Hacking [Release] ARK-4 CFW port for PSP.

[Acid_Snake]

New release: https://github.com/PSP-Archive/ARK-4/releases/tag/r42061

Adds support for playing PS1 games on Vita Standalone installations, which is so far the only way to play custom PS1 games on Official Firmware.
It also contains several small bug fixes and improvements so the update is generally more stable across all devices.

 

[wad11656]

New release: https://github.com/PSP-Archive/ARK-4/releases/tag/r42061

Adds support for playing PS1 games on Vita Standalone installations, which is so far the only way to play custom PS1 games on Official Firmware.
It also contains several small bug fixes and improvements so the update is generally more stable across all devices.

Does anyone have a video showcasing what "Vita Standalone installation" is in action? How is it different than installing ARK within Adrenaline? What does launching a PS1 game from a standalone installation look like? Are the PS1 emulation capabilities from the Vita Standalone installation any different (in terms of compatibility) than running POPS within Adrenaline?

 

[Acid_Snake]

Does anyone have a video showcasing what "Vita Standalone installation" is in action? How is it different than installing ARK within Adrenaline? What does launching a PS1 game from a standalone installation look like? Are the PS1 emulation capabilities from the Vita Standalone installation any different (in terms of compatibility) than running POPS within Adrenaline?

Standalone installations run on the official pspemu (instead of the Adrenaline-patched emu), which means it lacks a few features, mainly the XMB and PS1 games.
Instead you have the Custom Launcher and PS1 games using the original PS1 emulator for PSP with an external audio plugin.
Compatibility of PS1 games using this method is lower than if using the Vita PS1 emulator (i.e. Adrenaline or ChovySign), but it is also "different", meaning that there might be games that don't work on Vita Pops that might work on PSP Pops.

 

[wad11656]

Standalone installations run on the official pspemu (instead of the Adrenaline-patched emu), which means it lacks a few features, mainly the XMB and PS1 games.
Instead you have the Custom Launcher and PS1 games using the original PS1 emulator for PSP with an external audio plugin.
Compatibility of PS1 games using this method is lower than if using the Vita PS1 emulator (i.e. Adrenaline or ChovySign), but it is also "different", meaning that there might be games that don't work on Vita Pops that might work on PSP Pops.

"Standalone" meaning it's a standalone ARK app that launches ARK's custom launcher. Okay. Interesting. So it sounds like this particular setup with PSP's PS1 emulator on Vita + the external audio plugin is a never-before-used PS1 emulator configuration that might have novel compatibility with games, and is only being used in Vita's standalone ARK app right now -- Thanks

 

[JaegerFox]

@Acid_Snake I am getting this error C1-2858-3 in the standalone installation, it happens right after choosing a game or entering the recovery menu

Post automatically merged: Jul 25, 2023

I don't know what happened, I had used the nopspemudrm installation and got that error, I installed using Yoti's ArkFast-4, deleted the savedata content of ark01234 and put the new update files and it worked... uninstall the ARK generated by the arkfast and the ark-nopspemudrm works without any problems.

 

[Acid_Snake]

@Acid_Snake I am getting this error C1-2858-3 in the standalone installation, it happens right after choosing a game or entering the recovery menu

Post automatically merged: Jul 25, 2023

I don't know what happened, I had used the nopspemudrm installation and got that error, I installed using Yoti's ArkFast-4, deleted the savedata content of ark01234 and put the new update files and it worked... uninstall the ARK generated by the arkfast and the ark-nopspemudrm works without any problems.

Yeah that's surely weird, did you update manually or using the online updater?

"Standalone" meaning it's a standalone ARK app that launches ARK's custom launcher. Okay. Interesting. So it sounds like this particular setup with PSP's PS1 emulator on Vita + the external audio plugin is a never-before-used PS1 emulator configuration that might have novel compatibility with games, and is only being used in Vita's standalone ARK app right now -- Thanks

Yes, "Standalone" is an ARK loader, but it loads ARK on Official PSPemu, which makes it lightweight and fast. Some people consider Adrenaline to have input delay and the XMB isn't the fastest thing out there either (30 FPS vs Custom Launcher's 60FPS).

This method of loading PS1 games was used before, back in the days where the Vita only had ePSP hacks and no native hacks. I am bringing it back because it's "better than nothing", because ARK-4 shouldn't be loosing features compared to ARK-2 and 3 (this type of PS1 support was dropped in a cleanup) and because of the different compatibility that might lead to more games being playable overall.
But above all, I added this in an attempt to not lose the source code of the peops SPU plugin made by Coldbird and thefl0w. The code was already lost and I had to use archive.org to bring it back.
Code archival is important to me on the PSP scene and lots of awesome PSP code is seeing the light of day again with ARK.

 

[JaegerFox]

Yeah that's surely weird, did you update manually or using the online updater?

well the method was using a demo of a psp game and using arkfast to not have the limitation of the minis, and it worked fine, with the arrival of nopspemudrm I opted to use a lighter game and all good, until the update 4.20.60 was where I could not access any game or the recovery .... so I used arkfast from Yoti and updated manually and that seemed to make everything else work (old method of arkfast, nopspemudrm).
I searched for information and it seems to be something related to the license, maybe nopspemudrm adds a fake license that interfered with the old demo installation and caused some incompatibility.

 

[RandomGuy2023]

@Acid_Snake, I found out if pressing the L, R, triangle, square, cross and circle buttons and all the D-pad buttons at once when playing PSP ISOs, the PSP screen goes black saying "Loading..." and the PSP returns to XMB. This is a little annoying since I hold the PSP like that for a while when playing a game. Could you fix this issue? This didn't happen with the 4.20.60 version.

Also, regarding installing ARK via FastARK on the PS Vita, do Sasuke vs. Commander PSP minigame and a PSP game from PSN game really need to be installed? The instructions on ARK-4's GitHub repository's README.md mention both are needed but I think only one is needed like in the past.

 

[Acid_Snake]

@Acid_Snake, I found out if pressing the L, R, triangle, square, cross and circle buttons and all the D-pad keys at once when playing PSP ISOs, the PSP screen goes black saying "Loading..." and the PSP returns to XMB. This is a little annoying for me since I hold the PSP like that. Could you fix this issue? This didn't happen with the 4.20.60 version.

Wait, how do you press all d-pad keys at once? This makes no sense. Also, you hold the PSP by pressing all the button at once? That sounds like not an ideal thing to do.

Also, regarding installing ARK via ArkFast on the PS Vita, do Sasuke vs. Commander and a PSN game really need to be installed? The instructions on GitHub mention both are needed but I think only one is needed like in the past.

The readme states that it is "Recommended" to have a PSN game installed as it will make the ARK bubble bootable on OFW, but it is not necessary. If you don't have one then ARK will require henkaku to be able to boot.

 

[RandomGuy2023]

Wait, how do you press all d-pad keys at once? This makes no sense. Also, you hold the PSP by pressing all the button at once? That sounds like not an ideal thing to do.


The readme states that it is "Recommended" to have a PSN game installed as it will make the ARK bubble bootable on OFW, but it is not necessary. If you don't have one then ARK will require henkaku to be able to boot.

Yes, I do, but only for a while and when playing a game. By using both thumbs and index fingers, I can press all D-pad buttons and the L, R, triangle, square, cross and circle buttons at once.

Ok, but previously you said the user should already have a PSP game from PSN installed before using FastARK and to not run the latter without having one installed when ARK-4's GitHub repository's README.md says to install a PSP game from PSN before running FastARK as well as install the latter's Sasuke vs. Commander minigame afterwards when this is not needed since FastARK only needs a game and not two. Also, you previously said to not install a minigame but now ARK-4's GitHub repository's README.md says to install FastARK's Sasuke vs. Commander minigame.

 

[Richard2005]

@Acid_Snake Im having an issue on my PSP 3000 where if im on ARK4 and i try opening Infinity it simply just doesnt open it shuts down my PSP but on PRO-C it works fine im on 6.61 and i even reinstalled OFW to latest reinstalling everything with Ark first and then PRO-C and nothing, everything works fine other than that sadly, I have ro relaunch Pro-C through the launcher each time which isnt too bad just wish it was easier with Infinity.

 

[Liminal]

I haven't updated in months and I'm kinda lost on how to install/update to the newest version (standalone). It would be nice to update the 1st post of this thread cause it's outdated. What's the adrenaline version? What does it do?
edit: nvm I saw updated instructions on github, I'm gonna take a look
edit2: instructions still look outdated on github

 

[Acid_Snake]

New release: https://github.com/PSP-Archive/ARK-4/releases/tag/r42062

This one includes a new `cIPL` installer for `DTP-1000` devkits and a new option `Advanced VSH Menu` to switch between the `new` and `classic` design.

 

[FR0ZN]

New release: https://github.com/PSP-Archive/ARK-4/releases/tag/r42062

This one includes a new `cIPL` installer for `DTP-1000` devkits and a new option `Advanced VSH Menu` to switch between the `new` and `classic` design.

Does ARK-4 support Plugins on PSP go in ms0 and ef0 at the same time? Like Pro CFW?

 

[Acid_Snake]

Does ARK-4 support Plugins on PSP go in ms0 and ef0 at the same time? Like Pro CFW?

PRO CFW only allows both at the same time on the XMB, but for games it either loads from one or the other but not both (https://github.com/MrColdbird/procf...393f6bbd1fc72ac0/SystemControl/plugins.c#L311).

For ARK it's a bit more complicated. ARK itself will try to load from both at all times (https://github.com/PSP-Archive/ARK-...a0150aa2a4c/core/systemctrl/src/plugin.c#L485).

The problem is that booting games (ISO, PSN Eboots, PS1 games, etc) from ef0 requires redirecting ms0 to ef0 (otherwise games might have saving issues or won't even boot, specially if you are a PSP Go owner without an ms0), which basically means it will not load your ms0 plugins, only ef0 ones.

For homebrew you can use both, but only if launched from the Custom Launcher with the "Redirect ms0 to ef0" option disabled (XMB always redirects everything it boots).

 

[Acid_Snake]

New release packed with loads of fixes and improvements, including a `Classic Recovery Menu` for full installtions on PSP devices.
https://github.com/PSP-Archive/ARK-4/releases/tag/r42063

 

[RandomGuy2023]

@Acid_Snake, I can't update ARK to a Rev version on the PSP using the "Update via Internet" XMB setting since it doesn't detect the latest version so I always have to use the method regarding copying "UPDATE" folder and running ARK UPDATE. Why do you often release a new version called "Rev" instead of an entirely new one? Also, this problem often happens when searching for updates when a new non-Rev version is released as well.

 

[xsdfr]

@Acid_Snake, I can't update ARK to a Rev version on the PSP using the "Update via Internet" XMB setting since it doesn't detect the latest version so I always have to use the method regarding copying "UPDATE" folder and running ARK UPDATE. Why do you often release a new version called "Rev" instead of an entirely new one? Also, this problem often happens when searching for updates when a new non-Rev version is released as well.

i believe "Rev" stands for revision, and revisions of releases are pushed to fix or add minor things that dont justify a full release.

 

[Acid_Snake]

@Acid_Snake, I can't update ARK to a Rev version on the PSP using the "Update via Internet" XMB setting since it doesn't detect the latest version so I always have to use the method regarding copying "UPDATE" folder and running ARK UPDATE. Why do you often release a new version called "Rev" instead of an entirely new one? Also, this problem often happens when searching for updates when a new non-Rev version is released as well.

We had to fix an issue in the server that prevented the system from seeing updates, it should work fine now.

 

[RandomGuy2023]

i believe "Rev" stands for revision, and revisions of releases are pushed to fix or add minor things that dont justify a full release.

I guess so, but either way, I'm never able to update to a new Rev version (and often to a non-Rev version as well) by using the "Update via Internet" XMB setting.

We had to fix an issue in the server that prevented the system from seeing updates, it should work fine now.

For updating to both Rev and non-Rev versions and regarding all current and future releases?