I said a while ago that I wasn’t planning on ever changing the XMB icons on my PSP, but having seen the interest this modification has had, I thought I would give it a go and see what its all about.

Update: Please see this post : Icons Sets and Themes for a more upto date look at whats possible with the PSP XMB, and for the link to the RCO Icon Editor, which makes customising the XMB much easier.

The principle is straightfoward - if you’ve got a PSP with a firmware version that allows access to Flash0 (firmware 1.5, 2.71SE, 3.03OE etc), then you can customise your XMB icons by writing a new topmenu_plugin.rco file to the vsh/resource directory.

Note: At the moment, this does not work with custom firmware 3.10OE-A. Attempting to flash a topmenu_plugin.rco to a 3.10OE PSP will resultin a partial brick, that will require recovery via the recovery menu.

There are a number of applications that will write to flash0 for you, but my preferred method (on custom firmware 3.03OE-C) is to use the recovery menu and use the USB toggle under the advanced menu option. I will talk through this process in a moment.

First things first, heres an example of a PSP with a custom set of XMB icons. This is the Alienware themed icon set (author unknown), which I’ve included in the software download for this tutorial.

You will notice that there are only six icons changed from the above pictures - the settings, photo, music, video, game, and network icons. These are the only ones at present that are customisable in a straightforward manner.

To create the topmenu_plugin.rco file for writing to the flash0 on your PSP, you need to download the following:

Download: topmenu_plugin Creator (Includes the Alienware wallpaper).

Unzip the file and you should have a directory called topmenu-plugin-creator.

Browse to the directory and you will find 6 bmp files, named 1 to 6. These are the 6 individual icon files. Double click the start.cmd and it will generate a topmenu_plugin.rco file using the six bmp files. You will see a box appear with some text, this will confirm the topmenu_plugin.rco file has been generated (or not).

The DOS-box should have the following text at the bottom when it has completed:

soubory nalezeny
Kontrola velikosti ikon … hotovo
Prevod … hotovo
1 file(s) copied.
konec scriptu …

You should now have the topmenu_plugin.rco file in the directory containing the start.cmd and 6 bmp files.

To install the topmenu_plugin.rco on your PSP, you need to boot it up in recovery mode (3.03OE custom firmware users). Simply power off your PSP fully by holding the power switch up for 10 seconds, then turn it back on while holding the right shoulder button in.

You then select the advanced menu option, and then the Togle USB (flash0) option. You do need to have the USB cable plugged in and connected to your PC.

You will then be able to browse to the vsh/resource directory and replace the existing topmenu_plugin.rco with your newly generated topmenu_plugin.rco file. You may wish to backup your original topmenu_plugin.rco file before copying over the new file, in case you wish to return back to the orignal icons.

If you do not have access to the flash0 direct from a USB connection, you can use software such as X-Flash to write the topmenu_plugin.rco file for you.

Note: There is a (very) small danger of bricking your PSP doing this, as it does write to the PSP’s flash memory. Please be sure to follow the instructions carefully, and if you are not sure what you are doing, stop and ask someone.

Note: The Alienware Icons and wallpaper are used here in good faith, their original author is unknown at this time. If the original artist gets in touch, I will add full credit for his (or her) work.

You can make your own icons if you wish, they must be 8-bit, 64pixel by 64pixel bmp files. The first colour in the palette determines the transparency value. Software such as MS Paint should be sufficient to create an icon, although there are plenty of freeware icon creators if you wish to use something a little more advanced.

The six bmp files need to be named 1 to 6, and will be used in the following sequence :

• 1.bmp : Settings Icons
• 2.bmp : Photo Icon
• 3.bmp : Music Icon
• 4.bmp : Video Icon
• 5.bmp : Game Icon
• 6.bmp : Network Icon

You can also download the following file, which contains a number of XMB icon sets that can be used to create your own unique XMB look.

Download: XMB Icons

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