You may have heard all about the wonders of running homebrew (unsigned code) on your PSP, and be wondering how you actually go about installing such software and actually running it on your Playstation Portable.

Here is a quick tutorial to help you get to grips with installing homebrew on your PSP, which should then help you with installing any homebrew software on your device.

This tutorial deals with PSP’s firmware versions that can run homebrew direct from the Memory Stick Pro Duo, without the need for anything such as the eLoader or TIFF exploit.

PSP’s that can run homebrew software directly include firmwares 1.0, 1.5, 2.71SE (Special Edition), 3.02OE (Open Edition) and 3.03OE. The first two firmware versions, 1.0 and 1.5, are standard Sony firmwares, the last three, 2.71SE, 3.02OE and 3.03OE are all custom firmwares that will allow you to run homebrew as if your PSP has firmware 1.5 installed. For a full run down on firmware versions, and what can and cannot be done, see PSP Firmware Options and Capabilities. For PSP owners using firmwares 2.00 through to 2.80, there is seperate tutorial coming on how to run homebrew via an eLoader or TIFF exploit.

For this tutorial, I will use the homebrew game PSPChess (v0.31), one of my favourite and most used homebrew games, and CaSTaway, the Atari ST emulator.

You can download these here:

• CaSTaway for the PSP
• PSPChess v0.31

Once you have downloaded the example files, you will need to extract them out to a directory on your computer. You should see the following:

You will notice that the folder names look a little strange for both PSPChess and the CaSTaway Atari ST emulator. These folder names are written this way because of the mechanism used to get them to work, which mimics the original PSP hack that involved swapping out memory sticks – this folder structure does the same job without actually needing to physically touch your memory sticks.

On your PSP, you should have a folder structure as outlined below. Check which firmware version you have, and ensure that the folder structure matches the one in the picture below.

As you can see, firmware 1.5 requires a GAME directory, custom firmware version above 1.5 require a GAME folder, a GAME150 folder, and then a GAMEnnn folder where nnn is the current custom firmware version.

For this tutorial, we are only interested in the GAME and GAME150 directories. Ensure that your Memory Stick Pro Duo contains these directories.

Installing PSPChess on your PSP

Lets look at installing PSPChess on your PSP first. When you extracted the zip file, you will notice that there are a number of files (changelog.txt,eboot.pbp,pieces2.png,pieces.png) sitting in the root of the folder, along with the two directories, PSPChess and PSPChess%.

Because we are installing this game to run in firmware 1.5 mode, we are only interested in the two folders, PSPChess and PSPChess%. We need to copy these two folders into the GAME directory (if using firmware 1.5) or into the GAME150 folder (if using 2.71SE,3.02OE or 3.03OE).

This is the structure for my PSP (running firmware 3.03OE-B):

And thats it. If you now fire up your PSP, you should find under the GAME folder on the XMB, PSPChess now appears as an option.

Installing CaSTaway on your PSP

Instalation of CaSTaway is slightly different to the installation of PSPChess, as it requires use of both the GAME and GAME150 folders, if you are using firmware 2.71SE, 3.02OE or 3.03OE. IF you are using firmware 1.5, all three folders need to be copied into the GAME folder. If you are using any of the custom firmware versions however, you need to copy the ATARI_ST folder into the GAME directory, and the CaST^1 and CaST1~1% folders into the GAME150 directory.

This is the structure for my PSP (running firmware 3.03OE-B):

Note: If you want to actually use the CaSTaway Atari ST emulator, you will need to obtain a dump of the Atari Bios, call it TOS.ROM and copy it into the ATARI_ST folder, along with any game roms that you wish to play. These are not supplied in the above download.

Again, you should now be able to launch the Atari ST emulator from the GAME menu on your PSP.

You may notice that the PSP shows a number of corrupt icons in the GAME menu, these can be hidden if you are using a custom firmware by entering the recovery menu (hard reboot of PSP while holding the Right-Shoulder button) and selecting the ‘hide corrupt icons’ option.

Most homebrew is installed in a similar fashion to the above. If the homebrew is written specifically for a firmware version, such as firmware 1.5, it will generally come with two folders, one with a % at the end. Copy both folders to the GAME folder (firmware 1.5 users) or GAME150 folder (custom firmware users). Homebrew written for other firmware versions may only come with one folder. In this scenario, try placing the folder in the specific firmware folder (GAME271/GAME302/GAME303), and if this doesn’t work, try the GAME150 folder, and then the GAME folder.

Sometimes installation is trial and error more than anything else, but if the homebrew has a readme.txt file, you should read this first to get some clues. Sometimes the readme can be misleading however, depending on your particular firmware version, so you may need to experiment.

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