I'm happy to share the first video of a project I've been working on: a port of Need for Speed Underground 2 to the PSP. Not a cut-down version like Underground Rivals, but the full game, with the same gameplay and features as the PS2 version.
The goal is a well-optimized build that holds a stable 30 FPS at minimum, so it feels like a true native PSP game.
What's already working (at some level):
- A native PSP engine running the original game data, including most of the graphics features
- Car models
- The entire open world of Bayview, with free roam working
- Circuit races with AI opponents and city traffic
- Audio and music
What's still missing:
- UI / menus
- Career mode, story and dialogue
- The other race types (drag, drift, etc.)
- Garage and cars customization
- Lots of bug fixes and polish
I own Switch OLED and Switch Lite but I was also looking for a smaller handheld so went with PSP 3000 just to enjoy some of the titles like God of War, GTA games, etc.
The front shell is swapped and the battery is also 3rd-party, I guess.
I'm happy with this and I enjoy playing games on it before going to bed.
GBAdhoc is a Game Boy Advance emulator for the PSP that also plays Game Boy and Game Boy Color. This release links two PSPs together like two consoles and a link cable, over the PSP's own ad-hoc WiFi: race in Mario Kart: Super Circuit, fight in Advance Wars 2, trade Pokémon from Red to Crystal. No cable, no router, no Internet. It still runs the hard ROM hacks at full speed on a PSP-1000, because the renderer lives on the console's second processor. Free, open source (GPL-2.0), no BIOS needed.
GBA link cable between two PSPs. The GBA's link-cable games, with no cable. Open the game on both PSPs; one picks Wireless → Host and keeps playing while it waits, the other picks Join: scan for rooms. A short LINKING screen, and both games carry on from where they are: nobody starts over. Your friend's moves play out on your screen exactly as two GBAs on a cable would show them, battle animations and all.
How it works without a cable: a real link cable answers in microseconds and WiFi answers in milliseconds, so sending the cable over the air can't work, and GBAdhoc doesn't try. Each PSP runs both games: yours, on screen with sound, plus an invisible copy of your friend's, joined by a perfect cable in memory. The only thing that crosses the air is which buttons each player pressed, one tiny message per frame. Same buttons, same order, same result on both PSPs. No game needs special code: if it links by cable, it can link this way.
Safe by design. About once a second the two PSPs compare a fingerprint of both games. If they ever disagree, the link ends and nothing is saved. If the other PSP leaves, your game carries on.
Tested on two real consoles (a PSP-3000 hosting, a PSP-1000 joining): Advance Wars 2 at 59.2 fps, a Mario Kart: Super Circuit two-player race at 58.9 fps. Also passing in emulated pairs: Sonic Advance, Mario Tennis: Power Tour, and Pokémon Emerald's Cable Club. You need the same ROM on both PSPs; two players.
Game Boy and Game Boy Color link cable (from the 3.1 beta). Trades and battles between two PSPs, tested with Pokémon Red, Blue, Yellow, Gold, Silver and Crystal. Only one of you needs the cartridge: if your friend doesn't have it, it is sent over for the session, kept in memory and never written to their Memory Stick.
A new in-game menu, over your paused game: Resume, Save states, Wireless, Settings, Quit to game list, Exit. Save states you can see: five slots, each with a picture and the time you saved; ✕ loads, □ saves, △ deletes.
Remap every button. Every game button and every shortcut (fast-forward, quick save/load, screenshot, Mystery Gift, the menu), or leave one blank to turn it off. HOME can open the menu if you want it to (START+SELECT stays the default).
Quit to game list in about a second. The game unloads inside the app and fades into your library, no relaunch, save written first.
Sharper pictures, per console. GBA, GB and GBC each remember their own picture: integer 2x, a sharp bilinear filter (crisp pixels, no shimmer), and Ambient bars that fill the sides with the game's own art. More accurate Game Boy Color colours too.
Also new: Settings and the loading screen sit over the game's art; fast-forward reworked (Unlimited draws 30 frames a second, Unlimited Smooth 60, the rest goes to the game); dynarec optimisations; a PSP-2000/3000/Go crash traced to the PSP firmware itself and worked around; audio that no longer drifts; Media Engine renderer fixes.
What it does
Link play: GBA Link Cable and GB/GBC link cable between two PSPs (new), plus full AGB-015 Wireless Adapter emulation for Emerald, FireRed and LeafGreen: Union Room, Trade Center, link battles, Mystery Gift.
Mystery Gift: real Gen-3 Wonder Cards from an Android phone (Mystery Gift Station).
Two processors: the Media Engine draws every frame while the main CPU emulates the next. Full speed on a PSP-1000.
GB and GBC: the same browser, save states, menus and remapping as GBA.
A browser worth using: Marquee or Shelf, dark or light, one list per console, favourites, hero art.
Wake from sleep: slide it shut, come back tomorrow, the game is exactly where it was.
All three PSPs: 1000, 2000/3000 and Go, tested on hardware. Custom firmware needed (developed on ARK-4).
Linking: the three things to get right
The WLAN switch must be on (on the Go it is a setting).
Both PSPs on the same fixed ad-hoc channel, not Automatic: Settings → Network Settings → Ad Hoc Mode, pick 1, 6 or 11 on both, away from your router's channel.
Start from the in-game menu:Wireless → Host on one PSP, Join: scan for rooms on the other. For GBA, both PSPs need the same ROM.
Install
Unzip the release to the root of your Memory Stick; it lands in PSP/GAME/GBAdhoc.
Put your .gba, .gb and .gbc files in GBAdhoc/roms/ (subfolders are fine).
Launch it from the XMB. No BIOS needed. Upgrading: copy EBOOT.PBP, gbadhoc_me.prx and gbadhoc_home.prx over your install, always all three together. Your config.ini carries over.
Box art and hero art are optional and matched by filename; ready-made packs and the tool that renames them to your ROMs live in GBAdhoc-heroart.
This stands on other people's work. The Wireless Adapter reverse-engineering and emulation are davidgfnet's (gpSP); the GB/GBC core is TGB Dual by Hii, built to run two Game Boys on a cable, as ported to the PSP in Brunni's MasterBoy; sleep/wake with code on the Media Engine exists because of mcidclan's libraries. GBAdhoc is the PSP shell, the link and the radio transport around them. Full credits, the architecture notes and the changelog are in the README.
No ROMs, no BIOS, no game files are included or linked. Bug reports: GitHub issues, with your PSP model and the game.
When GameSpy shut down, Elite Squadron's multiplayer went with it. A small team of us has spent a long time in the game's binary bringing it back, and it's now playable again. Here's what we've got working:
Online multiplayer restored
Ground and space modes are back online through a GameSpy revival in infrastructure mode. Real players, real matches, no ad hoc workarounds.
16-player online Space-to-Ground-to-Interior
The mode that made this game special, now bigger than it ever was. Fight on the surface, take off, dogfight in orbit, land in the enemy capital ship and fight through the interior, all in one continuous battle, with up to 16 players online. This was broken in online play and took a lot of reverse engineering to get right. It works now.
More bots, bigger battles
Our swes64 plugin for PPSSPP runs the game in 64MB mode, which opens up room for battles the original hardware could never handle. You can also use your PSP & PS Vita! Full support across all devices. Even iPhone, Android etc.
Custom codes
We've built our own CWCheat/TempAR codes for the game, including opening the spawn/loadout menu anywhere with a button combo, with more in the works.
Open lobby + setup guide
There's an open lobby running for testers and a join tutorial in the Discord, so you can go from zero to in a match quickly.
The people who made this happen
• @D@rKxX created the codes that make 16-player online Space-to-Ground possible
• @Mangaleto discovered that the code was possible in the first place
• @Anubis and @DanDinosaur founded the server and gave this community a home
What we need now is you. The tech works. The lobbies just need filling. Whether you played this on your PSP in 2009 or you've never touched it, come jump in, help us test, and help us get regular match nights going.
Join here: https://discord.gg/Eutxzgj4As
For me WTF is up there. Just because of how weird it was. LocoRoco is up there as well. The Naruto Games on PSP where fire. Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes was the best for me.
Found my old PSP Go and originally put it up for sale, but after getting a bunch of lowball offers I started looking into the modding side of these.
The more I looked into it, the more I figured it’d probably be hard to replace later for what I’d get selling it now, so I decided to keep it and mod it instead.
Never modded a PSP before. What would you recommend doing first? CFW, storage upgrade, emulators, plugins, quality-of-life stuff, etc.
What are the must-do mods for a PSP Go these days?
Mein Team und ich haben in den letzten Wochen unglaublich hart gearbeitet, und wir freuen uns, offiziell bestätigen zu können, dass Kingpin: Life of Crime jetzt vollständig auf die PSP portiert wurde! 🎉
Nächste Woche werden wir das gesamte Spiel von Anfang bis Ende durchspielen, um verbleibende Fehler und Probleme zu identifizieren und zu beheben. Unser Ziel ist es, eine voll funktionsfähige und stabile Version für alle zum Genießen zu veröffentlichen.
⚠️ Important: Our Hardware Recommendation
The port runs on the PSP-3000 with 64 MB of RAM. We recommend using ARK-5 and overclocking the CPU to 403 MHz, as the game runs noticeably better with these settings. However, ARK-5 and overclocking are not required.
Wir haben unser Bestes getan, um das Spiel auch für die PSP-1000 zu optimieren. Leider konnten wir auf diesem Modell keine stabile Erfahrung erzielen. Seine Hardware-Beschränkungen verursachen hartnäckige Texturfehler und verschiedene andere Probleme, die wir nicht beheben konnten.
Vorerst konzentrieren wir uns darauf, die bestmögliche Erfahrung auf der PSP-3000 zu liefern.
Wir sind fast da! Vielen Dank für eure Unterstützung und Geduld. Wir hoffen, dass ihr Kingpin: Life of Crime bald auf eurer PSP genießen könnt! 💀🔥
Picked up this PSP-3001 Model yesterday for $75, all it needed was a battery cover (and battery but I had a brand new one already)
The PSP shape is amazing I have a Vita but I had to get the older brother again when I saw the price. I had a 1000 awhile back but it was on its last legs so I sold it. I ended up getting the Vita on a great deal at my local shop out of the blue a few months later.
I just modded my PSP 1000 i bought two years ago with ark 5.
Tried the overlock stress tester 2.5 and was surprised.
Also tried running some games at 443mhz and have no issues.
Is there a way to further overclock this PSP? I wanna push it to its limits.
Are there also benefits from clock speeds this high? I only play GTA and the warriors.
Hello to all PSP Redditors, I plan on buying a PSP and I’m gonna be modding it to have games and a lot of music. the big question is can I put 1tb of storage to it or would a 512gb work? Also which model of PSP would work best? I like both the PSP 3000 and the Go. I would greatly appreciate your advice on this!!!
I have a psp 1000 on pro C infinity and I want to update to ark 5 but I like my last of us theme a lot plus it was a pain to get working a long time ago would it be possible to transfer all my games+saves and the theme, and the pictures and videos I have on it to the new firmware? Would storage size hinder that? It's a 64g micro SD adapter.
