NJ, the author of the PSP Neogeo CD and MVS emulators, is at it again! He has release an emulator for Capcom's Play System 1 arcade hardware. This is only an alpha so don't expect too much from it. My quick test of four games (1941.zip, 1941j.zip, strider.zip and unsquad.zip) went off with absolutely no problems. According to the readme QSound doesn't work at the moment but, since it's alpha test NJ might have it implemented in the next version.

Via: DCEmu (Download and Compatibility List)

This morning I noticed that an update to the PSP port of the WINUAE Amiga emulator was released. I've used the Windows version of WINUAE so I figured I might as well give the PSP version a try. The emulator does not come with the Amiga Kickstart ROMs needed to boot the emulator but, with some good Google searching you should have no problem tracking them down. Take a look at the emulators readme for details. The archive I downloaded from DCEmu did not have the STATE or DISKS directories only files with the same names. Since you need those directories for disk files and save states I deleted the files and created the directories.

Not wanting to bother tracking down Amiga games I decided to head directly to Pouet Dot Net and download the first Amiga cracktro that caught my eye. I ended up with The Immortal by Paradox. WINUAE expects the file images to end in a .ADF (Amiga Disk File) extension which the files on Pouet do not include so you'll have to add it yourself. After spending a good hour trying different settings I finally got it to run at almost acceptable speeds. I was using Kickstart ROM v3.1 for the A1200 (for anyone interested it's CRC is 1483A091). My other settings were as follows:

Frameskip: Auto
CPU Type: 68020
Fastmem Size: 0kb
Chipmem Size: 2048kb
Bogomem Size: 2048kb
Sound Emulation: normal
Stero: mono
Kickstart: 3.1

I messed around with changing the Fastmem setting but it didn't seem to do much in the way of improving the emulation. So far I would have to say that the emulator isn't quite good enough for general use. Cheers to Ric for the great work on this port.

*Update*

I forgot to mention, when exiting the emulator do it through the options menu.  Exiting via the PSP's home button doesn't seem to work. 

MaxConsole is reporting that Booster has updated his DevHook program to v0.45. The new update incudes the ability to launch homebrew direct from the emulated 2.71 firmware.  Meaning you can enjoy the use of 2.71 "almost" full time.  Check out the MaxConsole forums for the latest!

Download from MaxConsole

Blue2k and the Artillery Shell team have released an update of the PSP shell known as, Artillery Shell: Live Fire! I took some time today to load it onto my 1.5 PSP to give it a few laps around the track. Overall, it is a fine application. It includes everything you could want from a shell, there is an MP3 player, a picture viewer, and of course a launcher for homebrew and UMD. And unlike the default PSP shell, you can activate USB mode and still use the system. During my testing, I only noticed a couple of small things annoyances. The first was with the MP3 player, if you have your files in subdirectories, the shell would crash. The second thing I did not like was the fact that icons do not save their positions. They show up in their default locations. Not that big of a deal considering the effort the team has put in. If you have a 1.5 PSP and have never tried a replacement shell, I suggest you check this one out.