All posts by Freakler

Moin! Occasional programmer, number 2 here at hackinformer.com & creator of the PlayStationGuide. I mainly talk about console-hacking related stuff..
News, Playstation, PSP, Talking Point, Tech

PSP: Davee’s Infinity Firmware project in detail

Yesterday, Davee, the creator of the latest major exploit/hack release for the PlayStation Portable, published an explanational article to his hybrid firmware project on his blog.

After more than a year since Infinity’s initial release, Davee now invites us to not only “a brief history lesson” and “old magic” as he called it, but additionally to detailed information about his Giraffe Bug used to create Infinity and his view on the future of PSP hacking. His project is more than just some hack and especially for scene oldtimers this writeup will definitvely be worth a read and bring back some memories!

By abusing a bug in 6.31, 6.61 Infinity utilises a similar technique to the old 1.50 firmwares to provide an upto-date custom firmware for all devices, excluding the E1000 (so far). Infinity itself is not a custom firmware; instead it allows the flexibility for users to install any compatible custom firmware they wish. For convenience, Infinity includes built-in functionality for both PRO and ME.

But since I don’t want to spoiler too much I’ll just stop here and rather let Mr. Davee explain in his own words!

So go read for yourself: https://www.lolhax.org/2017/09/25/6-61-infinity-an-explanation/

 

The Future of Infinity

Although Davee’s main interest is no longer with the PSP he yet mentioned that he’ll be working again on a special bugfix release soon.

So let him know and make sure to leave some thanks for his awesome work!

 

Infinity WebSite: https://infinity.lolhax.org/

Infinity SourceCode: bitbucket.org

Follow Davee on twitter: @DaveeFTW

Jailbreaks, News, PS4 Homebrew

PS4: Backup loading and Homebrew finally possible!

3 Comments

Sounds too good to be true right? But as it seems it’s finally happening.. HOWEVER once again and for now it’s only for Firmware 1.76 owners only!

PS4 Backup loadingLast week Zecoxao released a payload for 1.76 owners to run any PS4 game backup that doesn’t require a higher firmware to start. For those of you following on twitter that might have seen similar tweets before; This time no test kits were used and after 2 years since the first native code execution on a retail console we finally have what everyone wants. A public release enabling piracy…

Of course the infamous pulled Silent Hills Demo is once again in action as you can see from GNFerreira ‘s video on youtube below.

PT playble on 1.76 retail Ps4

But whats even better in our opinion is Homebrew! Yes, so let’s see what comes out of this in a few months down the road!

So much for the teasing tweets…

Now, of course, this is no user-friendly release and due to the fact that there are not THAT many FW1.76 PS4 owners anymore + there’s not many games running under this quite low firmware, it’s rather a PoC still. Piracy was and still is the biggest topic when it comes to hacking a Home Console and it can be its doom or delight.

As we see it, this release won’t hurt Sony much but rather attract new people to the scene thanks to Zecoxao showing people that they are still alive and working on the PS4. Just like with the Vita and PS3 there is the ‘golden firmware‘ to be on: For the PS4 this firmware still is 1.76 and for everyone wanting to get their hands on one prepare yourself to pay some crazy prices on eBay!

PS4 Backup loading

While the method used for this might even work on the latest firmware, other hacks (some people might call it jailbreak) are needed to make it work first. So all we can do is hope for some brave hacker with the courage to publicly release something for a more recent firmware to find out.

So for everyone out there still hoping for a custom firmware you can see: Progress is made and everything is still moving in the right direction. Slowly but steady!

 

We will keep you informed…

HENkaku, News, PSVita/PSTV Homebrew

Vita: Major Adrenaline eCFW update now available!

Just now Developer TheFloW released the promised new version of his popular eCFW that can work without any activation.

Adrenaline

This Update will be the first one that will come in a Homebrew.VPK format! Not only will this release no longer require your Vita to be activated and have a PSP base-game installed but additionally the process of installing is a lot easier. The Adrenaline EasyInstaller will no longer be needed but instead, all you need to do is install the vpk like any other.

https://twitter.com/theflow0/status/904734513535778818

 

Changelog v6

  • Redesigned boot process. Adrenaline does now not require any basegame or activation anymore.

  • Added ‘uma0:’ to ‘Memory Stick Location’.

  • Added support for longer ISO filenames.

  • Fixed Memory Stick free space integer overflow in games like Outrun.

  • Fixed bug where ISO games did not show up when the folder ‘PSP/GAME’ was missing.

  • Improved core and fixed some small bugs.

 

You can get the new Version on TheFloW’s github page: Download here

(If you have been using a previous Adrenaline, please uninstall it before using Adrenaline 6 or higher. For 6.61 Adrenaline-4 or higher, you can use the ‘System Update’ in the XMB to update Adrenaline to the latest version.)

Update:

  • Fixed bug where CSO games froze up the system.

Download: Adrenaline.vpk

Enso, HENkaku, News, PSVita, PSVita/PSTV Homebrew, taiHENkaku, Talking Point

Vita: News about YifanLu’s psvsd project

After several months since its proof of concept, the first psvsd adapters not made by YifanLu himself are available on the internet!

What the hell are you talking about?

Okay okay, let’s start at the beginning: Before the whole SD2Vita hype that is going on currently, YifanLu himself started an indiegogo campaign regarding a custom board that you can simply switch out with the Fat Vita’s 3G adapter. Said board would have a Micro SD card slot on it and you can use any SD card on your HENkaku enabled Vita to never need to use any proprietary Sony memory cards ever again!

psvsd: microSD adapter for Vita 3G

Of course, this is for Vita 1000 with 3G only BUT its the best you can currently get since it will not block your GameCard Slot like with SD2Vita for example.

You can read up on everything here: https://yifan.lu/2017/08/22/psvsd-custom-vita-microsd-card-adapter/

Now the one and only problem with these boards was that the ‘small stock of a couple hundred’  yifan made was sold out within hours and a lot of people didn’t have a chance to get their hands on one.. until now.

 

Unofficial psvsd v2.1 boards

(psvsd adapters surfaced on aliexpress.com)

Now as no one tested these before, take this article as a fair warning. These are no ‘official’ adapters, they do not feature Team Molecue’s logo obviously and are on sale for about $10 currently. BUT we can say for sure they are based on Yifan’s design as he open-sourced the whole project. So at least technically they should work! However, just like the cheap SD2Vita adapters we already talked about, these might or might not work due to their quality.

Also since these adapters are limited to a small Vita owner base they, of course, are not as popular and easy-to-use as the SD2Vita ones. That’s why its quite interesting someone decided to make them anyway.

So in case, you missed out on YifanLu’s and you still want one this is your best option currently!

To the deal: Deal no longer available. Check out the HackInformer SD2VITA PLUS Adapters.

 

If you decided to get one please consider posting your experience in the comments! Thanks

HENkaku, Homebrew, News, PSVita/PSTV Homebrew

Vita: MLTactivator for offline activating on Firmware 3.60

4 Comments

Since PSN access and more importantly the ability to activate your PlayStation Vita is gone (as we reported last week), people are more or less out of luck to run anything on their deactivated devices.

Now yesterday there was an interesting release on the popular spanish forum daxhordes.org.

The homebrew MLTactivator by MiraLaTijera & Draqen is reported to work and can indeed offline activate a Vita or PlayStationTV.

Although I didn’t want to give this release as much attention on the blog I feel like there are some things to be mentioned due to its popularity. Not to offend anyone but if it sounds too good to be true.. well you get it.

The way this homebrew works is by setting up someone elses account and activation on your device. Looking back, this has been done before with “gamesharing” contents or “activating unlimited devices” and was praised as magical hacks by people you have never heard before. Once again no offense.

Now with MLTactivator the authors clearly stated how it works and it was confirmed by other scene members already. But I still feel like there needs to be a little bit more clarification about the risks coming with it, also due to the homebrew coming in spanish language only.

So here is the deal:

If you are on 3.60 and you are not activated (anymore), you can use MLTactivator, BUT

  • Never ever go online afterward as this will most probably result in an instant-ban!
  • Also, all your previous content will no longer work as it is tied to your account!
  • It was also reported that the app might automatically format your memory card in some cases!
  • and lastly the homebrew is closed source and we don’t exactly know what else it might do!

So with that in mind, use on your own risk!

 

And for those of you that are still activated:

Once again, BACK UP your tm0:/npdrm/act.dat to always be able to manually reactivate your device in case you are auto-deactivated by Sony!!!

 

Thanks for your time

Source: daxhordes

Coming Soon, GameBoy, News, Nintendo, Retro gaming, Tech

Hands on with Hyperkin’s Smartboy!

1 Comment

What started off as an April fools joke almost 2 years ago, is now a real product! With the SmartBoy you will be able to play your original GameBoy games with physical buttons on your personal Android mobile phone! The following will be a small review of what the final retail version can and will do!

A lot of people have been waiting for this a long time when Hyperkin decided to make their joke become a real product. Although the SmartBoy still isn’t officially released yet (planned about September 2017) Hyperkin was kind enough to provide us with a unit so let’s just get started!

Ahhh the nostalgia… And wow this thing really looks and feels so much like the original GameBoy from 1989! It even sounds exactly the same when pushing the buttons!!! (From what I can tell they used the very same Dpad button so no wonder)  That’s a really big plus already in terms of quality and details after holding the SmartBoy just for the very first time!

Additionally to the ‘normal’ buttons, there are even two shoulder buttons on the top! And on the back, you will have the big black button for adjusting the housing to make your phone fit and tighten it for playing. When pressing, the padded side panels will pop open by itself and you can decide between 4 positions depending on your phone!

In my case, I had to borrow a friend’s Galaxy S8 since the retail SmartBoy seems to be coming with a USB Type-C connector and not like the early development kits with an USB micro anymore. So a quite recent phone will be required if you want to experience the SmartBoy yourself!

 

So much for the Hardware, let’s play some games!

If you haven’t already, you’ll now need to download the following 2 apps from the Play store:

SmartBoySerial – used for the dumping process and communication to the SmartBoy

My OldBoy! Free – which is a normal GameBoy Emulator doing all the emulating obviously

 

Now once connected, the SmartBoy will be detected by the phone and needs a couple of seconds to be ready. So don’t panic!!! The upcoming dialog can and must be accepted with the SmartBoy buttons so that the phone allows access to the SmartBoy! (I have to say this can be quite confusing if you haven’t read the manual before like me 😛 ) But anyways, this will be a one-time thing so that’s fine!

After that, we can finally dust off those cartridges and plug them in!! Then pressing “Run Launch Software” will dump the ROM of your actual cartridge and temporarily save it to your phones sd card under “HyperkinSmartboySerial/smartboy.gb”  This will only take a couple of seconds.

From there we can use the standard Emulator to finally play our games with style! Simple as that!

What if I remove the cartridge while playing?

Well this is what Hyperkin has to say:

Note: Removing the cartridge from your SmartBoy will cause a notification to pop up on your screen regarding piracy. Re-inserting the cartridge will cause the notification to disappear and resume the game.

However, the temporary dump still exists and inserting any other game will make the pop-up disappear too. But the idea and intention is there and that’s good!

 

So can I dump my games library with this?

Well, yes theoretically this will allow you to easily create backups of all the GameBoy & GameBoy Color games you still have around! All you would need to do is copy the generated smartboy.gb file!

And that’s about it for the SmartBoy already! There really isn’t much to say about the emulation part as it is not part of the device itself but a standalone emulator, which works great already. I haven’t tested any other emulators but regards to Hyperkin they should work just fine too since the SmartBoy itself technically is nothing more than a USB keyboard.

 

Conclusion

I must say I’m really flattened by the quality and nostalgia it brought me. However as a longtime iPhone user this alone won’t make me switch my daily phone. BUT I’m definitively a little jealous now.. Well we all know about Apples policy with Emulators in their Store and addon devices, but Hyperkin already stated that they would look into it. Who knows what they might come up with! If they could make the cartridges playable without the whole dumping that might be okay for Apple but lets just be patient! I myself would love to see an iPhone version at least.

All in all Hyperkin already summed it up perfectly with this text on the back of the box..

The SmartBoy attaches to Android smartphones, turning your smartphone into a handheld gaming device. It is compatible with Game Boy and Gam Boy Color cartridges. Easy to install, just attach the SmartBoy to your Device, pop in your favourite game, and make your friends jealous. You’re welcome.

..and that’s really exactly what it does!  Hyperkin held all its promises! Nothing to add here 🙂

 

Official release date: September 2017

Big shout-out to Hyperkin! Thanks so much!

You can pre-order them from our partners at PlayAsia and use our coupon informer to save a few bucks.

pre-order Smart Boy $69.99

GameBoy, News, Reviews, Tech

Review: The BittBoy FC Mini Handheld

6 Comments

Review Time! The guys behind Team Revo have created a new portable clone console and were nice enough to send out a review unit to us again. This is the BittBoy!

Play games on the smallest NES/FC handheld.. anywhere, anytime.

The BittBoy surely isn’t that advanced like Revo’s GameBoy Advance clone console, the K101 you might have read about earlier, but it is more than enough to have some portable gaming fun for an unbeatable price like that! But one thing after the other;

The device comes in a nice reddish styled box together with a micro usb cable for charging and even a AV-out cable if you would want to connect it to your TV.

  • Colors: Blue, Red, White, Black & Yellow
  • Material: ABS
  • size at 6.8 x 9.9 x 1.3 cm
  • 2.2″ IPS Display screen
  • TV Output
  • Languages: English
  • Supports FamiCom/NES games
  • New only English version and no Chinese
  • 500mAh lithium battery
  • Weight: 200g

 

The ‘Hardware part’

When opening the box my very first thought was; ‘still a little bit bigger than I expected’ so of course the first thing I had to do was comparing it to my GameBoys. But I will get back to that later..

On the top we have the power switch, on the right side a volume wheel and on the bottom there is the USB charging port as well as the TV out port.

For the buttons they are okay, maybe a little loud and especially the D-Pad sometimes feels a little bit clumsy but all in all working just fine. I have to admit I had to smile a little bit when taking a closer look at the Start & Select buttons, as they feel exactly like they do on a real GameBoy. What I mean is that they aren’t as responsive as the rest and you sometimes aren’t sure if the pressure was enough to make them trigger. (If you owned a GameBoy before you know what I’m talking about!) Anyways, lets move on..

The lithium battery can be accessed easily at the back and actually is the exact same one used in a regular GameBoy Advance SP! So thats pretty nice if you want to have some extra batteries with you. Although one battery will have enough power for 2-3 hours of gaming.

Without a doubt the Nintendo GameBoy was one of the most successful portable consoles ever and has had a lot of clones with a striking design resemblance within the years. Well, so does the BittBoy, BUT here comes the plotwist: The BittBoy doesn’t run GameBoy Games! Thats right but it rather has 300 built-in NES classics, FamiCom and even some bootleg games.

Now as you may have noticed; Why is there a hole on the top which looks to be an SD card slot?! Sadly this one isn’t in use at all. (so don’t try to stick a card in there as it will just fall in the housing) It seems to be a left-over of some earlier plans Team Revo had in the first place with this design. So on the one hand you are bound to the pre-installed games but on the other you don’t need to get an additional SD card or prepare anything before being able to play anything. And in my opinion thats totally fine for an insta-fun-console on the go like the BittBoy. There are plenty other devices that can do the former and more.

Okay so much for the hardware, lets finally boot that thing up!

 

The ‘Software part’

After switching the powerbutton, it takes about 1 to 2 seconds to boot up and you will be instantly greeted with a nicely styled selection menu which even has background music! (its the Mighty Final Fall music from 1993 by the way)

To navigate you use up & down on the D-pad to select the game and left & right to turn to the next page. That makes a total of 30 pages with each 10 games for all the 300 build-in games. And there even is a small preview picture for every single game you have selected!

To load up the selected game you have to press Start and it will instantly be loaded and you are ready to rock!

While playing there is no delay with the buttons, emulation-lag, sound-problems or anything like that noticeable. However there are still some minor GFX glitches here and there and some games like Harry Potter won’t be emulated correctly at all. Hopefully this will be fixed in the future if it isn’t already.

Since the BittBoy is meant for portable gaming fun, the 2.2″ screen is once again sharp and bright (yes, even in the sun) and indeed still visible from all angles as advertised. And in case you want to annoy some people sitting next to you in the bus, the speaker can get EXTREMELY loud for a little device like that! 😀

I think all thats left is the TV out feature and all I can say is that it indeed works, although of course not in the best quality but still cool to have for whoever needs it.

If you want to exit a game again simply press the “R” labeled small button and you will be back at the main menu!

 

Conclusion

All in all the BittBoy is quite nice for all your retro needs on-the-go and does what was promised. However there are some things to remember and I think are worth mentioning:

For the games selected to be build-in I have to say, there are some duplicates, some really weird bootled games and some missing classics I was hoping for so that got me just a little bit disappointed at first. And regarding that left-over, unused, quite confusing SDCard Slot, some people could feel the need to stick in a card to try anyways. (which would then result in needing to screw open the whole thing to retrieve the card)

Also as nice as a TV out feature is it might’ve been a better idea to add a Headphone jack instead, considering the BittBoy is meant for portable usage. But that might just be me though.

However in hindsight to my very first thought I was wrong, the overall size of the device is just about right to have a good grip for a comfortable gaming experience and it still fits in you pocket just fine.

 

Pros

  • great bright screen
  • loud and clear speaker
  • removeable battery
  • charging indicator LED
  • TV Out feature

Cons

  • you can’t add or remove any games
  • no headphone jack
  • resetting doesn’t always work right away ( Just like the real thing. lol)

 

Now I hope you liked this small review and in case this got you interested in getting a BittBoy, you can do that via amazon or directly in their store under www.bittboy.com!

Big thanks to Team Revo of course for sending us this review unit! Until next time.. 🙂

Coming Soon, News, Retro gaming

RetroGaming: EverDrive-GB X series announced by KRIKzz

The Everdrive cards from KRIKzz are known to be the best of the best when it comes to Retro flashcards and after the big Everdrive GBA release last year, krikzz is back with some exciting news for all you portable retro freaks like me out there!

Yes thats right; Following the first Everdrive GameBoy release from 2014 there finally will be the typical X series with even more features!

You may be wondering why this is such big news then, right?! Well the biggest downside of the ‘original’ card from 2014 was that they were lacking a RealTimeClock feature which is needed for the Pokemon games for example. A lot of people wanted that feature badly and krikzz promised to take a look at some point..

Hi all (:
New carts for classic game boy/gbc coming soon. All carts will use PSRAM instead of flash, components with much more effective power consumption compared to current everdrive-gb, some cool features and new OS. All of this will coming with new EverDrive-GB X series.

Here are all the new features and details to the upcoming cards:

EverDrive-GB X7

  • Max ROM size: 8MByte
  • Max SAVE RAM size: 128KByte
  • Save States function and In-Game menu function.
  • Isolated RTC function. “Isolated” means that multiple games can use RTC without interference. Each game will have own copy of time.
  • Instant loading.
  • Low power consumption (approx 4x times less than original EverDrive-GB)
  • GameGenie cheat codes
  • Cart allow to return in menu without power off/on cycle.
  • Supported mappers: MBC1, MBC2, MBC3, MBC5
  • SDHC/SDXC support
  • Compatible with all systems which supports GB and GBC cartridges, including Super Game Boy
  • New OS. Now it more handy and fast. Supports up to 1000 files per folder.

EverDrive-GB X5

  • Same as X7 minus save states, in-game menu and RTC

EverDrive-GB X3

  • Same as X5 but rehired reboot in menu to save game progress stored in SRAM (Like Mega-X3 or ED64-V2.5)

 

Note: The original GameBoy Everdrive Cards will no longer be supported with updates!

Read more in KRIKzz’s official forum post over here: krikzz.com/forum/

 

to the EverDrive Shop

PSVita, theme

The prizes regarding our Custom Vita/PSTV Theme Contest just got a big upgrade thanks to Nzaki0716

Hey there everyone!

If you haven’t heard by now, we have an (another) custom theme contest for the Vita/PlayStationTV going on for quite some time now.. and already some pretty awesome themes entered in the release thread right here: forum.hackinformer.com

The reason of this post isn’t just a friendly reminder that the contest will end this week already, May the 31st, 2017! No..

We are happy to announce that the initial prices are almost DOUBLED thanks to the always generous @Nzaki0716 who threw in a total of $100 additional dollars for the contest!!!

We hope this will be enough reason for everyone to maybe start a new project this weekend or weekend and have some more awesome creations entered.

Here are some previews to new and already entered themes:

And here are the updated prices!

First place winner will receive a U.S. $80 PSN card.

Second place winner will receive a U.S. $50 PSN card.

Third place winner will receive a U.S. $30 PSN card.

Fourth place winner will receive a U.S. $10.00 PSN card.

Fifth place winner will receive a U.S. $3.00 PSN card.

 

So go ahead as there are still some days left to enter and remember you can even have three themes entered to triple your chance to win! Of course, as long as they haven’t been entered in any contest before! Enter now!

Now it would be unfair to simply extend the time to enter that close to the deadline unless you think we should give everyone an extra week to enter theirs in. Let us know in the comments below. If not then it will still end on May the 31st, 2017

Good luck to everyone and make sure to come back next month to leave your vote too!

Thanks for your time 🙂

~ Team Hackinformer

HENkaku, News, PSVita/PSTV Homebrew

PSVita: Adrenaline-2 eCFW update released!

3 Comments

Its March the 33rd (which has always been a special day in the PSP scene) and the goodies keep coming!

Adrenaline

For the 10th anniversary celebration of M33, The_FloW just released version 2 of his popular eCFW Adrenaline! Along with a couple of new graphical options we can now make use of the ur0: partition for content and all that with 64Mb of RAM unlocked!

Here is the full Changelog:

– Added 64MB RAM support for homebrews.
– Added ability to use the ‘ur0:’ partition as Memory Stick.
– Added Advanced AA filter (disable ‘Smooth Graphics’ for that filter).
– Added ability to change smooth graphics (GPU internal bilinear filter).
– Added ability to change screen size (2.0x, 1.75x, 1.5x, 1.25x, 1.0x).
– Fixed sound issue in ‘MotorStorm’ and some other games.
– Fixed bug where ‘ms0:/MUSIC’ and ‘ms0:/PICTURE’ were not found in XMB.
– Fixed bug where changing options in the official settings menu didn’t have any effect.

Download here for manual install: adrenaline_v2.zip

Download the EasyInstaller: Freakler

Source: github.com/TheOfficialFloW

 

News, PSP

10th Anniversary of M33

Its March the 33rd today and we celebrate the 10th Anniversay of Team M33!

But what is this?!

Former Team Member @Mathieulh announced it a couple days ago already..

..and today, after all these years, we finally got the promised source code of the legendary M33 Custom Firmware. Although the code has been reversed years ago already and almost all of todays CustomFirmwares are based on it, this is something special and let say ‘historical’.

And yes even the source code for the Despertar Del Cementario is fully available now! So in the end Dark_Alex kept his promise to release the source at one point!

Now lets see what todays devs can & will do with this gift! 🙂

Thanks for everything Team M33!

Jailbreaks, News, PlayStation 4, PS4 Homebrew

PS4: New Webkit Exploit PoC for FW 4.0x and below

1 Comment

Just a couple hours ago well-known iOS Jailbreaker @qwertyoruiop released a new Webkit Exploit PoC for the PS4! This one is supposed to work for firmware 4.0x and below only since Sony updated to WebKit core for all newer firmware.

Webkit Exploit

What does this mean for you as End-User?!

Well, basically you can test your very own PS4 if it is vulnerable to the Webkit exploit. If so this could be your entry point to ‘something greater’ in the future!

 

To test the WebKit Exploit yourself visit:

rce.party/ps4/

 

On success, you should see the following code returned.

And that’s all there is to it right now. As every so often this is more interesting for developers as of now.

So if you plan on hacking your PS4 at some point: don’t update (as always) and stay patient.

We’ll keep you informed.. 😉