PSP Custom Firmware - latest and best?

[Mr Ono]

I've just wiped the dust off my PSP and see that the firmware on it is an old Dark Alex 3.02 OE-B.

Presumably it is now hopelessly out of date so what is the latest one and will there be any issues just installing it over what I have at the moment.

Thanks

[sj33]

Latest is 5.00 M33-3 =) I'm not sure if you can upgrade straight to 5.00, you may need to install a few others first... but you certainly need 5.00 M33 installed to then upgrade to M33-3 version.

[Mr Ono]

Thanks. WTF is a Pandora battery??

[sj33]

It's basically a modified PSP battery that can be used to flash any PSP, regardless of what firmware is installed. I don't know the technical aspects, but I think it's what Sony engineers use to fix bricked consoles, and hackers have discovered how to use it themselves. You can change any battery to a 'pandora' one, though I think it becomes useless as an actual battery afterwards. You won't need to use that though of course.

[Mr Ono]

Cheers Jakey. Going to grab the 5.00 M33 now and the will do the step upgrade.

[kyo_244]

Hey folks.

I've currently got a silver psp-2000 (2003 I think) and have CFW 3.71 m33 on it.

Now I know that you can go up to 5.00 m33-4 now. I wanted to know what the main benefits would be.

Particularly for PS1/PSX emulation. Currently there are some issues with this.

-brightness randomly keeps switches itself to it's lowest/darkest setting (between loading scenes aswell!)
-no analog functionality whatsoever - annoying when you have to play games with a digital dpad when you KNOW they were meant to be controllled with an analog stick! (now I know you can change the control scheme and map the d-pad movements to the nub, but the movement is still 8-way digital )
-original, normal, zoom and full modes currently available for screen size.

Have any of these features been updated? In particular I'd LOVE to be able to play crash 3 with the analog stick nub properly!

Oh and has snes emulation been improved since my cfw?

Cheers!

[NekoFever]

Cheers Jakey. Going to grab the 5.00 M33 now and the will do the step upgrade.

You'll have to go to 3.52 M33-4 first. That's the minimum that the newer versions will allow you to upgrade from due to a bug in older versions. Thankfully these days the new CFW can be upgraded using the PSP's own Network Update feature, so once you've done this it should be very simple from now on.

Hey folks.

I've currently got a silver psp-2000 (2003 I think) and have CFW 3.71 m33 on it.

Now I know that you can go up to 5.00 m33-4 now. I wanted to know what the main benefits would be.

Particularly for PS1/PSX emulation. Currently there are some issues with this.

-brightness randomly keeps switches itself to it's lowest/darkest setting (between loading scenes aswell!)
-no analog functionality whatsoever - annoying when you have to play games with a digital dpad when you KNOW they were meant to be controllled with an analog stick! (now I know you can change the control scheme and map the d-pad movements to the nub, but the movement is still 8-way digital )
-original, normal, zoom and full modes currently available for screen size.

Have any of these features been updated? In particular I'd LOVE to be able to play crash 3 with the analog stick nub properly!

Oh and has snes emulation been improved since my cfw?

Cheers!

CFW shouldn't affect a lot of that stuff. It sounds like there's something corrupted on there, or it could just be simple broken hardware. Stick KeyCleaner on there and run it, and see if it throws up any errors.

As for the benefits, you've got every new feature that has been added to the official firmware since 3.71, the aforementioned Network Update to update your CFW, updated PS1 emulation, and other more minor fixes and updates.

[Mr Ono]

SOrry for not replying to PM Kyo. I did everything via this guide:

http://www.stylemo.com/2008/10/19/how-to-install-psp-custom-firmware-500-m33-on-your-psp/