phorrest
Sub-Modder Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 166	Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2005 9:31 pm    Post subject: PSP Homebrew Roundup   PSP Homebrew Roundup PSP homebrew development started off with a bang shortly after the Japanese release when it was discovered that unsigned code could run without any modification whatsoever on the 1.0 firmware. In addition to this, the PSP can run a well-documented programming language called ELF. These two factors led the way to numerous homebrew projects including emulators for every system under the sun. Sadly, US PSP owners couldn't appreciate any of this because Sony had updated the US PSPs to ship with firmware version 1.50, which could not run unsigned code. But just last week, a group of gentlemen from Spain led by one who goes by the name "Killer-X" released a utility that would allow anybody to run unsigned code on v1.50 PSPs by swapping memory sticks while the program was loading. That was good, but later that week they released the KXploit that allowed unsigned code to run without swapping by using a dummy loader. The KXploit software can be found here. It's fairly self-explanatory; tell it what you want the directory to be named, where the eboot.pbp file for your homebrew is located, and the drive letter of your PSP. It will create two directories in the GAME folder on your PSP, both with the name you gave it but one has a "%" after it. The "%" one is the loader and the background and thumbnail that display on your PSP can be edited by extracting and repacking the files from eboot.pbp with PBP Unpacker. After everything is on your PSP all you have to do is boot it up. Under memory stick in the games option on your PSP you will see two files for each homebrew. Your PSP thinks one is corrupted, but the other should show up as a valid file. Run the valid one, which is the loader, and presto, you can finally run whatever the hell you want on your 1.50 PSP. Oh yeah, if you updated your PSP to 1.51 or 1.52 you are out of luck for now. Best of the Best Homebrew Snes9x v0.02y14 This is the big one. Finally, SNES games can be played on a portable. For being so young, this emulator is surprisingly excellent. Almost every game I tried was playable after small adjustments to the frameskip or sound processing. It also supports "overclocking" the PSP to 333MHz. It's not really overclocking because the PSP was designed to run at 333MHz but is underclocked to 222MHz to save battery life. It also supports save states and many options to adjust the screen size or stretch it to fit the PSP. There are some games that it still cannot play, like games with certain copy protection or specialized chips, but Snes9x is a must have for portable emulation. You should know that the options are controlled by the analog stick. Left brings you to the menu, right toggles sound, and up and down changes the frameskip. SMS PSP v0.4 A very barebones emulator. Emulates both Game Gear and Sega Master System, which is understandable since they were both the same hardware. It runs everything I tried, but lacks any options to change frameskip, screen size, save state, or set the PSP to 333MHz. It also has a bug where the screen doesn't refresh as you scroll past more than one page of files, so you end up trying to read red text on a background of white left by the text that previously occupied that position. Pressing triangle while playing brings you to rom selector and pressing L and R at the same time quits to the PSP menu. RIN v1.26 One of the first emulators for the PSP, and an excellent one at that. Runs everything I tried perfectly. Features include frameskip, screen adjustment, save states, and overclocking. You can even change the Game Boy color palette. The menu can be accessed by pressing L and by holding R and pressing select or start it will save or load state. PSwan v0.03 A Wonderswan emulator in a very early stage. Plays games fine but has no sound support and the only option it has is to reset. The menu can be accessed by pressing R while playing, not that you'd really need it. PSP Genesis v0.13 A Sega Genesis emulator that runs almost everything, but is still lacking options. You can only change the render mode, overclock, and toggle auto SRAM. Select brings it back to the menu while playing where you can use triangle to toggle auto SRAM, square to toggle the render mode, and x to toggle the CPU speed. NGPSP v1.2.1 A Neo Geo Pocket in its very early stages, but very promising. No sound support yet, but runs everything I tried. Has screen adjustment, frame skip, and save states. There is an option for sound, but it can't be toggled. Select will bring up the menu and everything is self-explanatory from there. NesterJ v1.05 An NES emulator that is fantastic. Runs everything I tried perfectly and has all the good options. L button brings up the menu while playing and you can use R and select or start to save of load state. HUE for PSP v0.010 A Turbo Grafx and PC Engine Emulator. Some games won't boot at all, but what I could get to run ran amazingly. It has all the good options, but screen adjustment. To access the menu you have to press L, R and select at the same time. fMSX for PSP v0.61 A Konami MSX emulator. The MSX was a PC-like system released by Konami in Japan in the mid-eighties. Pretty much only has Konami games on it, but the MSX versions are much better than their NES counterparts. Runs everything I played flawlessly, but the only additional option is save states. L brings up the menu and R brings up the keyboard. The only problem is that I could never get the keyboard craphic to load correctly. DOOM-PSP v.02 An excellent port of the Doom engine. All you need to do to run it is drop the Doom wad file in the same folder. It runs at full speed, but the sound is pretty awful right now. It's also really picky about filenames. It has to be in PSP/GAME/DOOM-PSP to run at all and it only recognizes the filenames DOOM1.WAD and DOOM2.WAD. It can also run some of the other games based on the same engine by renaming their wad files to those names. Beats of Rage v0.01 Beats of Rage is in an engine that simulates Streets of Rage and supports user-made mods. The PSP version can run the original Beats of Rage, or any of the mods by renaming their file to bor.PAK. The PSP version runs excellently but has some extremely long load times and to get it to load areas after the first one you have to put your PSP into and then out of sleep mode which will sometimes cause the controls to quit responding. "What do all these emulators have in common?" you might ask yourself. All you have to do is unzip them and drop all the folders in your PSP/GAME/directory. You can also find some public domain roms and the shareware version of Doom so you can start having fun right away before you have to pay a visit to the hell that is known as the internet rom community. There's no bor.PAK included for Beats of Rage though, but you can download it from the official site along with many awesome mods.
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