Please help with a delicate PopsLoader problem!

[jeanpave]

Hello.

I have a PSP Brite with firmware 6.20 TN-D.

I'm trying to play some PSX games on it. While a couple do work with 6.20, the third one freezes not long into the game. It seems I need 3.71 or 3.72 and it should run just fine. But how am I going to put one of those .prxs to good use when they can't seem to be seen at all by my PSP?

Anyway, after installing and customizing popsloader the way the experts say I should -- I followed a guide and used an installer for the popsloader according to the directions -- I see that it was a waste of time.
I can't hold the R button while the game loads and select a new "pop", and I can't activate popsloader in the Recovery Menu.

No matter what I do, the game just loads as is, and then crashes. It's not exactly a crash, it's more of a freeze, but I still can't do anything with it.

Oh, and changing the disc speed from 'Normal' to 'Fast' did not help, either.

I can't help but be very disappointed.

Please help me. Any advice is welcome.

Thanks.

[Zac The Lego Maniac]

Hey why not just get the Pro cfw instead? It has popsloader and iso/cso support built in. You can get it here: procfw - X-Generation Aftermarket Firmware for Playstation Portable

Since you're on 6.20, get that version and run the proinstaller then the pro620bootloader and it loads the cfw automatically...

Or try the TN-E Hen (fix?) floating around out there I think the popsloader was a thing he fixed in it.

Anywayz I didn't have any problems getting the PSX2PSP games running on Pro. You aren't trying to run the original PSX iso, are you? If so that would be a major hassle ... just look up some PSX 2 PSP iso's.... (isozone is good if you can't find it on torrents)

[jeanpave]

Thank you very much, Zac!

This looks like a firmware release. Right?
So, I would have to upgrade my firmware.

But, you see, I'm a little reluctant to do that, because I put in a lot of time and effort getting a lot of other games to work with the configuration I have.
What if I try this new firmware, I mess it up, and then nothing works anymore. I'd have to start from scratch.

Besides, I don't really believe that this Pro CFW guarantees 100% compatibility with all PSX games. (Does it?)

I look forward to see what else you have to say (because, to tell you the truth, I haven't solved or abandoned my problem yet).

Thanks again.

[jeanpave]

Quick question: When you say it has pops support built in, do you mean every time you try to load a game it will automatically ask you which pops you want to use? (3.71, 5.00, and so on)

Because 6.20 TN-D supposedly has some advanced feature for better compatibility, too, or so they say, but obviously it's complete crap. (And going through a lot of trouble to try another firmware, only to discover that it has the same glitches, would make me blind with rage, so I gotta be careful, you know.)

[Zac The Lego Maniac]

Well the pops loader in Pro CFW just loads the PSX game; in the game there's a few options when you press the home button ... I tried about 10 PSX games on it with no problem ... I hear you tho' on not wanting to lose your settings if the Pro CFW doesn't work out. Check out this homebrew flash back-up app; then you could always go back.

FlashOP v0.1: homebrew app for flash backups

[Zac The Lego Maniac]

I would look into if the flash backup app can run from 6.20 pro first just to be sure or another way to restore the backup...

[jeanpave]

Thank you very much for the replies. It seems that you really want to help me.

See, the game I'm having problems with is Mortal Kombat Trilogy (U). It does load, and I can navigate the menus, but as soon as an actual fight is supposed to start I see the background (no fighters) and then the game does nothing more. (It doesn't crash the PSP, because I can quit the game to XMB just fine, but it's as good as frozen at that point.)
Did you happen to try this on Pro CFW? Did you beat it, or at least a few opponents? Would you try it?

Thanks a lot, Zac.

P.S. How does it load ISOs/CSOs? Is it Prometheus, OpenIdea, something else?

[jeanpave]

I'm very disappointed in these ISO loaders that have ben created, by the way. (Now I'm talking about PSP stuff, of course, not PSX.) So many good games just don't work or load properly.
And it's as if both Prometheus ISO loader and OpenIdea ISO loader were done by the same team/person. Whatever doesn't work in one doesn't work in the other, either.

And the PSP has been out for a very long time. Only newer consoles have a worse emulation compatibility.

Right?

[Zac The Lego Maniac]

Well the Pro uses the Inferno cso/iso loader -- as far as I can tell it loads virtually anything you throw at it (other than very old homebrew, and you can use the Half-byte Loader eboot for that).

I'll try that Mortal Kombat game you mentioned -- gotta be somewhere in the morning tho', so I'll locate my 'backup' while I'm sleeping... I'll get back to you probably tom. night tho' on how it did...

BTW, is it a PSX2PSP iso file (ie eboot)? If it's just the standard PSX iso, you'll need to convert it for the psp ... either find an eboot some one converted already, or check this page on how to do it.

Converting PSOne games to PSP Eboots (PSX to PSP), PSP Hacks - PSP Slim Hacks

There was a PSX game I couldn't track down pre-converted and looked into that a little bit... looks pretty tedious the first time thru tho'.

***edit***
I'm guessing that isn't it since you got into the menu and the game sort of worked... but yeah, with these new cfw's the iso loaders are kind of obsolete. It's all built in now...

PS - I'm seeing that Mortal Kombat Trilogy backup listed as "Converted Properly" appended to some of the different titles out there. That could be the ticket...

[jeanpave]

Thank you very much, one more time, Zac!
It's very nice of you to give me all this info, I have to say again.

The game I tried is an eboot, yes.
I created it from a tested (by other users) image file, by using the tutorial posted by LiNkZoR on his hacksden forum thread. It uses Imgburn (if needed) and RS-GUI PopStation MD v3.00.
I'm confident I did not make any errors.

I'm not sure what you mean by "I'm seeing that Mortal Kombat Trilogy backup listed as "Converted Properly" appended to some of the different titles out there. That could be the ticket...".
Do you mean it should work for you?
Or it should work with Pro CFW?
Not sure at all what this could mean in relation to the firmware 6.20 TN-D.

Anyway, I can't wait to find out if it works for you in Pro CFW.

As for ISOs/CSOs, there are some very good ones that don't work for me: Capcom Remixed, Midway Extended Play, the Japanese Ultimate GnG, Marvel Nemesis, GG XX Reload, and more. Some of these boot, but then become unplayable soon afterwards.
I shouldn't bother you with those, however.
But, really, I had no idea newer custom firmwares have everything built in nowadays. That sounds very cool.

Thanks again. Look forward to the reply.

[Zac The Lego Maniac]

Well I ran into a lot of heart ache getting my cfw set up so don't mind helping Hey you know how you run the HEN from your games list and it reboots into CFW? You could do a dual boot kind of deal, where you install Pro and then you could either run HEN or the PRO quick launcher, ya know ... But I did run into an unrecoverable problem when I was doing it that way and had to reinstall OFW then the CFW ... well it's an idea if you want to test it out ... just don't tweak too many settings in it

*edit*
Now that I think of it the specific setting I enabled was "Cache ISO's" in Pro that locked it up. And yea, that CFW-ME ... better than nothing but go with Pro or HEN. Don't mess with it unless there's some obscure plugin you desperately want to test ...
*end edit*

And hey, I did try that Mortal Kombat Trilogy eboot and ran into the same problem ... I would get to the battle part and it froze up, but could still press home and exit out. What I meant by that line too, by the way, is that perhaps it was just a bad eboot ... maybe not. Maybe 6.60 cfw fixed it? I dunno, I'm sticking to 6.20 since in Pro there's a patch to have it load automatically from a cold boot, ya know.

BUT all hope is not lost. (Well maybe for the specific game MK-Trilogy it is, heh.) From what I saw tho', the graphics on that PSX game weren't any better than the graphics from Genesis or Super Nintendo version of MK ... you ~could~ just run a Genesis or SNES emulator on your PSP and load the MK 1/2/3 ROM into it...

For SNES emulation I would recommend SNES9xTTYL over SNES Euphoria--it was a little faster (aka full speed). For Genesis DGen or PicoDrive would work (both full speed--PicoDrive easier to locate, DGen just sounds cool).

One last thing I can think of ... try to find the TN-E HEN rather than the TN-D. If you really want the MK Trilogy PSX version that may work ... or if you have a phat or an older slim you may be able to "downgrade" to the 5.00m33-6 Firmware with the Hellcat Recovery Flasher (No pandora battery needed!). From what I have read, that one is the best ... just can't get the PSPGO and newer slims lower than 6.10.

PS - I do have an old phatty; got ripped off on it tho' ... found a GO 50 bucks cheaper right down the road from the competition. Anyway, I let my buddy borrow it for a road trip he had to do for a job (5 hrs). So I'm tinking I'll get it back from him with within the week ... before I return it I'll let you know if MK Trilogy ran on the 5.00m33-6, or nay.

If that goes thru so should the other games you mentioned...

[jeanpave]

Hi again, Zac.

Same thing here. A lot of aches (and some sleepless nights, too, because of the anticipation of what else I can get to play on the PSP).

I should say, though, that, although I understand much of the tutorials, I am sort of a newbie because I did not set up my PSP like this. Somebody else did it for me. (If it's worth something, however, I've been emulating on the PC for a decade or so.)

Anyway, getting to the point:
Thank you very much for testing the game. Newer is not always better, right? And it's unfortunate, 'cause MKT is a very good game. Also, on top of it, the N64 emulated (through DaedalusX64) version of the game doesn't work much better, either. The fighters all show up as blank silhouettes. Plus, it's slower, of course. So, I have to get the PSX version going, if popsloader will help me.
But I think I may not be doing it right. I downloaded a version called v4e, supposedly for versions 6.xx, but it only includes a modules folder, popsloader.prx and popscore.prx. The README.txt file says I should use a psardumper and get stuff like /kd/popsman.prx and /vsh/module/libpspvmc.prx(>=3.40), among others, myself.
I gotta look more into doing that, because maybe that's why popsloader wasn't working for me.

POPS:
The one built-in emulation function, and it's the hardest to set up! Go figure!

(I'm a big MK fan, by the way, and I have to have all the games. I'm even emulating the Amiga MKs, and those have about 4 discs each that you have to swap and only one action button to perform moves with. That's why I'm trying everything for MKT. And it's not about the graphics, although they do help make the game more enjoyable to a small extent.)

It would be great if you could let me know if it runs on 5.00m33-6, yes. Thanks!
I think it will. (PSX on PSP Compatibility List)

By the way, maybe it's a good thing you didn't get the Go. I hear it requires special versions for many emulators and other applications.

Thank you very much, also, for recommending those emulators. SNES9xTTYL is, hands-down, the best emulator I have ever seen for the PSP, in my opinion. The guy(s) who made it rule! As for Genesis, I'm using PicoDrive, because it has good Sega CD emulation, it seems.

The other games I mentioned, though, are PSP games. They don't work in Prometheus, and OpenIdea is no help, either. But I hear the Inferno driver is way better, so I'm still very interested in PRO CFW.

I don't know if there is a specific version I need to download and use given the fact I have 6.20 TN-D now. I'm thinking probably 6.60 users need to download another version, 6.39 users another one, and so on.

And yes, thanks for bringing up that subject, I was also thinking about sort of a dual-boot. I understand I should run the PRO quick launcher after a cold boot. So, yeah, I could keep both. But did I understand properly? PRO CFW would not totally erase and replace 6.20 TN-D?
However, I'm really afraid of the possibility of making my PSP into a 'brick'. Not to mention the fact that I haven't played around with firmware stuff before.
And what if I follow a bad tutorial?
Maybe I'm way too scared, I know, but...


I'll talk to you again in a few days. I have to leave now for 2 1/2 days, but I'll be back Sunday night.

Cheers, and thanks again!

[Zac The Lego Maniac]

Hey I got it working on the 5.00 cfw ... the default pops was doing the same thing -- get easy pops loader easy installer tho from here:

Popsloader Easy Installer for 5.00 M33, PSP Hacks - PSP Slim Hacks

Then when you are loading the psx game, hold R and you can select which version of pops you want to use. It worked for me with pops v3.72.

[jeanpave]

Hi again, Zac.

Thank you very much for the suggestion.

But unfortunately I think I used that installer. The first time I tried to install popsloader, I followed LiNkZoR's guide (at [Guide] How to Play PSX Games on your PSP!!) and therefore I used the Easy Installer 1.1 which he suggests to use.
The one you tell me to use is also version 1. I'm not sure if it's the same as the other one. (I'll give it a try later today, though. But the point is I did try an Easy Installer, yes.)
When I used LiNkZoR's installer, it behaved as if it had successfully installed popsloader, but the popsloader firmware selection screen never shows up, whether I hold R or not. And I did create that .txt file, too, as described in the guide, but it did not help.

I'm sure the one you used works well on version 5.00 M33, because even its name says it's designed for it, but would it work on 6.20 TN-D? How about on PRO CFW?

Regardless of whether or not I succeed, thanks very very much for the efforts to help me. They are really very much appreciated.
I'll get back to you after my new tries.

[Zac The Lego Maniac]

I'm not sure if it would work in 6.20 HEN or PRO ... it's a plugin so you would need to enable posploader in your pops.vsh in ms0:/seplugins ... a lot of the older plugins I have tried didn't work in 6.20 tho' ... 5.00m33 and 5.50 GEN are the best if u need to run newer iso/cfo AND older plugins...