Home Brew vs. Emulator??

[Scottikis]

I have firmware 2.71 and want to understand the world of Homebrew games and emulators, but I dont understand the difference between the two. Is there a difference? Do I need to install an emulator prior to running a home brew game? Clearly I need some guidance, I'd appreciate some schooling.

[Steph]

Homebrew and emulators are different. Emulators are programs used to run files called roms. Homebrew games are games that people have created, not companies, some are probably by people that are looking to become programmers and want others to sample their work.

If you want to use emulators, you have to get specific emulators for each platform, and they have to be PSP compatible, eg. you need a SNES PSP emulator to play Super Mario All Stars. Once you've got the right emulator, you need to download roms. Roms are like ISO's in that they are game files. Some are much harder to find than others: finding roms of classic Mario games can be difficult, but Street Fighter might be easier.

I'm not entirely sure on how you get homebrew to run on your PSP, but you need another program to run them before you can download and play homebrew games on your PSP.

And most importantly you need a PSP with firmware/version that will allow you to use homebrew and emulators. Version 1.5 was used most when people first started hacking PSP's to find ways for them to run, but there are other versions you can use. I think version 2.71 is the highest you can go for now.

Seamonkey's tech recipes have emulators and homebrew programs for you to download: Sony PSP, but i won't give links to roms: it's easy enough to find sites to download them from.

[bah]

Homebrew technically refers to original or individually ported games that have been written/produced by people not liscenced by a console's maker. This could be anything from a clone of pong to a port of quake, or even an ebook reader program.

These days emulators tend to be referred to as homebrew also as they are probably the most popular form of unofficial software that people wish to run on a console. When I use the term I mean any unlicensed program that you may wish to run on your console.

You have a firmware 2.71 psp, which is great, but you also need to check one other thing before you start thinking about which method to use to allow you to run both homebrew and any commercial UMD games you wish to buy.

You need to check to see if you have the newer hardware version, known as ta-82. You can check this looking inside your psp's umd drive door as shown in this image.

If your psp is NOT a ta-82 you have 3 options:

1) Downgrade your psp to firmware 1.5 (this is method I currently use). This allows you to run homebrew/emulators straight from the psp's 'game' menu, however you only have the features of firmware 1.5 (no web browser) and cannot play recent game UMD's.
This would be terrible if it were not for a brilliant program known as devhook. This program allows you to load and run any of the more recent firmware versions, giving you access to all their features and the ability to play every UMD game released.
It does this by loading the newer firmware into memory from your memory stick, instead of installing it into the psp's internal memory. Once you turn the psp off and back on, you'll be back to firmware 1.5.
This means you can keep your psp at firmware 1.5 and have the ability to run any homebrew you wish, but then load easily into a more recent firmware to play recent games/use more recent firmware's features like the web browser, rss feeds and whatever else.

2)Install a custom firmware 2.71SE-C. This is a modified (unofficially) version of firmware 2.71 which basically means you get all the features of firmware 2.71 and its ability to directly load all (except for the most recent of them) game UMDs, and also keep the homebrew access of firmware 1.5. To play the most recent of game UMDs you may need to use devhook, but this is very easy to do.

3)Keep the standard firmware 2.71, but install a small patch (data modification) known as HEN-D to the psp's internal memory that stores the firmware, which allows you to run some (not all) homebrew. One of the things it does allow you to run however is devhook, through which you can load (temporarily, untill you turn off the psp) firmware 1.5, and have access to homebrew that way. Kind of a reverse-devhook, as its normally used to load higher firmwares not lower.

Personally I would recommend option 1, many people love the custom firmware however so I guess you should look into both if your psp is NOT a ta-82.

If your psp IS a ta-82, your only option currently is number 3, as this version of psp hardware has been designed to prevent downgrading to firmware 1.5.

The best place I know of to look for information is probably this site. You can see a list of all the emulators available on the menu bar down the left hand side, or use the psp help forum there to ask questions.

Feel free to post here or PM me if you have any questions.

[Scottikis]

You folks are fantastic. I do have the ta-82 hardware components so I suppose I'm limited to option three as outlined by bah.

The question at this point is..is the time and effort that I put into loading emulators and HB worth the enjoyment that I'll get? That's a personal preference.. but if you were the owner of a PSP with this Firmware and Hardware configuration, would either of you goto the hassle?

Finally, is the difference between 2.71 and the latest update significant from a user standpoint? Are the interfaces more feature rich? I thought I saw someone in another thread mention that the music management component was more robust in the latest release. I'd appreciate some feedback, thanks for everything.

[bah]

Personally I would say it is very much worth the effort, but I really enjoy emulation of older consoles/computers I had when i was growing up (8-16 bit era).
SCUMMVM is a probably my personal favorite, its an emulator for running old lucasarts point and click games like day of the tentacle, sam and max etc.

If you want to do that sort of stuff (check the list of emulators on the link in my previous thread) and/or enjoy trying out new things on your system, are decent with computers and can be bothered reading the readme files that come with apps then it is really quite easy.

If you dont care for it that much then i guess update to 3.01, its less work and easier for sure, but you cannot get the access to homebrew back (at some time in the future a method may be found, but not currently).

Devhook can now emluate the latest firmware (3.01), but it just came out and its probably best to wait a while for the bugs to be ironed out. I use the older version that emulates up to 2.71 and that lets me play all the games I have (the most recent being GTA: Vice City Stories).

I've never used firmware 3.01, but i personally havnt been interested in anything an update has had to offer since AVC video playback in 2.0. The web browser is awful to the point that its close on useless (to me anyway), and that came in with firmware 2.0 also (the 2.81 browser on a friends psp doesn't seem any better).
In emulated 2.71 I play newer games and occasionally play a video or look at some pics, the psp doesnt make much sense to me as an mp3 player due to its size, weight, short battery life and relative expense of memory stick pro duo cards. I have a $30 2gb mp3 player thats small, light and most importantly doesnt matter if it gets lost/stolen.

Im sure theres other people around here who can fill you in on all the 'fantastic' new sony features that have been introduced in firmware 2.80 and above. Security (of their business model not your psp) updates make a regular showing, something about a visualizer for the mp3 player maybe.

[Scottikis]

Unless I have a compelling reason to update to 3.01, I think I'll stay where I am so that I have the option of trying other avenues. Will I face situations where I'll be forced to upgrade to a newer firmware in order to play a game or watch a movie on a UMD?
You mentioned not utilizing PSP as a music player. I can appreciate your point of view on that. While I enjoy playing games, I'm as excited about using the other multimedia capabilities the unit has to offer. Downloading indie movie clips, viewing my personal photo's and listening to music will most probably consume equal amounts of time as will playing games.

[bah]

Yeah, sounds like a good idea, look around the web, check things out. If theres nothing much that stands out for you and you want to play a newly released game then by all means update. I'd just like people to know what theyre giving up when they do so, not everyone's into emulators. I have some friends who wish they had never updated and they're not happy chappys.

Yes, newer games will ask you to update or they won't play, thats why people on firmware 1.5 emulate higher versions, to allow games to run (and to use the features of more recent firmwares like the web browser)

You can listen to music/watch videos/look at pics all in 2.71 (or 1.5 for that matter). I beleive the update to the audio player in more recent firmwares is a visualiser, so unless you want to watch it while playing music i dont think theres a lot of difference.