I’ve had vice city stories since the day it was released, and ever since then, i’ve been using VCSCheatDevice when i play my games. When i first got it, i had to flash it to flash0 when i wanted to use it, and delete it when i didnt. This was because it, when used in conjunction with other modules, games, homebrew etc decided to seize up and die. Here is a list of modules/games that i have personally experienced problems with when used in conjunction with vcscheatdevice:
- irsmp3. When this module is enabled at the same time as vcscheatdevice, Vice City Stories has no sound. The intro movies don’t even play the music.
- Need For Speed. Apparently when vcscheatdevice is enabled and you play Need for Speed games, the game fails to function (even though vcscheatdevice has checks implemented to stop it being loaded when another game is being played).
- And last, but certainly not least. This one happened today (the straw that broke the camels back): SOCOM: US Navy Seals Fireteam Bravo 2’s infrastructure online play mode does not function when vcscheatdevice is loaded. Also, for other people who are having problems using SOCOM FTB2 with OE-B, you must emulate firmware 2.81 or 2.82 in devhook to successfully download the 1.10 update required to go online. Or, you could try downloading hte update from here: http://brentp.net/UCUS98645.rar . All you should need to do is shove the UCUS98645 folder inside ms0:/PSP/GAME and you should be able to go online, but it may not work because apparently that prx is customised for every psp. Dont know if it is true yet.
If you have any more issues with VCSCheatDevice and another game, email me and i’ll add it here.
NOTE: I’m not saying that VCSCheatDevice is a bad program. Its great, it vastly improves the gameplay aspect of vice city stories, but when left loaded in conjunction with other games, the results can be unpredictable.
About 10 minutes ago i finished writing the documentation and packaging together all the crap that goes with my apache module. Theres a readme of course, the C code, the configure and make scripts (configure.in, configure, and Makefile.in) and a TCL-INFO file with regards on howto get it working with eggdrop (or any other tcl bot if you tried). For this module, there are two parts, the “webserver” side, and the bot site. Most of the guts of the module are on the webserver side. As i mentioned in a previous post, i might release it in a period of time, after i’ve cleaned up the code and hopefully gotten rid of the ugly hax.
I was going to test out what (remaining) ps1 discs i have. I found gta before and it was scratched to buggery, almost no chance of it working, and i was right. Later on i found a “Monsters Inc: Scare Island” in my old PS1 carry case. It was barely scratched, looked like it was in mint condition. The rip got to 77%, and you guessed it, it stopped! The only confirmed half-working fucked ps1 rip of mine is f1 2001, and it’d probably be fixed when SCE releases another pops.prx. In other news, i witnessed a 2.8 Downgrade (yes 2.8). By the looks it was pretty flawless. All you have to do is get a 1.50 user to dump their ipl and firmware, then, on the psp you want to downgrade you have to run the actual downgrader via xloader (not eloader). The downgrade worked a treat, and the guy is now on 3.02 OE-B with no problems reported yet (not even the blue screen!). Birdman helped him through with no problems and apparently there have been 17/17 downgrades successful using birdmans pack. Great Work. There has been an influx of psp roms from release groups in the scene recently after the release of OE-B. Individuals now have the ability to rip their own “PSP Format” ps1 images from their own legally owned discs, this was made possible by Dark_Alex’s “popstation.exe” file. Instructions on how to use are below:
NOTE: You do need “Hot Shots Golf 2″ USA version because the exe uses the sfo stuff from hotshots.
- Rip an iso from the cd using IsoBuster (or another similar program)
- Open a command prompt and cd to the folder where popstation is. Make sure the iso is in the same folder. ie: cd “C:\documents and settings\owner\desktop\oe-b\popstation\”
- Run “popstation.exe filename.iso”. If the cd rip is in .bin/cue format, use the bin as the iso (”popstation.exe CD.bin”).
- Wait around 3 or 4 minutes for the files to generate.
NOTE1: Downgrader is available at 0okm.blogspot.com. Very very risky if you don’t have an experienced person helping you. The downgrader does no checks for nothing, so if one thing is fucked, your psp is fucked. Simple. Dont say you havent heard the risks. There is a link to a dump on the blog post for 0okms downgrader on his site, however, i cannot vouch for its credibility.
Since the release of OE-B last night i’ve upgraded my psp. I tried out one of my own ps1 games about 10 minutes ago and it did not go so well.
Whats wrong with that picture? I guess the fact that the game is only taking up 3/4 of the screen, and that the game isnt using the full height of the psp (you would expect it to do so, considering it was a 4:3 game). One thing i have to add though, is that in the readme for the PS1 emulator, there were some issues with graphics for eu games so i might wait till OE-C until i test this game again. Below is pretty much a list of what worked and what didn’t:
- Playstation logo shown, title screens and intro movies worked (full screen, may i add).
- Fonts were approaching unreadable in the game menus.
- When you accellerated out of the pits, the car instantaneously jumped to full speed and had the inevitable crash, except the car kept rebounding off the tyre barriers around the track.
That was about as far as i was to go, but i might find another game later on and test that.
EDIT3: for ripping the games you need cygwin1.dll. It is available at http://brentp.net/cygwin1.dll
EDIT: Link to the file: http://brentp.net/oeb.rar
As far as i know it is authentic, as it was posted by a significant member of the homebrew scene. Enjoy
NOTE: Reading the readme and that shows that there is a program there for generating eboot.pbp files so you can play your ps1 games on your psp. You do however need a game (preferably) hotshot golf or something for the keys.bin.
First of all, it hasn’t been released yet. There has been a few significant developments in regards to the ps1 emulator. Apparently the ps one games from the sony store are pretty much an iso file encrypted into an eboot.pbp file. This essentially means that almost any ps1 game will be playable on the 3.x ps1 emulator. This was in an informal announcement today from people close to the development of the 3.02 OE-* firmware. By my understanding, free space left on flash0 in OE-A isn’t very hefty, so custom firmware versions might not be coming out with full features, unless the developers manage to figure out how to stop flash1 logical formatting itself. That would give another 5mb of space, however, if flash1 were corrupted, the firmware files would be erased. The logical way to go would to put non-essential tools like the rss feed on flash1 so if it were formatted, there would be no substantial loss. Some freelance developers have come up with various solutions to free space on flash0. One of these solutions is kando’s gameboot location modifier.
Gameboot Location Modifier: http://brentp.net/kando/GBMOD.zip
There is also a tool to calculate the free space on your flash0, here.
Be warned that GBMOD DOES flash to your psp, so there is a minute chance of bricking. I have not used GBMOD personally, so be careful. You do need X-Flash or psardumper to obtain a decrypted, sigchecked 3.02 dump.
I’ll update this post when any new info pertaining to OE-B is obtained.
BTW:
Merry Christmas.
The first 3.xx custom firmware for the PSP has been released by Dark_Alex a few hours ago, and I have upgraded my psp without no problems. The only issues so far are:
- Some people are having problems retaining their wallpapers.
- You WILL get a BSOD when you go to “System Settings”, just press circle and it’ll reformat flash1 (the good flash)
- Some ISOs will not work, although that is not an issue if you have legitimately bought umds (me).
- CPU Speed has not been implemented.
- EDIT: Some people have had problems with corrupted savegames. Although, mine work fine.
I have not encountered any of the issues above, except number 2 which EVERYONE WILL get.
There have been no known bricks so far, although some people have had ’semi-bricks’. This was caused by some 2.71 SE-C modules that were not compatible with 3.02. Other people have fixed this problem by disabling the modules, and disabling the “AutoRun program at /PSP/GAME/AUTORUN………” option.
Oh, did I mention the PS1 emulator (term used loosely) has been cracked. ISOS of your favorite PS1 games will probably start showing up on the web soon.
AS USUAL: THIS PROGRAM MODIFIES YOUR FLASH. YOU HAVE TO ACCEPT A DISCLAIMER BEFORE IT WRITES TO YOUR FLASH. DO NOT REMOVE YOUR PSP’S BATTERY, TURN OFF YOUR PSP, OR UNPLUG IT FROM AC POWER WHILE YOU ARE WRITING TO THE FLASH OR YOU WILL END UP WITH A BRICK.
Otherwise, Enjoy.
The release is available at:
PSPUpdates
Here (Direct link to RAR file.)
MaxConsole Release Thread
Install Guide (by Birdman. Very reputable person in the psp scene.)
All the tests of my new Apache module worked out great. The module is working on:
- Apache 1.3.37
- Apache 2.0.59
- Apache 2.2.3
Although, i encountered one weird bug when running Apache 2.2.3. It doesn’t respond to SIGINT in single threaded mode (httpd -X). All tests were conducted running Apache in single threaded mode. I’ve yet to test in multi-threaded mode, but I am guessing it’ll yeild the same results. Since i’ve only tested this on one box, i don’t know what the results will be when we use it in a production environment, or what the load on the MySQL Server will be, or the impact the module has on loading times, or the (possible) compatability issues the module has. I might post the code at a later date, but at the moment it is staying closed source until i tighten security on it a bit.
Goddamnit it is annoying me so much. It keeps segfaulting whenever i try to use “r->filename” in a post-read-request module. Thats all thats stopping me from getting this modle working correctly =(. Block of code in question:
1: char *fn = r->filename;
2: if (strncmp(conf->pb_dir, fn, sizeof(conf->pb_dir)) != 0) {
3: puts(“Didnt accept request.”);
4: return DECLINED;
5: }
So
EDIT: Added more code, and a fix.
For those having the same problem, just do a simple check:
1: if (r->filename == NULL) {
2: ap_translate_name(r);
3: if(r->filename == NULL) {
4: //why’re we still null?
5: return DECLINED; // decline, otherwise we’ll segfault.
6: }
7: }
Apache2 has ap_core_translate or something instead of ap_translate_name. I used this for one module of mine, however, others have said that using this path of action might impair the compatability of other modules, so be warned. This does fix the problem, worked wonders for me. The module is working 100% fine now, except for one bug which actually does not impair the module AT ALL.
Enjoy.
EDIT: The ‘fix’ code above, could probably be formatted into a more efficent ‘while’ loop.
Finally got WL Writer working again. The previous post wouldn’t upload because xml-rpc.php had some errors when i was uploading a large amount of pictures (it hit php’s hard memory limit). Anyway, i’ve set WL Writer to upload via ftp now so there shouldn’t be any issues. Enjoy the screens of the 24 Season 6 preview. Heres a description of the preview:
Holy shit……WOO…GO JACK GODDAMNIT GO…..Fuck…..Goddamnit…..=(
The actual video itself is uploaded to youtube, and the shorter version (made ages ago last time i checked) is on http://24trailer.com.
Enjoy.
