Hacking Best ways to modify a 1000 series PS Vita - Firmware 1.06

[zekepliskin]

Hello everyone,

Just bought a PS Vita a few days ago via eBay, arrived about half an hour ago. It's the original phat 1000 series with the OLED screen and 3G, going from the No Service message in the top left corner. Doesn't come with a PS Vita style memory card (all the flaps are empty) or a USB cable (other than the one already on the mains adapter) but they're easily sourced for not a lot of coin I'm sure.

I got it for a good price used (£64.99 including postage) and it's in close to mint condition, the seller specified on the auction that it's never had a game in it. Checking out the system settings to see it's running probably the original firmware 1.06 is an excellent sign - from the little I've read so far I'm guessing there's a lot that can be done with this because it's so many versions behind the current 3.5x ones.

Before I do anything though - including connecting it to my home WiFi because I understand it'll try downloading an update as soon as I do, which I don't want if it'll block the ability to exploit - I have a few questions.

1. What's the best way to modify this thing? I'm looking to set it up as I did my PSP-3000 model, with some PSP games (I have a bunch of ISOs already from where I set that one up), emulators (ideally ones that run natively which I understand would help the speed of the SNES a lot) and so on living on the memory card. I'd guess Rejuvenate?
2. Do I need some sort of update blocker before I connect it to WiFi etc, if so what should I go for?
3. I have a PS4 as well. If I wanted to use the Remote Play function would this mean the PS Vita would have to be on the most current firmware? Because Remote Play isn't a huge priority if it would affect exploitability.
4. I'll no doubt want to get some PS Vita original games for this, I'm thinking the Uncharted prequel, Metal Gear Solid HD Collection and God Of War Collection. Are any of these games going to update the firmware beyond 3.18?

 

[zekepliskin]

Okay, so I've picked up a 16GB PS Vita memory card, largest that was easily available (I'm on annual leave from work and only have today and tomorrow to do most of the setup work and learn as much as I can so waiting for a one day delivery from Amazon for a 64GB is still too long) and two games, Uncharted: Golden Abyss and God Of War Collection. Also installed qCMA, regular Sony provided CMA just tells me to update the system software as I expected. They're both currently installed and with qCMA open but regular CMA not running (using Windows 7 on my MacBook Air here as I assume getting things done will go smoother than with OS X, correct me if I'm wrong) still on 1.06 it just doesn't see the Vita.

 

[orcid]

wololo.net is a good source for information about hacking the vita.
3. I am not sure if you need the latest firmware, but you need a newer one than 1.06. Besides this remote play is not working with every game and playing games which need the L2 and R2 buttons is a pain in the ass.

 

[Vappy]

Do you have the correct protocol version set for QCMA? If so, it might be a driver conflict, can happen when you have both CMA and QCMA installed.

http://wololo.net/2013/04/17/lower-ps-vita-firmwares-for-dummies/ This is a little out of date, and refers to Open CMA instead of QCMA, but should cover you. It's probably worth manually updating to a higher firmware, since there's little benefit to staying as low as 1.06*. All firmwares up to 3.18 have full compatibility with PSP and PS1 exploits, 3.30+ loses PS1 exploits but gains 444mhz mode (compared to the standard 333mhz mode) with Rejuvenate.

For exploiting the PSP mode, you're going to need a PS3 in order to download a PSP game and transfer it to your Vita without updating. You can either buy a compatible exploitable game http://www.zload.net/bilder/PSVita/VitaExploitChart.png and , then obtain the relevant exploit save files to enable ARK/TN-V/VHBL, or any game and instead set up custom livearea bubbles.

Rejuvenate can't touch PSP mode, but it does of course run its own homebrew natively, you'll need to get PSM Unity installed.

Tutorials for most of what you can do can be found here http://hackinformer.com/PlayStationGuide/PSV/RESULT_VITA_10X.html

*A <=1.80 Vita could well be worth something to people researching further Vita native hacks, since that was before they added KASLR, but for your use there's no benefit.

 

[zekepliskin]

wololo.net is a good source for information about hacking the vita.
3. I am not sure if you need the latest firmware, but you need a newer one than 1.06. Besides this remote play is not working with every game and playing games which need the L2 and R2 buttons is a pain in the ass.

Yeah I've been looking over the Wololo stuff, problem is knowing which guide to follow as some of the older ones seem to either not apply or don't work after certain versions. I think I am going to have to update to a newer firmware but I don't want to go too far forward and jeopardise what I can do with the Vita - one wrong step and I could end up with 3.55 on there and ruin my chances before I start. I still have the Vita in flight mode just in case. Remote Play isn't a huge priority. From the little I've read since this morning I'm thinking 3.18 is going to be the best one, where the email exploit etc still works.

Do you have the correct protocol version set for QCMA? If so, it might be a driver conflict, can happen when you have both CMA and QCMA installed.

I did try changing to the oldest protocol available on qCMA which on both Mac and Windows versions is for 1.00 edition firmwares but it won't find it. I'll try uninstalling regular Sony CMA on both and see if it makes a difference... as long as it works on one or the other I don't mind, one of the advantages of a working Bootcamp Win7 install. :-)

EDIT: Further followup on this. Uninstalled CMA and left qCMA on the Windows 7 version. Recognises that the Vita is connected even though it doesn't show in Explorer as it did before, can't seem to browse anything in the program itself though. The bottleneck seems to be Content Manager on the Vita - keeps moaning that "You must sign up for PlayStation Network to use this application" or the usual "Could not connect to this device" with the Suggested Actions/OK buttons below it. In the Mac version with qCMA running and CMA closed the browser did seem to work although there was nothing there (formatted the memory card through the system settings, again it moans you need to be signed into PSN before you can - to format a memory card, why's that then Sony?) probably because there aren't any save files or anything yet.

http://wololo.net/2013/04/17/lower-ps-vita-firmwares-for-dummies/ This is a little out of date, and refers to Open CMA instead of QCMA, but should cover you. It's probably worth manually updating to a higher firmware, since there's little benefit to staying as low as 1.06*. All firmwares up to 3.18 have full compatibility with PSP and PS1 exploits, 3.30+ loses PS1 exploits but gains 444mhz mode (compared to the standard 333mhz mode) with Rejuvenate.

I figured it's going to need something between 3.00 and 3.30 to be usable. I want to keep the lowest possible version that will work for everything I need, ideally, as I know Sony are pretty quick about closing exploits as they appear and writing it off on their website as "system stability improvements" - we know what they really mean, right?

Ideal world the PS Vita will be a replacement for my PSP-3004 as it has a nicer screen and the native hacks are looking good for faster/more compatible emulation for old SNES titles which the original 333mhz PSP just can't handle with no frameskip (i.e. Super Mario Kart will run stable but just the PAL version running with frameskip = 1 so only 25fps), also there's a few titles with weird glitches or that need major hacks to work at all. Rejunevate has one based on a newer version of Snes9x than the PSP tyl/mecm ones used doesn't it? So I'm looking for something with PSP/PS1 ISO (or the PSX2PSP versions of the same in EBOOT.PBP format) support as well as better emulation for SNES etc than the PSP could handle. I wonder if the PS Vita would be fast enough to run PS2 game ISOs one day? I know it's a tough machine to emulate because of all the weird custom chips it uses but I'm not a developer so I'm interested in finding out.

For exploiting the PSP mode, you're going to need a PS3 in order to download a PSP game and transfer it to your Vita without updating. You can either buy a compatible exploitable game http://www.zload.net/bilder/PSVita/VitaExploitChart.png and , then obtain the relevant exploit save files to enable ARK/TN-V/VHBL, or any game and instead set up custom livearea bubbles.

Is this the only way to do it, with a PS3? I could be wrong but I swear I've seen a couple of tutorials where you can do the bubbles thing without needing a PS3. So much to learn in a short period of time!

Rejuvenate can't touch PSP mode, but it does of course run its own homebrew natively, you'll need to get PSM Unity installed.

Tutorials for most of what you can do can be found here http://hackinformer.com/PlayStationGuide/PSV/RESULT_VITA_10X.html

This is all very useful, thanks to both of you. It's helping me put a plan together. So I'll need Rejuvenate for PS Vita home-brew run natively, i.e. SNES emulation, and something like TN-V for the PSP side of things, am I reading this right?

*A <=1.80 Vita could well be worth something to people researching further Vita native hacks, since that was before they added KASLR, but for your use there's no benefit.

I agree, it is a rare firmware version. I was expecting it to come with something in the 2.xx range but true to what the seller says it looks like it's never had a game running to still have 1.06. I was wondering if it was worth keeping it like this to aid development, but my guess is that from an exploit/bubble point of a view so few people would ever have a version this low it wouldn't be much use, especially as work on the native level Rejuvenate hack continues and it exploits firmware well into the 3.xx range.[/QUOTE]

 

[zekepliskin]

Oh I guessed that Uncharted: Golden Abyss would install without requiring a system software update as it was a launch title and it seems to have installed without any kind of update. With God Of War Collection being a newer game, that would need an update before playing wouldn't it? I don't want to move of off 1.06 yet if it's of potential use to the development community - anything that speeds up work on home-brew could be useful to everyone.

Incidentally here's a picture showing the version number, I've hidden the MAC/IMEI already...

 

[zekepliskin]

As I didn't receive any replies re: keeping the older firmware I've installed 3.01 which you have to do to run God Of War Collection. From what I've read most exploits need 3.00 and above anyway...

 

[zekepliskin]

Okay. Vita is now running FW 3.18 and has Unity 1.05 installed from a PKG. I've followed the PSM+ instructions to the letter, opening all the email files and closing the Email app rather than pressing OK when opening the attachements. Publishing Utility for Unity was used to grab the device info and generate the publisher key, device seed and app key ring. Twice, just in case the previous keys expired or something like that. All inputted to the app under Windows. No matter what I do though I still get the "PlayStation Mobile Developer's License could not be confirmed" error after the "app needs updating" error whether or not the Vita is connected to the Mac running Windows by USB, whether or not the Vita has the WiFi on. Just doesn't want to work so I can't run homebrew like the SNES emulator to test.

Any advice would be appreciated because I've done a lot of steps to get to the right firmware version and all the rest of it and I still don't have much to show for it. Thanks.