button until it turns off, then open the image again. To quit, hold the power button until the PSP turns off.

So what happens next? This shows that we can run code via this exploit. It won’t be too hard to develop an eLoader that can use this exploit on v2.0 - v2.6. v2.7+ will be harder, due to extra security, but will happen a little later. Kernel mode is unavailable on v2.8, but it is likely that a downgrader is possible on all other firmwares. But then, with the possibility of kernel homebrew running without the need for a game UMD, why would you need to downgrade?

Full credit is given in the Hello World, but repeated here: Thanks to NOPx86 for the initial proof of concept on the x86 processor, and psp250, Skylark, Joek2100, CSwindle, JimP and Fanjita for the PSP work. Thanks also to Ditlew, HarleyG and our families for general support during this work.

’nuff said. My personal thanks to all the developers and people who contributed to achieving this remarkable feat!

Download: Hello World for FW 2.00-2.80

- source: noobz

No time for sleep! [Bo]Trops has been hard at work improving on his Sega Master System / Game Gear emulator. Actually, while I was asleep v0.0.8 was released fixing a few bugs, and now I’m awake with a fresh copy of v0.0.9b!

v0.0.9b:

• Improved render and video routines.
• Two sound filters added: interpolation and reverb.

v0.0.8:

• Fixed Game Gear screen.
• Fixed a stupid bug: the emulator was not saving SRAM!!
• Screen shot bug fixed.

Download: PSPMaster v0.0.9b

- source: [Bo]Trops

You’ve probably witnessed people playing this everywhere - on the subway, the street, coffee shops, etc… It’s the world’s latest mind-exercising craze - the Sudoku puzzle. And now, thanks to HPNuts, it’s available on the PSP! PSPSudoku is written in the LUA scripting language; however, HPNuts has taken the liberty to provide standalone EBOOT’s so the LUA player is not required.

Sudoku is conceptually easy but will certainly get your mind in motion. The object: fill each box and horizontal/vertical line with the numbers 1-9. These numbers can not appear twice in the same box or line. You’ll see what I mean…

Download: PSPSudoku v1.0

Great work HPNuts, I’m an addict!

- source: qj

Yet another emulator update! This time with Exophase’s v0.6 release of gameplaySP (gpSP) - the Nintendo Gameboy Advance (GBA) emulator. Included with v0.6 is a fistful of bug fixes (#), new features (+) and optimizations (@).

gpSP v0.6 changelog:

• # Fixed a nasty bug that shouldn’t have made it into the initial release; a lot of games that TECM.. erm.. crash won’t anymore. NOTE: This doesn’t mean that no game will ever crash, freeze, otherwise not work.
• # Fixed some crashes in the GUI and the ability to “go up” past ms0:/PSP. Made the “go up” button square like it was supposed to be (instead of cross).
• + There’s now a menu that you can access, by default press right while holding down triangle for the frameskip bar.
• + Menu option: resize screen aspect ratio, the default is now “scaled 3:2″ which makes it look more like a normal GBA. You can use “fullscreen” (what it was like before) or “unscaled 3:2″ (tiny but pixel for pixel like a GBA)
• + Menu option: You can now load new games while the current one is running.
• + Menu option: You can now restart the currently running game.
• + Menu option: Frameskip variation - this defaults to “uniform” whereas it defaulted to “random” last release. Basically, turn it on random if you find that frameskip causes flickering animations to make things disappear. Other than that it will generally look better on uniform.
• + GUI and file loading now have “auto repeat” on the buttons so they’re not such a pain to navigate.
• + Menu option: Added support for 128KB flash ROM, some games require it (Pokemon Firered/Leaf Green, Super Mario Advance 4), turn it on before running the game to make sure it works. NOTE: There are some versions of these ROMs that have been hacked to get around their 128KB flash, and may not even work properly at all. Look out for them, these games should save 128KB save files after you set the setting to it, IF they use 128KB flash.
• + Menu option: Added ability to make the .sav files only update when you exit the emulator, use with extreme caution (in other words, it’s not a good idea to use something like this in beta quality software if you care about your saves). Does NOT update if you exit through the home button, don’t use the home button if you can help it.
• + Zip support thanks to SiberianSTAR. It will load the first file with the extension .gba or .bin that it finds.
• + Menu options are saved to gpsp.cfg. Note that it does not save frameskip options or flash ROM options because these are very per game particular.
• + The emulator will now try to save backup files to something more matching the backup size than a fixed 64KB.
• @ Loading ROMs and the auto save of the .sav files is MUCH faster now. Thanks for the heads up on how to improve this from pollux!
• @ While coding for the screen resize code I found that SDL just wasn’t cutting it and had to code for the GU myself. Turns out the new code is faster (but because it is render code any improvement will be diminished to nothing as frameskip is increased). Special thanks to Zx-81 for the tips on this one and for his GU code in the PSPVBA source as an example.
• @ Added some games to game_config.txt. Note that not all versions of these ROMs will work with these options, try to use the USA version if possible.

All related project info can be found in readme.txt. Great release Exophase!

Download:
gpSP v0.6
gpSP v0.6 source code

- source: Exophase

Its been a great weekend for classic gaming thus far, earlier StrmnNrmn released a remarkable update to Daedalus and now syn-z has updated the Sega MegaDrive emulator, DGEN, to v1.70 - or better known to some as the Sega Genesis emulator!

Unfortunately the “readme_eng.txt” file included with the package is a bit dated and does not reflect DGEN v1.70. So we’ll let trusty Google handle the translation for us…

DGEN v1.70 changelog:

• Approximately 20% acceleration increase
• [in CONFIG] “BGM Speed Fix” addition (is turned ON, processing becomes heavy, sound does not become slow. However, there is no effect and/or depending upon the game troubles may occur. In addition, at the time of communication opposition it becomes mandatorily OFF. )

Download: DGEN v1.70

- source: syn-z