Updating to Dark Alexs 3.03 OE-C firmware for the PSP

Date: 2007-03-24

Updating to Dark Alex's 3.03 OE-C firmware for the PSP

for those not familiar with Dark Alex's work - firmware updates such as this allow you to run both older (1.50) firmare alongside newer (3.03) firmware on your PSP. Why would you want to do this? Many of the newer games require a recent firmware such as 3.03, whilst homebrew software requires firmware 1.50 to run.

The method below assumes (like me) you were already running firmware 2.71SE (The SE bit refers to Dark Alex's SE version rather than the stock sony 2.71). There's also the assumption that you know how to transfer files to/from your PSP.

Firstly: download the 3.03 OE-C Update, the 1.50 firmware image and the 3.03 firmware image

On your memory stick (I like to start with a freshly formatted one) copy the oeupdmaker and oeupdmaker% folders to /PSP/GAME150

Then copy the firmware images into the oeupdmaker folder but make sure you name them 150.PBP and 303.PBP

On your PSP, go to Game -> Memory Stick -> 3.03 OE-C Update Maker

This will now execute the update maker - sit back and relax (it doesn't take too long).

Now copy the 313oeflasher and 313oeflasher% folders to /PSP/GAME150 and also copy the DATA.DXR file (created on your PSP when you ran the oeupdmaker) from /PSP/GAME150/oeupdmaker to /PSP/GAME150/313oeflasher

Now it's time to run the flasher: On your PSP, go to Game -> Memory Stick -> 3.03 OE-C Firmware Install

Note: your battery level must be at least 75% charge in order for this to run - if it's not, just give it a charge and come back to this step.

As this runs, simply follow the instructions on screen to complete the update.

<strong>Remember: you are flashing your PSP to custom firmware - if not done successfully this may render your PSP useless</strong>. Just be careful that you follow the instructions carefully and you *should* be ok - this method worked for me anyhow :)

I'm not sure if this will work with PSPs that have the ta-082 motherboards - be sure to look around to find out (mine's not a ta-082).

Changes in OE-C: (From DarkAlex's readme)

- AVC videos bitrate limit patched. The firmware limited the bitrate of avc videos to only 768 Kbps.
OE now forces the limit to be 16384 Kbps. (Note: this doesn't mean than the psp can handle such a high bitrate;
this means than they won't show error. I don't know which is the real maximum bitrate than the psp can handle at
full speed).

- Speed of OE boot is now ~3 seconds faster than previous versions. (without plugins).

- Cpu speed of XMB can now be changed.

- Wifi can now work at 333 Mhz.

- Added access to flashes 0 and 1 via usb in the recovery menu, based on the great idea of USBSSS by Booster.
Note that writing is enabled, so this is intended only for advanced users that know what they are doing in each moment.
(It is not a great idea to change anything from the kd folder).
Because of this addition, the rest of flashing options were removed.

- PSP isos can now be deleted as any normal memstick games. (also the size of the iso now shows fine when you press triangle->information).

- When formatting memory stick, GAME150, GAME303 and ISO directories will be automatically created.

- Changes in internal HEN core:

* If a EBOOT.PBP with a plain DATA.PSP had a data.psar, modulemgr took as size of the executable the size
of data.psp+data.psar. Fixed. (this fix enables psx games to have plain data.psp without causing a memory error).

* Added a couple of patches found by Tyranid. One allows syscalls instructions to be used in kernel mode
without causing a crash. The other allows sceKernelQueryModuleInfo to work with sceInit and previous modules.