Learn How to put multiple firmwares on your Psp ?

Psp is a very powerful hand held device and with its popularity, its power is even increased by countless home brew applications available in the internet. You can play games through your memory stick, install emulators that enable you to play different games based on other consoles and personalize your psp without limits. All of this for 1 requirement, you must have a firmware version 1.5 to be able to run home brew applications. Later firmwares are designed by Microsoft to fill up the holes of the 1.5 version that allowed home brew to run.

If you have a firmware version 1.5, you are set to run home brew applications but some new games that were released required a certain firmware version (eg. 3.02). With the advent of these games, there is now a need to have the latest firmware and still be able to run home brew games. Thankfully there is now a solution to this. There is a software called devhook that allows you to do it. Devhook is a application for the PSP that allows the user to emulate firmware up to 3.11 This application will allow users to have the newest features of the home brew locked firmwares and the ability to run new games, without having to flash a different firmware to the PSP.

Although it can be more hassle to set up than custom firmware, the risks of bricking are lower, it's very easy to undo, and you can have multiple firmware versions installed at once, allowing you to choose the one you want for any given task. It is down loadable in the internet and if you’re planning to use them on your psp, there are also a lot of resources and guides available in the internet.

Another way to install multiple firmware is the use of the much talked about Epsilon BIOS. Epsilon BIOS is a custom flash "replacement" for the Sony PSP which unleashes the full potential of your hand held, allowing you to both use home brew software and run UMD ISO games from your Memory Stick on the latest firmware releases while also enjoying the impressive features built into the operating system such as RSS feeds, WMA support etc. Currently the 2.71 firmware releases is supported - this means that they have cracked the new encryption methods and developed the operating system hacks necessary to allow unsigned code to run, even in kernel mode.

Epsilon BIOS is being developed for quite some time, but due to the fact that it requires a dual-flash system (one flash is used to bootstrap the code, the other stores the normal PSP firmware) it haven't been released - until now, with the appearance of the Undiluted Platinum mod chip. To be able to use the Epsilon BIOS, you'll need to install an undiluted platinum mod chip.

As mentioned above, using Epsilon BIOS its possible to launch home brew software from the memory stick, kernel mode access is also available for software which requires this. Both 1.0 and 1.5 style EBOOTs are supported. UMD ISO loading is almost transparent, simply copy your ISO files into a directory on your Memory Stick and they will appear under "Game -> Memory Stick" in the operating system menu alongside your home brew applications. Simply launch them from here, no need to use a separate ISO loader application. Furthermore, since the games are actually running on 2.x firmware you don't need to worry about strange loading methods or patching the ISO files - they will simply work, in their original state.

This new development will truly unleash the full power of your psp but unlike devhook, this installation requires you to install hardware to your psp. There are guides in the internet on how to do it and there are also instructions when you order the mod chip. Nevertheless, installing the chip should be handled by professionals with the right tools. One wrong move could render your psp useless

Louis Michael writes informative articles on various subjects including How to put multiple firmwares on your Psp. You are allowed to publish this article in its entirety provided that author’s name, bio and website links must remain intact and included with every reproduction