Phat vs. Slim?

**Tesseract** · January 20th, 2008, 00:51

I'd like to get my girlfriend a PSP at some point, but I'm kinda torn as to which model to get her. She loves the idea of the Video Out of the Slim, but I don't want her to be 'homebrew hamstrung' by the lack of the 1.5 kernel.

I've noticed a lot of the 'core' emulators being re-released with Slim support, but I don't know whether this is enough to be able to comfortably switch to the Slim or not. Also, it seems that homebrew has to be specifically coded to allow the TV-Out feature.

So which way should I go? Every time I show her something on PSPTube or let her play Dragon Quest V on uo_SNES, she gets a pang of 'PSPenis-envy' as she puts it.

Just don't want to get stuck with something that's not everything she was looking forward to.

**hodgy47** · January 20th, 2008, 04:04

I have both and personally i use the fat the most, but you can play the fat on a pc screen read my tutorial here http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=83839

**bah** · January 20th, 2008, 04:25

To have the best compatibility with the vast majority of existing PSP homebrew then a fat is better.

In the future more homebrew may take advantage of the extra RAM (and not run/perform worse on the fat) and the older aps may be converted to the 3.XX(+) kernel(s) so perhaps in the long term (homebrew wise) the slim may be better.

It really depends on which of those appeals to you more.

**mike_jmg** · January 20th, 2008, 06:14

mehhh

get a phat
slim will never have 1.50 kernel support (sorry, i'm pretty wasted right now)

**Tesseract** · January 20th, 2008, 08:40

I just keep hearing about a 1.5 Kernel prx that might work on the Slim, though... How possible do you suppose that development would be?

**bah** · January 20th, 2008, 09:23

Thats really hard to say, people would love that but will it happen....

The only person on these forums I can think of that might possibly have some actual knowledge of how possible/probable it is would be Fanjita. Sorry if I'm forgetting someone else who has a real understanding of the inner workings of the firmwares.

You really either need to wait until it does happen (if it does) before buying, or buy now and take your pick of better compatibility currently or possible future benefits and live with how it turns out.

I didn't see pandora coming, the downgrading scene went from hassles and waiting to everyone being able to downgrade with one simple process.

All I can really say is that if you choose a slim and it never happens, please don't blame any devs for not doing something. We cant expect every wish we have to be fulfilled by homebrew coders, we sure can enjoy what they do produce though

**Tesseract** · January 20th, 2008, 09:28

Heh.... so I'm right back where I started. Thank you for the clarity of your answer though, bah.

Is there a definitive list of "works/doesn't work" for the Slim yet? I wasn't sure if it'd be as easy as just trying stuff out on the 3.80 kernel of my Phat PSP and ruling out anything that REQUIRED me to use the 1.50 kernel, or if even some of the 3.80 kernel stuff on the Phat takes advantage of the 1.50 kernel.

If I can test for myself what works or doesn't work, then that'd make things a little easier.

**bah** · January 20th, 2008, 09:38

I have a fat with 1.5 and am very happy with it still.

The TV-out on the slim is $#@!, games wont output unless you have a progressive scan TV, it doesn't scale the image so you need a TV that also supports scaling/zooming the image or you get a small rectangle in the middle.

I could say 'get a fat!' but I don't think that's any more helpful than my previous indecisive answer

This seems to be a slim compatibility list.
You could make a thread listing the main homebrew your worried about not running and someone with a slim will probably let you know if they work or not (if they're common apps).

**Tesseract** · January 20th, 2008, 10:00

Didn't know that it only worked with Progressive scan and up TV's. That kinda sucks. We have a rather normal 29" TV.

Looks like most of the good stuff is fine. SNES, Genesis, PSPTube.... Thanks much. This definitely helped! ^^