PSP Slim Tips & Tricks

Index:

***Downgrading and Hardware Related***
1.How to downgrade 3.95
2.Time Machine installation
3.Clear faceplate installation
4.How to flash themes manually (CXMB coming soon!!)
5.Upgrading to 4.01 m33 and a users guide for the new CFW
6.How to use RCO editor to change flash0 icons


***Homebrew***
1.How to run ISOs from USB and ms
2.Using emulators
3.Using homebrew correctly(coming soon)


***Computer related***
1.Speed up computer
2.Convert ISO to CSO files
3.BASIC programming tuts (in progress)

***Downgrading and Hardware Related***


***How to Downgrade***
So you went to the llatest official sony firmware and didnt realize all of the stupid security patch updates and cant play homebrew anymore? well look no further heres a guide on how to downgrade it to 3.71m33 and the jump to 3.90m33 on a slim without buying another battery!!

Step 1.
Make sure you have a psp slim. It should say psp2001 or something similar to it. The UMD door should also just pop open without having to slide the button.

Step 2.
To see if you have the right 3.95 firmware, go to settings>system>system information and it should say something like Version 3.95.

Step 3.
Get your battery ready. I used a Datel Tool and took the eeprom out of that one and it works even smoother but if your scared of opening your batteries i wouldnt do that. I will provide a link on making a pandora. (Ok you do need an extra battery, my bad)


Step 4. MAKE A BACKUP OF YOUR MS BEFORE CONTINUING!! Now for the fun stuff. Go to google and search for total newbi MS installer. You should find it pretty easily. After you finished downloading it, open the rar file and run START.exe. Thats all you need. The follow the steps onscreen and you will have a complete pandoras ms without anything missing (if you do it right)

Make sure it says magic gate supported, fake memory sticks won't work


Step 5. Insert your ms first and then insert your pandoraized battery into your psp and if everything is succesfull, you should see the service mode with the options of installing the m33 firmware, official firmware, dumping your nand, and restoring the nand.





Follow the onscreen instructions and you should see Install success press x to shut down the psp. Do it or you will brick your psp.

Step 6.
Insert your normal battery and boot up the psp normally. If it was successful, go to settings>system>system information and it should say 3.71m33-2 or 3.80m33-5. Congratulations again, you just rocked sony with a pandora kit.




Updating to 3.90m33
Step 1. download the updater files here-


Step 2. copy and place the update directory into the game folder of your psp main folder eg ms0:\PSP\GAME

Step 3. Go to your XMB and run the updater. follow the onscreen instructions of the m33 part and then after the modified scea updater finishes press X as usuall, do it or you will brick.

After it restarts,confirm success by go to setting>system>system information again and look and see if it says 3.90m33-3, if it does, your finished (it should, ive tried it failproof on 4 diffrent slims)

Sorry for the bad quality pictures, i only have a camera phone.


TimeMachine Installation!

Time machine is an app by the famous Dark_Alex that allows the user to jump between firmwares from loading them onto the memorystick. I have confirmed this on 4.01m33-2 and am able to jump to 1.5 and 3.60m33.

To do this you need a pandoras battery, which will be capable of tricking the psp into thinking that the firmwares on the ms are the ones that will actually show up and be in effect while powered up.

Step 1. Download time machine and the firmwares needed. To find 360.PSAR search it on google and for MSPIL.bin use it from your pandora stick.

Timemachine -

1.50 update -

3.40 update -


After you finished, go to your psps root folder and place all the eboot and psar files there and then place TIMEMACHINEs folder in the GAME folder in the PSP section.



Step 2. When you boot up timemachine, the first thing you should to it to write the IPL loader to the MS. (This is the first option). Once completed, go back to the main screen as instructed.



Step 3. Choose the firmware you want to install on the memory stick by highlighting the fw and then click X to start the installation.
You should see a screen like this----



Step 4. After its finished, restart your psp with your pandoras battery in it and run timemachine again. This time select Convert Pandora/DC1-DC4 ipl into tm format. Click it and it shouldnt take to long to convert.



Step 5. Put in your TM ms in (make sure you do this first) then put in your battery and press the corresponding button of the firmware you loaded.

Default buttons are following for the PSP slim(hold it untill it boots!!!! you need to or itll forget if you let go)

Code:
 
O for 1.50[] for 3.60m33
anything else will boot from the flash firmware
***How to manually flash themes via USB***


Step 1.Go to VSH Menu by pressing select on your psp and set your usb device to Flash0, its right after the memory stick.

Step 2. Enable USB connection by go to the settings menu in your psp.
A screen like this should come up--



Step 3. Download a theme and you should find some folders inside called VSH, Font, and sometimes DIC
Step 4. Copy the folders inside the themes and then paste them into your psp folder, when it says there is already a folder named *****, whereas ***** is what it says, click yes and you will see it copying into the PSP.





Step 5. Stop USB connection and restart you PSP. After it turns off, it should boot up into the theme.
Enjoy the themes!

heres some example screenshots of some flash themes---








***Clear faceplate installation***
So you bought a new faceplate and can't figure out how to install it flawlessly? look no further, continue reading and you will see how you can make a clear faceplate look like it
came right out of the sony factory!!

Step 1. See what kind of faceplate came in the mail or buy one off the net. Once i find out its ok to post outside links, ill post the store i bought mine from.



Step 2. Make sure you have a PSP SLIM! this tut may work on phaats, but its not my specialty, so dont ask me questions about phats. Please.

To do so, find the serial on the psp. It should be something like XXXXXXXXXXX-PSP2001



Step 3. Find the seven screws on the original psp and unscrew them. **Note, two screws are underneath the warranty sticker in the battery compartment, if you want to keep your warranty, stop here and quit. if you dont mind, pull the sticker off and continue. You can't get sony's help now if you break it, which you shouldnt.



;You should have seven screws, i only have 6 because i managed to lose one of the little ones on the carpet, but its still functional



Step 4. Carefully pry the faceplate off the psp using your hands. Don't pull it off fast, you could damage the internals of the psp.

Step 5. Remove the rubber padding with the buttons on and put it on the replacement faceplate. Do the same for the arrow pads and the vol/home/start/ button pads.





Step 6. Place the new faceplate on after a good cleaning with a screen cleaner and screw it back on just like how you unscrewed it.

Congratulations on installing that faceplate!

***4.01 M33 Users Guide***

So DAX released a new firmware. YAY!!! But so far there arent many guides for it other than installation procedures. This will tell you how to use it to its full extent, including some plugin installs.

All installer files are included, read the readme first
4.01M33-


***Part One***
1. Download 4.01 M33 and sonys 4.01 firmware update. Find one or use my links and rename the sonys update to "401.PBP" without quotes and put it in the same folder as the M33 update. Go to the game section and run the update as you normally would. When the sony updater starts, dont worry, this is normal.
2.GO to system>system settings>system information and check the firmware and make sure it says 4.01 M33.
3.Download 4.01 M33 update 2 from DAXs site or my link. Run the updater it will flash a few files and update the firmware to 4.01M33-2.

The main features of 4.01m33 are the new kernel (of course), PSPstates experiment (written by DAX himself), as well as a new feature to translate the recovery menu into a diffrent language.

As noted in the readme, chnge your homebrew folder to GAME4XX, he says this is because he doesnt know if sony will have any signifagant changes in their kernels, so the XX keeps it clean and unkown.

***Part Two***
Recovery Mode explained
When you hold down the power button for at least 5 seconds, it reboots and to get to recovery mode you press the RTRIGGER.

You will see---


Code:
 
Toggle USB ->Configuration ->Run program at /PSP/GAME/RECOVERY/EBOOT.PBP Advanced ->CPU Speed ->Plugins ->Registry Hacks ->Exit
Inside those are---
Toggle USB -> Nothing
Configuration -> Many good and useful options that you can enable or disable
Run program at /PSP/GAME/RECOVERY/EBOOT.PBP -> is not very useful on PSP Slims, as it was used to enable some lower firmwares on PSP Phats to downgrade back to 1.00 or 1.50.
Advanced -> toggle usb to all your flash items, including Flash0, Flash1, Flash2,Flash3, also has advanced configuration for ISOs and an option to format Flash1(the SCE settings) and reset your settings.
CPU SPeed -> Underclock or overclock your PSPs cpu. currently 333 is a good speed to start on, ive been using it for a while and it performs very well.
Plugins -> these contain your "plugins" (extras, like DLLs in computer applications these are in .PRX format.
Registry Hacks -> Thes options include switching out your O and X buttons(useful for imported psps), Activating WMA playback(This doesnt connect to the internet to do it), and Activate the Flash Player.
Exit -> exit the recovery mode and return to the XMB.
Plugins: plugins are useful PRX files that do many things that sony would never allow done on thier firmwares for some reason. These include many features (although all of them come seperate), such as streaming music in games, and anywhere on your psp, my favorite, cheating, brightness levels, modifying a few other aspects such as overclocking or overclocking, you get the idea. To use these, Go to you root folder and if there is an SEplugins folder, go there, if not create it and then extract the PRX files as well as .txt files that it has.

music prx-
cwcheat -
screenshot capture -
starwars renegade squadron hacker -

The flash area can be really dangerous to your PSP if you mess with it. These areas are recommended for advanced users, or if you know know what your doing, go right ahead! Dont come and flame me if anything happens, please that gets really annoying,

***Part Three***
FAQs
These arent really frequent, i made some up that would probably confuse a lot of people who dont understand CFW to the fullest yet.

1.Arrrggghhhh!! My homebrew i had in GAME3XX isnt loading!!! Why? This is because you have to change GAME3XX to GAME4XX (It said so in DAXs readme)

2.Is there custom themes or CXMB themes for 4.01m33 yet? The answer is yes. There are some on this site or on google.

3.What plugins are avalible for it? Currently, all plugins that arent to a specific fw work, and PSPstates and USBfake.

4.Is it possible to downgrade if i dont like it? Well duh, its a cfw, and always has that capability of downgrading. Even in the future, im sure 8.XX will be able to downgrade somehow.

5.What new features are in the recovery mode? look in part two, i will explain recovery mode.

***Homebrew Related***


***How to rip a UMD from your MS***
This tutorial will show you how to copy and use UMDs to their full extent and put them on your memory card. Im going to use Ace Combat X as the example.

1st step. Download PowerISO from my computer apps section above.



2nd Step. Choose the UMD you want to rip and insert it and then go to VSH menu and select UMD Disc as you usb device. Then go to USB mode and wait for it to show up. You should see a winrar archive named UMD9660.ISO or UMD data.bin and a GAME folder.

3rd. Copy the archive or folders and put them somewhere on your computer.


^this is what it will look like when you are copying, it will take a while, so i recommend going out or watching tv to kill the time

4th. After its finished, go to the ISO directory on your PSPs ms eg ms0:/ISO and then copy and paste your ISO into that directory.

5th. Exit USB after its finished, and then go to VSH and select your UMD mode eg M33 driver, Sony Np9660, OE ISOFs(something like that) or normal if you wnat to put in a UMD while playing your ISO. Then go to the games section and play your ISO!

***How to use emulators***

Step 1. Download an emulator and some roms for the particular system you want to emulate. Some examples are-- UO_gpSP, Homers RIN, DAEDALUS R14, NesterJ, etc









Step 2. Find some roms that should have a .XX whereas the XX is the name of the system the game was originally intended for. eg .gb, .gbc, .z64, .nes, .gba etc.

Step 3. Go to the emulators root folder and find the main folder with the folders for the system inside of it. and then copy the folder to the GameXXX folder on your psp. Whereas XXX is your firmwares kernel. Do not put in GAME150, as psp slims can't load homebrew from that kernel.

Step 4. Go to your XMB after exiting USB mode and load the emulator wherever you see it in the XMB and then load the roms from the folder entitled "ROMS" in the emulators folder.
Google emulators for PSP slim or go to a thread here and download the emulator you want. You also need some roms so google the system and roms for the system and itll be easy to find.

Have fun emulating!

***How to use homebrew correctly***
Step 1. Download some homebrew from somewhere (i recommend using this site or my freind google, hes got all the homebrew you can ever want)



Step 2. Download it and extract it to your desktop (sometimes winrar can be stupid and doesnt copy JUST the actual homebrew folder to your psp so use this method instead)





Step 3. Copy the folder that contains all the game/apps files into your ms0://PSP/GAMEXXX, and navigate to the game section and then open it up and navigate down to your homebrew you just installed



Step 4. Enjoy playing/using your homebrew that you installed!!


***Computer Tutorials***

***How to speed up your computer***

Step 1. Download Auslogics Boost Speed:



Step 3. Go to one button check up on the first screen you see and then you should see- registry cleanup, disk cleanup, disk defrag, and system protection. It automatically scans for problems.
When its done, you should see a button that says Fix Errors, click it and it will start repairing the errors.






Step 4. Wait untill it finishes and then enjoy your turbocharged computer. There are other options for you to optimize your cpu, so check those out on your own.



***Converting ISO to CSO***
Step 1. Get an ISO file



Step 2. Download YACC, Yet another CSO compressor (i will provide a download link.





Step 3. Open an ISO file by clicking on the INPUT ISO FILE NAME icon and get the one you want to convert.



Step 4. Next, select which format you want to convert to CSO, ISO, or DAX(note, you can't play DAX format as far as i know, DAX stands for Dark_Alex so its his UMD format.



Step 5. Click the icon that says go and sit back and relax.



Step 6. Gp to the folder where you placed the cso and the copy the CSO to the ISO folder in your PSPs memory stick. eg ms0:/ISO
Then go to the psp XMB and go the game section and then open up the game and it should work.


**Programming in BASIC**


Part 1 - Hello World, loops, functions

So you want to start programming your own apps or games? well it can be as simple as writing in BASIC code or as complicated as C++. These guides will start you off in BASIC, provided you have a BASIC IDE such as Dark BASIC pro or BlitzBasic. Since we can't share apps here, google will be your freind as always or go to
.

Here you can find sample games and programs, the actual IDE, and many other cool extras!! I would recommend using Blitzbasic plus since that is what im using and it is simple and effective. In the full version you can also create executables as easy as clicking a button.

**Hello World**
Many programmers start of by writing a simple "Hello World" app, which basiclly just shows the text "Hello World" in a command prompt window or a normal window. This is right down to the basics and the most simple thing you will ever do in your programming 'career'.

To start off, tyoe these lines of code in and you should hopefully get good results.

Code:
;Hello World.bbPrint ("Hello World")Delay 30
Next, go to the 'program' menu and click run program. It should be a command prompt window displaying your hello world app. (I can't get screeshots on the computer so please just bear with me)

Congratulations, you wrote your first successful computer app.

**Now for Loops**
Loops are basiclly what tells the game or whatever you are writing to keep going and to keep using the same functions until the user beats it or does some other event that ends the loop. In BlitzBasic, there a couple of very useful loops, such as the While.....Wend loop which is executed only in the main program. The If.......Then loop, which could be used to tell if the player shoots the enemy, collided with the enemy, etc. The For....To loop can be used in functions describing what the function is doing after you type in your code. Goto loop is simply this - it goes back to where ever you put a valid label in the game or app (usually at the beginning) and goes back there when ever the user perfoms the action you defined using the 'GoTo' command. There are many more loops that you can explore on your time, but since these are just the basics, ill stop here and start showing you some code.

Code:
;While....Wend exampleWhile Not KeyHit(1);If player1 crashes into the enemy, reset the coordinates of the ships.If (ImagesOverlap(player1\image2,player1\x,player1\y,alien\image,alien\x,alien\y) player1\x = 400 player1\y = 200 alien\x = 400 alien\y - 500 alien\xv = Rand(-15,15)alien\yv = Rand(-15,15)EndIfWend ; end the game loop
Don't try to understand all of this at once since some of the commands you see here ill go over later and you will use all of them in a program when your done reading this.

**Functions**
These are probably the most important part of your code as in it tells the program what you want it to do and keep doing that by using loops in the main program. Functions can be as simple as telling what year it is and making the user guess it and letting it keep guess untill the right answer is put in. Even though there are ways to generate random numbers on computers, there are NO such things as TRUE random numbers in computers so you will want to use either the "RAND" code before intergers or the SeedRnd Millisecs() command to make the numbers appear to seem random and make the game more of a challenge.

You can define your own functions that are as simple as these------

Code:
;Function UpdateLaser() - fire the laserFunction UpdateLasers() ;For every shot fired, move up 5 pixelsFor Laser.Laser = Each Laser Laser\y = Laser\y - 5 ;Move laser up ;If laser goes offscreen, Delete it, otherwise draw it If Laser\y < 0 Delete Laser Else DrawImage laserimage, Laser\x, Laser\y ;draw the laser EndIf Next ;Move to the next laserEnd Function ;Function UpdateBullets - fire tthe bulletFunction UpdateBullet();Everytime a bullet is fired, move up 5 pixelsFor Bullet.Bullet = Each Bullet Bullet\y = Bullet\y - 5 ;Move bullet up ;If bullet goes ofscreen, delete it, otherwise draw it If Bullet\y < 0 Delete Bullet Else DrawImage Bullet1, Bullet\x, Bullet\y ;Draw the bullet EndIf Next ;Move to the next bulletEnd Function
What these functions do is tell the game to make the player being able to shoot lasers or bullets, which will definetly make the game a lot more interesting and more worthwile to play after you finish writing the code for it.

This is all ill write for now, but later in the week come back and check for Part 2 and 3, including more guides for the psp slim as usual.

Part 2 - Graphics and Handling player input

Basic Graphics Commands

LoadImage() - What this does is creates the image in the program and stores it in its memory for later use, if you using the trial version, it only supports .bmp files, so find a program on google thqat will convert .jpg, .gif etc to .bmp. The () means that this is where you type the name of the file for it in order to actually load it into the game.
Example -

Code:
 
stars = LoadImage("stars.bmp")
Stars = is a handle, so you can use it later whenever you need to.
DrawImage() - This actually draws the image on the screen whenever you open the program and run it.

Example -

Code:
 
DrawImage stars,0,0
You NEED the X and Y coordinates in the parameters otherwise it wont know where to draw iit.
For using Player input, you can use Keyhit(), KeyDown(), MouseDown(), and some others i will explain later, but these are the most common and easiest to use.

To use the KeyHit() command, type something into your IDE and then use your KeyHit() command at the end to end it when the user hits the ESC key,
The () is the scancode of the key you wish to be pressed for the event to happen, you can google scancode lists or if your using blitzbasic or blitzplus, it has one in the help menu.

Code:
;KeyHit exampleLoadImage("stars.bmp")DrawImage("stars.bmp")WaitUntilKeHit(1)EndIf
These lines of code draw a star background on the screen and then waits until the user hits the escape key to exit out of it.