PSP owners have been hotly anticipating an official unlock of PSP's full capabilities. The system runs at 222MHz, 1/3 less than what the system is capable of. But, did you know that ever since firmware 3.0, the PSP has been running at 333MHz? Yes, it's true ... but the system only runs at maximum speed for emulated PSone games.

What? Didn't the original PlayStation run at 33MHz? Yes, it's true. So why does the PSP have to run ten times faster to run PSone games? Well, software emulation is pretty complex stuff (ask the people at Microsoft: they know a little something with Xbox 360's backwards compatibility). With Sony having unlocked the PSP's full clock speed, will wee see other games take advantage? I'm sure a studio like Ready at Dawn can do some truly amazing things.

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via IGN ...

- Update. Fixed version uploaded

A game for every homebrew enthusiast!



TacticalPenguin has today released a homebrew game that involves you, your PSP, and Sony firmware updates.

You control a cursor and there is a homebrew-capable PSP on the screen. There are system updates coming towards the PSP which you must shoot so that your PSP isn't updated. As the game progresses, the updates come faster.

Here's the feature list:

* Cursor which shoots updates
* Updates which come at PSP
* Gameover if an update reaches the PSP
* Score
* Highscore
* Speed increases as you go

Download and give feedback via comments
via TacticalPenguin ...

Reefbarman has just updated his PSP Super Portable Calendar (a.k.a. pSPC) to Beta 2, adding tons of new features and changes.

Added Features
* Diary/Note entries that can be saved/deleted to/from the Memory Stick
* Keyboard System for Text input under note entry
* Icons to display if note entry or similar is available on a certain date
* Right hand Menu System

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via PSP-HAXORS ...

SHADOWZ has released a Flash Free cIntro mod for CF 3.00. cIntro allows us to run PMF videos at the startup of custom firmwares.
This version is meant for firmware 3.00 owners, and will do away with having to flash your unit or editing its config.txt.

* download the original copy of cIntro
* Ok the original instructions call for the modification of the config.txt located in the SYSTEM folder. This used to be used for the custom firmwares like 1.5, but not the 3.00 and above ones. So instead...
* Copy the INTRO folder found in the .rar file you download and put it into the SYSTEM folder in your psp's memory stick.
* Now you need to copy the same folder to whatever folder you have defaulted for running 1.5 kernel (for me this is simply the GAME folder but you need to consult your recovery mode to see what yours is).
* Next you need to rename the folder that u copied to GAME (or whatever) to BOOT and then open it and delete the "intro" file (this is not necessary and basically taking up space).
* Now that this is done, go to your SYSTEM folder and open up the INTRO folder that you just copied there. You will see the exact same files as the one you placed in the GAME folder. This is where you place your .pmf file that you want to use for the coldboot movie. Rename it "intro" and overwrite the current one. Now the hard part is over.
* Cold start your psp and enter recovery mode. You need to enable auto run program.

View the README for the full details, which includes a how-to for the 3.03 OE-A' and 3.03 OE-B firmwares needed to get started.

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via SHADOWZ ...

News/release from Hallo007

Flashing gets a bit easier now that hallo007 has updated his Flash Agent with information text, a main menu, and tons more.

Changelog :
* Pspdebugscreenprintf changed to printextscreen (not yet completed in filebrowser)
* Main menu added
* no hardboot anymore needed , you can exit everywhere
* text bug fix(dam english:P)
* backup files extracted out eboot will now be deleted after use
* coldboot flashen
* custom backgrounds flashen
* recovery menu update(coldboot+custom backgrounds)
* battery check bug fix ,now battery has to be 50%
* If ac adaptor has plugged in the app wil always start(also without battery)
* Information Text added
* layout update
* Eboot layout (music , images)

hallo007 warns to use this at your own risk even though Flash Agent has a recovery mode

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via Hallo007 ...

new release via winnydows

XviD4PSP is one of the best video converting apps you can find for PSP. It has recently been updated (once again) to timv4.048 RC2 . It also requires Windows Vista or Windows XP SP2 and Microsoft Framework 3.0 ffdshow build to run.

Changelog:

* Maximum video bitrate for formats MP4 PSP, MP4 PSP 2.80, MP4 PSP 480 enhanced to 1500.
* Change format don`t reset bitrate anymore.
* Fixed set Delay for DVD with WAV sound.
* Fixed framerate change.
* Fixed many small bugs with VOB and D2V.
* Fully rewritten logic opening AVS and D2V files. Now this files open without help makeAVIS and MediaInfo. This make file opening faster and make program more stable.
* Input aspect look better now.
* Enhanced framerate auto detection.
* x264 updated to 618.
* Updated patches for Athlon and Pentium III.
* To menu Setting added new option - Generate random MAQXXXXX.
* Atocrop now work with all types of video files.
* Now AV synced even on exotic files (MOV, WMV, FLV, ...).

Download and give feedback via comments ...

new release via xmOD

We've all forgotten our passwords to some random email account, or locker, or safe, or...the list goes on and on. And while we can't blame password protectors for doing their job well (heck we've seen enough PSP thefts, yes?), this also entails the hassles of retrieving your password in cases when you've forgotten them.

Now, thanks to xmOD, we can easily retrieve our passwords by using his nifty app, PSP Password Retriever. So no longer do you have to restore the default settings of your PSP just to reset the password, just use this app and voila, thy password shall reveal itself. To install, just follow these steps:

* Install PSP Pass Retriever by copying the 2 folders to GAME or GAME150, whichever is your 1.50 homebrew folder.
* Execute PSP Pass Retriever from the XMB and press X after reading the notice.
* The PSP's password will be displayed in front of you!

And in case you're wondering, xmOD assures us that there is NO way that his app can brick your PSP. So go on, just click on the download link and you're all set

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xmOD has released PSP SysMon VO.1

So what does this do? Basically this application lets you check PSP's battery life, displaying the life percentage as well as the time remaining and will display wireless information. Also included is a USB connector, enabling you to connect your PSP to your PC via USB without using the menu from the XMB.

First thing you might think is "Nothing new, Ir shell amongst other things can do the same", but one feature you won't find in every applciation is the WiFi testing function. As the developer xmOD said - SysMon was created with a view to learn about the standard functions that lua offers while creating something useful.

So hopefully we will see more from xmOD and see what he comes up with next.

Download and give feedback via comments ...

Some informative information on playing PS1 games on your PSP has come to light. 1gig memory stick users should read on.

The following method should help to make PS1games run without all the extra padding originally placed on the disc. If you're wondering what that means, it's this: Imagine playing a 500MB game using only 50 MB of space.

You'll need something called CDGenPS2. If you follow the steps, you should be able to get a game to play with a drastically smaller file size. Its Still in the test Stages, but has proven to work on a number of games.

PS1 and PS2 games use a very strict architecture for how the binary files of the games are organized on a discs. When a disc copying program copies these discs, it's known that they will leave the padding of empty bits (0xFF) for the remainder of the XXXMB media.

For example, Tetris Plus for the PS1 has a total file size on the disc of 43.0 MB and the image from CloneCD is 566MB. However, if you try to remove the padding from a disc, it will no longer work with emulators, including POPS. A utility for those who load games from their PS2 hard drives to lessen the size of the images, known as CDGENPS2 (Much like UMD-GEN), has the ability to remove this padding and keep the structure of the disc intact. Using this utility with some software that can extract an ISO to its contents can bring the 566MB Tetris Plus image down to about 50MB (POPS compresses it to about 400MB).

How to do it:

1. Extract the ISO contents to a folder on your hard drive.
2. Open that folder and select ALL of the extracted contents from the root of the disc.
3. Open CDGENPS2.
4. Drag the contents of the folder into the CDGENPS2 window (the giant white space that says ISO near the top)
5. (Optional) Go to file-> Edit Volume and change the name of the volume so that it matches the original title of the game (for archival reasons only).
6. Click the IMG button on the left-hand side of the screen and save the Bin/ISO/IMG to whatever directory you want , and use POPS to convert to PSP EBOOT and test it.


Play around with CDGenPS2 and post up your results. You can download it right here (Windows users only). This software is Freeware.

Again, this is only in testing stages and some games may not work, but it cant harm to try ...