In this article series I'm going to show you how to install PS1 games on a softmodded PSP and review two of them, Ghost in the Shell and Doom! Part 1 will focus on single track games like Ghost in the Shell, since those are the easiest ones to install. Part 2 will cover multi-track games like Doom. In both parts, I'll quickly showcase the games too!
I'm going to be doing this on a PSP already modded with custom firmware. I would make an article about modding my PSP, but it was already modded when I bought it -_-
BIN/CUE?!
PS1 games were distributed on CDs. The most common CD image format, ISO, works great for computer data discs, but it's not enough for many PS1 games which store music on tracks after the first track. Ripping a game like that into an ISO would end up with it being stripped of its soundtrack.
For that reason, PS1 games are usually ripped into the BIN/CUE format, which consists of a BIN file for every track and a single CUE file, which is a text file with information about the tracks. This way, both the code track and the music tracks are preserved.
PSX2PSP
The PSP's firmware has a builtin PS1 emulator, which stores PS1 games as PBP files. To convert a game from BIN/CUE to PBP, we'll be using the tool PSX2PSP, which you can get at https://gbatemp.net/download/psx2psp.9588/. PSX2PSP was made for Windows and should run on Windows XP and newer. If you're using Linux, you can launch it with Wine.
PSX2PSP asks on opening if we want a themed or non-themed UI. I like the non-themed UI, as I find it more straightforward. It looks like this:
(image)
That's a lot of buttons and selections! What are we meant to do with this?
Single BIN file games
The first game I'm going to install on my PSP is Ghost in the Shell, which only has a single BIN file. PSX2PSP is easier to use in this case than with games that have multiple BIN files.
First, we press the three dots next to the "ISO/PBP File" dropdown, go to the directory of our BIN/CUE files and select our only BIN file:
(image)
After pressing "Open", the game title and ID will most likely be automatically filled in by PSX2PSP. This is the case for me too:
(image)
Now we click on the three dots next to "Output PBP folder", create an empty folder and select it:
(image)
I named my empty folder "gits" (short for Ghost in the Shell). In this folder, PSX2PSP will output the files we'll copy to the PSP later.
The "Icon image" dropdown lets us set the image the PSP will show on the game icon. The obvious choice is the game's cover. Covers can be downloaded from the PlayStation Data Center at https://psxdatacenter.com/ntsc-u_list.html. The icon image should be 80x80.
The "Background image" dropdown allows selecting an image which will display on the full screen when we select the game. The background image should be 480x272. I'm going to use this gameplay screenshot:
(image)
That's right, you get to operate a Fuchikoma in this game!! I'll talk more about the game itself later, as for now I'm showing how to use PSX2PSP.