Gaming Please help, CFW newb at work

[Blaze163]

Lali ho!

Right, here's the deal. I finally got part of my tax rebate today and as such find myself in possession of a PSP Phat (I dislike the slim models). I want to flash it to run custom firmware (I assume I am allowed to speak of such things here, if not please direct me to someone in the know) but I seriously don't have a clue how to do it. Therefore please explain it to me, preferably in short words. Like you're talking to a five year old. So here are my questions:

- The system is pretty out of date, currently running firmware 3.40. How do I install Custom Firmware from here, preferably without the whole Pandora battery/magic memory card thing because I tried reading up on it and it threw my head through a loop and crashing into the wall. I seriously don't get it.

- I have a 1GB mem card, will that be sufficient for flashing the firmware?

- I have Final Fantasy Dissidia on UMD, along with a few other games. In order to use them, I need to update the firmware settings on the system to 5.55 official. If I install the latest custom firmware, will that bypass this issue? Probably sounds stupid, I know. But like I said, I know literally fuck all about flashing a PSP.

- I won't be able to download any PSP games for a while as this is my old man's laptop and he won't let me use torrent sites, etc. I can download smaller games like GBA and SNES games tho. Are there any decent SNES/GBA emulators for the PSP? Preferably ones that will play stuff like Zombies Ate My Neighbours, Starwing (unlikely due to the SuperFX chip, but still), Final Fantasy 6, etc. When the rest of my tax rebate shows up (£1300, WOOT) I'll be buying my own laptop and putting Final Fantasy 7 to 9 on there, but for now I must settle, methinks.

- Are there any issues with CFW I need to be made aware of, aside from the obvious illegality of it all? Stuff that doesn't work, technical issues, etc?

- Anyone know where I can get a decent size mem card at a reasonable price? Something big enough to fit FF7,8+9 on, so at least 8GB.

 

[Goli]

Yes it will be sufficient, using the latest CFW will bypass those updates the UMDs ask for. There are some pretty complete emulators our there, you could also try PSP minis. There are no issues AFAIK, more plusses than cons, really. And I don't know since I don't live in Uk, for the last question.
By the way, if you search on youtube there are many step-by-step guides on how to installl CFW. :>

 

[Magmorph]

Lali ho!

Right, here's the deal. I finally got part of my tax rebate today and as such find myself in possession of a PSP Phat (I dislike the slim models). I want to flash it to run custom firmware (I assume I am allowed to speak of such things here, if not please direct me to someone in the know) but I seriously don't have a clue how to do it. Therefore please explain it to me, preferably in short words. Like you're talking to a five year old. So here are my questions:

- The system is pretty out of date, currently running firmware 3.40. How do I install Custom Firmware from here, preferably without the whole Pandora battery/magic memory card thing because I tried reading up on it and it threw my head through a loop and crashing into the wall. I seriously don't get it.

Guide:
http://gbatemp.net/t205696-how-to-softmod-your-psp

- I have a 1GB mem card, will that be sufficient for flashing the firmware?

Yes

- I have Final Fantasy Dissidia on UMD, along with a few other games. In order to use them, I need to update the firmware settings on the system to 5.55 official. If I install the latest custom firmware, will that bypass this issue? Probably sounds stupid, I know. But like I said, I know literally fuck all about flashing a PSP.

Yes installing the latest custom firmware will bypass the issue

- I won't be able to download any PSP games for a while as this is my old man's laptop and he won't let me use torrent sites, etc. I can download smaller games like GBA and SNES games tho. Are there any decent SNES/GBA emulators for the PSP? Preferably ones that will play stuff like Zombies Ate My Neighbours, Starwing (unlikely due to the SuperFX chip, but still), Final Fantasy 6, etc. When the rest of my tax rebate shows up (£1300, WOOT) I'll be buying my own laptop and putting Final Fantasy 7 to 9 on there, but for now I must settle, methinks.

The GBA/SNES emulators on the PSP have nearly perfect emulation. Torrent sites aren't the only place to download PSP games but I can't tell you were.

- Are there any issues with CFW I need to be made aware of, aside from the obvious illegality of it all? Stuff that doesn't work, technical issues, etc?

CFW isn't illegal. The ROM's and ISO's you put on it are.

- Anyone know where I can get a decent size mem card at a reasonable price? Something big enough to fit FF7,8+9 on, so at least 8GB.

 

[Blaze163]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipVkKmW7x7s

This vid seems Noob Friendly enough.

But the part about removing the battery and the system glitching out does kinda worry me. Does it pose any serious threat to my system? I'd rather not have spent 60 quid on a brick.

I never flashed my old PSP because I was told it had a pretty high chance of bricking the system. Has this chance been minimised now?

Also with regards to the vid, since I already know that my system (motherboard type, etc) is fully hackable as it's a phat model, ergo uber hackable, do I still need to go through the motions with the ChickHen R2 thing?

 

[nIxx]

With a Pandora Battery (you can convert a normal Phat battery to a Pandora one) you can always restore your NAND (of course if you made a backup) and you can always install a CFW btw OFW with it even if you delete everything on your PSP´s NAND so it´s totally safe

 

[Blaze163]

With a Pandora Battery (you can convert a normal Phat battery to a Pandora one) you can always restore your NAND (of course if you made a backup) and you can always install a CFW btw OFW with it even if you delete everything on your PSP´s NAND so it´s totally safe

Sounds very comforting but it would help if I knew what NAND meant. I assume it's the important gubbins that make it go. And I'd rather evade the Pandora thing as from what I understand it involves cutting bits out of the battery which sounds very technical and dangerous.

 

[Goli]

You can install CFW without tinkering with your battery... Just look up some tutorials.

 

[Blaze163]

at the moment I'm following the instructions of the video I posted a few minutes ago. In order to cut down on hassle I'm deleting everything off my mem card first but I'm backing up over 4000 image files at over 600MB, it's taking an age. Then I gotta plug it in and start the process. The only stage that worries me is the 'if it doesnt work take the battery out and try again' thing, but to be fair if it worked for the vid guy then it should work for me, surely?

Hope it works anyway. Will keep you updated as to exactly how bad the system blows up in my face.

Incidentally, is there a list of decent emulators kicking around here somewhere? SNES, GBA, etc?

 

[Magmorph]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipVkKmW7x7s

This vid seems Noob Friendly enough.

But the part about removing the battery and the system glitching out does kinda worry me. Does it pose any serious threat to my system? I'd rather not have spent 60 quid on a brick.

I never flashed my old PSP because I was told it had a pretty high chance of bricking the system. Has this chance been minimised now?

Also with regards to the vid, since I already know that my system (motherboard type, etc) is fully hackable as it's a phat model, ergo uber hackable, do I still need to go through the motions with the ChickHen R2 thing?
Just use the guide I posted above. Flashing your PSP isn't very risky anymore but it's a good idea to keep it plugged in when it's flashing. You still need to use ChickHen in order to hack your PSP.


QUOTE(Blaze163 @ Jun 29 2010, 10:54 AM) Incidentally, is there a list of decent emulators kicking around here somewhere? SNES, GBA, etc?

http://gbatemp.net/t224035-psp-retro-emulators

 

[Rydian]

Read the guide you were linked, it's a sticky here. Seriously. I followed the instructions to softmod both my PSP slim and a friend's fat with no issue. Yes, the chickhen "glitches" the system, but it'll do one of two things.

1 - Work as it should.
2 - Shut off the system.

Number 2 seems to happen more than number 1 (as it's a seemingly-random chance of number 1 working), but I've read resetting your PSP's settings to default greatly increases the chances of it working (and thus the speed of you getting your psp hacked, as if it doesn't work you need to wait for it to turn on and try again).

You only need a pandora battery if your PSP's firmware version is above 5.03, you can make a pandora battery without cutting it open, but you need a PSP that already has custom firmware on it in order to do so.

If your firmware version is 5.03 or less, you don't need to cut anything open.

Read the guide. That's why it's here.

 

[Blaze163]

EDIT: Never mind, blonde moment. Got it on Prometheus now. Just gotta figure out how to work the GBA emulator (it says I need some BIOS file. I got one off google but who knows if its the one I need?) so I can play FF6/Racing Gears/Golden Sun/etc. and that should tide me over until I get my own laptop and download Kingdom Hearts, etc. Many thanks to everyone who has helped me in this endevour. You should see the look on my old man's face. He paid about 150 quid for his busted ass never used PSP with only three games, only one of which is worth playing. I paid £40 for my PSP today (after a few neat tricks I know) and now I have whatever game I want, whenever I want. Fucking sweet. Combine this with my Cyclo DS Evo and I have the facility to play pretty much any game ever created as I have all the modern consoles and most of the retro ones too. Anything I don't own can be emulated.