A few general psp questions

[elliot81]

Hello everyone! great looking forum i must say.
Anyway, I am seriously considering getting myself a psp, just a few questions about them though: (sorry if they have already been asked, i searched but couldnt find anything)

1. If I buy a second hand psp with 1.50 (or before?) firmware installed on it, will i have to still make a pandoras battery and a magic memory stick thing?

2. I heard that with firmware such as 1.50 that it doesnt have a web browser and other utilities that the updated psps would have, any truth their?

3. Custom firmware? what difference does it make? if I have 1.50 installed cant I already do everything a psp can? (ie. homebrew, themes, emulators etc?)

4. My friend has a psp with a n64 emulator on it (Daedlus I think) on most games it is quite laggy, im guessing this is due to the 333mhz processor, any way to make the games run faster?

Thanks very much.

Elliot

[Micr0chiP]

1 - No and Yes ...se bellow

2 - You wont have the web browser and wont be capable of running 3.xx software

3 - If you get a 1.50 PSP you can make a Pandora and update it with minimal trouble, i use this tutorial to upgrade PSPs to 3.90 m33 just by inserting the battery and the memory stick (after preparing then), with that firmware you wont be to much behind the firmware evolution, having all the goodies of an advance firmware, but you are at a confortable distance from the latest firmware (4.01), avoiding all the problems with bugs and so on, that´s why i still haven´t upgraded my firmware

[elliot81]

ok, so im guessing the firmware u mentioned (3.90 m33) is custom firmware? I read through that tutorial and was just wondering once ive made the magic memory stick and pandora battery, can I still use the original battery and memory stick? or are they written off now? Also, if I decided to just stay with 1.50 firmware what can I not do? (other then web browsing?)

Thanks

[ilettow]

Yes you can still use the memory stick. As for the battery, it is risky if you try and make it a pandora battery by yourself because getting it back to becoming a regular battery is a bit tricky. Do what i did, i bought a pandora battery maker off of codejunkies.com. It is called "Datel Service Tool Maker". It is so easy because it requires you to take one click of a button to make it a pandora battery and one click to get it back. Costs 20 bucks. As for your 1.5 firmware question, i haven't been a hacker that long so i couldn't help you with that, sorry...

[Micr0chiP]

With 1.5 firmware you can run homebrew software, meaning that you can use a homebrew aplication (Pandora Installer on the tutorial linked) to convert the battery between Pandora and Normal.
Has for want you can/cant do with diferent firmwares, check this list out.
I cant find a similar list with the features of custom firmware, but if you follow the "rule" that i said on my first reply about staying a bit behind of the latest firmware version you should be fine, because the homebrew creators always "lag" a bit behind the latest firmware.
I have 3.80 m33 and i dont have problems running all the homebrews, emulators and PS1 games that i have found.

[eli_90]

Well, having a PSP that's downgraded is really 75% of the battle to being able to use the desired features. It won't be much trouble for you to put Custom Firmware since it's already 1.50, so why not?