The ISOs are just another way to play games on a PSP. The standard ways to play games on the PSP are by using a UMD or through the Sony PlayStation store. However, with PSP ISOs, these present another way to play such emulator games with its included advantages of faster game speed and less memory use.
The Sony PlayStation Portable or PSP was a handheld game and multimedia entertainment console released between 2004 and 2005 in different parts of the world. Its TFT LCD screen came with 480 by 272 resolution which was 4.3 inches and came with in-built speakers as well as controls, an impressive graphics and WiFi connectivity. Its processing power was higher than that of the Nintendo DS, its major competitor. However, it was not as powerful as its full-size console mates, the PlayStation2 or the PlayStation 3, but its power was higher than that of the original Sony PlayStation game.
The PSP did also go through several generations over its 10-year lifespan. Later models were thinner and lighter with an improved display and a microphone. The PSP Go was released in 2009 was even larger with the PSP-E1000 released in 2011 much cheaper than initial model. The PSP was retired in 2014 with the Sony PlayStation Vita replacing it. This replacement was necessary at the time for Sony.
The PSP, like full-size PlayStation consoles could do much more than simply run games. However, unlike full-size PlayStation consoles, it could only play discs in the Universal Media Disc or UMD format, and this was also used to release certain movies and media content. The PSP could not play larger discs like CDs, DVDs, Blu-ray discs and much more. The console also featured a small port for the Sony Memory Stick Duo and Memory Stick Pro Duo media which allowed it to play video, audio and even still image content as well.
Every PSP model could play games from UMD discs with the exception of the PSP Go, which did not have a disc player. It was also possible to purchase games online and downloaded to the PSP from the Sony online PlayStation store and this method of game acquisition catered to the PSP Go. The other method of getting to play games was basically through the use of an ISO and this article is based on how to get the best out of using ISOs on the PSP.
An ISO is basically a disk image file which contains a PSP game. Usually, the size of the average PSP ISO file is around 1.5 GB. Furthermore, CSOs or Compressed ISOs are almost the same thing as an ISO but are just smaller in size. Some games may be a bit slow or laggy, but not quite slow enough to ruin gameplay. CSOs come highly recommended for anyone who has memory sticks that come with a small memory size like 1GB, or even anyone who has the intent to fit in more games on his memory stick as the average size for a CSO is around 600 MB or less.
PSP ISO files can be downloaded from many torrent sites. All you need to do is just enable a search for PSP with the name of the game you want. You will need to download a bittorrent client to open the torrent file. It could take up to a day to download a torrent a file as the file size may be huge, while others may take a shorter time when there are more seeders.
To be able to run ISO files on the PSP with firmware version 1.50, there are a few steps you could follow if using UMD emulator. These are highlighted below;
- Firstly, install the UMD Emulator using instructions that are available in the readme file.
- Then, you have to make a new folder in the memory stick root and call it ISO.
- Ensure you put the ISO game file into the folder, ISO, which you just created.
- You can go ahead to unplug your MS while ensuring that there is a UMD in the PSP Disk Drive.
- Then, you can start the UMD Emulator and System load the ISO.
- Then, you can start Devhook, and proceed to run the ISO.
In another vein, to be able to run ISO files on Custom Firmware, the steps are different from those highlighted above. The steps are as follows;
- Firstly, you connect your PSP to the PC with the use of a USB cable.
- You then insert the ISO file in the ISO folder of your memory stick.
- You can then disconnect your PSP from your PC and then fully shut down the PSP. You can shut it down when you hold down the power switch for a period of 7 seconds.
- Then, you can go ahead to boot the PC into recovery mode. This can be done when you hold down the R button while you start up the PSP.
- Proceed to Configuration on the recovery menu and then, change the game folder home to the 1.5 kernel.
- Then ensure the UMD Mode is changed to No UMD, and then return to the main menu.
- Then, go to advance and sequentially advance configuration. After this, ensure you enable plain modules in UMD/ISO and Disable the option to Execute Boot.Bin in UMD/ISO.
- Then, return to the main menu and click exit
- Click on the ISO file on the memory stick after you have gone in the XMB and located game.
Even with the above steps, people have still struggled with how best to make an ISO image of their PSP UMD and then have it run right off a memory stick. Some advantages of this is that it does help resolve any space issues and ensures the games can run faster.
