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Minor updates, add information about legacy edition, add drafts folder
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124 changes: 62 additions & 62 deletions docs/getting-started/dumping-games.md
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---
position: 4
---
# Dumping UMD games

To read a game disc into an ISO is called "dumping" for historical reasons - it's old computer lingo for copying every single bit of a medium to a file, for archival storage or other use.

## Prerequisites

- A PSP with custom firmware.
- A PC or other device with a USB port that can copy files through it
- A USB cable with a USB-Mini connector (to fit the PSP).

## Steps

1. Insert the UMD into your PSP.
1. Connect your PSP to your PC with a USB cable.
1. At the PSP main menu, press Select. In the menu that pops up (only on Custom Firmware), choose to UMD as USB Device.
1. Still in the PSP menu, choose USB Connection in the Settings menu (to the left).
1. On your PC, a folder will open automatically, containing a virtual ISO file representing the disc contents. To copy the game to your PC, simply drag this file to somewhere on your hard drive and the copy will start. When the copy is done, rename the file to the name of the game, and it's ready for use.

## Compressed ISO formats

PPSSPP can play files directly from these formats without decompressing them first, which makes them much more practical than keeping your ISOs files in .ZIP or .RAR archives.

### CSO

CSO is the oldest and most well-tested compressed ISO format for PSP, and it's compatible with various custom firmwares for the real PSP, so the files are playable from a memory stick on hardware. It has a good compression ratio, performs very well in PPSSPP, practically as fast or faster than ISO, depending on how slow the drive is you're reading from.

The best tool to compress tools to CSO is [maxcso](https://github.com/unknownbrackets/maxcso/releases) by \[Unknown\].

### CHD

CHD is supported from PPSSPP 1.17, and stands for Compressed Hard Drive. It's MAME's format, originally made for archiving arcade game hard drives, but later repurposed for disc-based systems. It has a slightly better compression ratio than CSO, but to perform properly, PSP ISOs need to be compressed to CHD in the DVD mode (`createdvd`), and with 2048-byte "hunk" (sector) size. Other sector sizes may get better support in the future.

The tool to create CHD files is called `chdman` and is distributed with [MAME](https://www.mamedev.org/release.php). You want to use a recent version to compress PSP ISOs.

Here's the command line for compressing a PSP ISO to CHD with chdman, once you have acquired the tool:

```sh
chdman createdvd -hs 2048 -i game.iso -o game.chd
```

Just replace "game" with the name of your iso file.

PPSSPP 1.17.1 also supports an additional mode, using zstd for compression, which might perform slightly better:

```sh
chdman createdvd -hs 2048 -i game.iso -o game.chd -c zstd
```

IMPORTANT! DO NOT use the `createcd` or `createraw` commands. `createdvd` is what you want to use.

If you want to turn your .chd back into an ISO file, here's the command:

```sh
chdman extractdvd -hs 2048 -i game.chd -o game.iso
```

## Digital downloads

If you have digital downloads on your real PSP, they can be used directly on PPSSPP. Just copy the `EBOOT.PBP` over. Note that this has not been tested as much as ISO loading so there may still be issues with some games.
---
position: 4
---
# Dumping UMD games

To read a game disc into an ISO is called "dumping" for historical reasons - it's old computer lingo for copying every single bit of a medium to a file, for archival storage or other use.

## Prerequisites

- A PSP with custom firmware.
- A PC or other device with a USB port that can copy files through it
- A USB cable with a USB-Mini connector (to fit the PSP).

## Steps

1. Insert the UMD into your PSP.
1. Connect your PSP to your PC with a USB cable.
1. At the PSP main menu, press Select. In the menu that pops up (only on Custom Firmware), choose to UMD as USB Device.
1. Still in the PSP menu, choose USB Connection in the Settings menu (to the left).
1. On your PC, a folder will open automatically, containing a virtual ISO file representing the disc contents. To copy the game to your PC, simply drag this file to somewhere on your hard drive and the copy will start. When the copy is done, rename the file to the name of the game, and it's ready for use.

## Compressed ISO formats

PPSSPP can play files directly from these formats without decompressing them first, which makes them much more practical than keeping your ISOs files in .ZIP or .RAR archives.

### CSO

CSO is the oldest and most well-tested compressed ISO format for PSP, and it's compatible with various custom firmwares for the real PSP, so the files are playable from a memory stick on hardware. It has a good compression ratio, performs very well in PPSSPP, practically as fast or faster than ISO, depending on how slow the drive is you're reading from.

The best tool to compress tools to CSO is [maxcso](https://github.com/unknownbrackets/maxcso/releases) by \[Unknown\].

### CHD

CHD is supported from PPSSPP 1.17, and stands for Compressed Hard Drive. It's MAME's format, originally made for archiving arcade game hard drives, but later repurposed for disc-based systems. It has a slightly better compression ratio than CSO, but to perform properly, PSP ISOs need to be compressed to CHD in the DVD mode (`createdvd`), and with 2048-byte "hunk" (sector) size. Other sector sizes may get better support in the future.

The tool to create CHD files is called `chdman` and is distributed with [MAME](https://www.mamedev.org/release.php). You want to use a recent version to compress PSP ISOs.

Here's the command line for compressing a PSP ISO to CHD with chdman, once you have acquired the tool:

```sh
chdman createdvd -hs 2048 -i game.iso -o game.chd
```

Just replace "game" with the name of your iso file.

PPSSPP 1.17.1 also supports an additional mode, using zstd for compression, which might perform slightly better:

```sh
chdman createdvd -hs 2048 -i game.iso -o game.chd -c zstd
```

Preferably, don't use the `createcd` or `createraw` commands. `createdvd` is what you want to use for best performance.

If you want to turn your .chd back into an ISO file, here's the command:

```sh
chdman extractdvd -hs 2048 -i game.chd -o game.iso
```

## Digital downloads

If you have digital downloads on your real PSP, they can be used directly on PPSSPP. Just copy the `EBOOT.PBP` over. Note that this has not been tested as much as ISO loading so there may still be issues with some games.
13 changes: 13 additions & 0 deletions docs/reference/legacy-edition.md
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# PPSSPP Legacy Edition for Android

![Create a new folder](/static/img/platform/ppsspp-icon-legacy.png)

The new PPSSPP Legacy Edition is the same as a regular PPSSPP build, except it has been built specifying an old target Android SDK version (29, specifically).

This means that it's not affected by the Scoped Storage requirement of Android 11+, meaning that it can work without a folder browser app being available on your device, which helps on Android TV devices.

When you install it, you may be asked to confirm that you really want to install it, since this app does not live up to modern Android security requirements. This is fine.

However, PPSSPP built this way cannot be uploaded to the Play Store due to Google's restrictions, and must be side-loaded.

The Legacy Edition can be build from source code using the gradle command assembleLegacyOptimized. Alternatively, the [buildbot](/devbuilds) will soon build it for you.
2 changes: 1 addition & 1 deletion docs/troubleshooting/cant-pick-folder.md
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Expand Up @@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ Then, either your device is missing a folder picker entirely (which is unlikely

### Android TV

If you have an Android TV and are getting this message, you may be out of luck for now since many ship without a proper file browser app. I'm considering making a special build for these older TVs that target andolder API version. This will need to be side-loaded over USB.
If you have an Android TV and are getting this message, you may be out of luck for now since many ship without a proper file browser app. I'm considering making a special build for these older TVs that target an olde Android API version. This will need to be side-loaded over USB.

### Android phones and other devices

Expand Down
4 changes: 2 additions & 2 deletions docs/troubleshooting/ppsspp-keeps-crashing.md
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Expand Up @@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ Otherwise, try turning off (in order):
* Enable cheats (under System)
* Enable networking/WLAN (under Network)
* Fast memory (under System)
* Locked CPU clock speed (under System)
* Change CPU Clock speed (under System)
* Retain changed textures (under Graphics)
* Disable slow framebuffer effects (under Graphics - uncheck it to turn off disabling)
* Anything under hacks in Audio or Graphics
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -97,4 +97,4 @@ To do this:
AudioBackend = 1
```

After this, you should be using DirectSound (that's what 1 means) for your audio.
After this, you should be using DirectSound (that's what 1 means) for your audio.
3 changes: 3 additions & 0 deletions drafts/README.md
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# Drafts

Files in this folder are not published. Use as scratchpad for future blog posts.
24 changes: 24 additions & 0 deletions drafts/app-store-connect-woes.md
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# App Store Connect - the good, the bad and the ugly

Having published an app on Android for many years now, and finally being able to put it on the iOS App Store, I've had to learn the ropes of iOS app publishing.

It turns out, not very surprisingly, that some things are nicer than on Android, some things are worse than on Android, and some things are just absolutely terrible in comparison.

Here are some comparisons.

## Uploading the app

iOS: Easy peasy from XCode, but nigh-impossible from the command line.
Android: The web interface is smooth these days, though I wish it would stop nagging me about changelogs. There is an API which I have not yet tried out.

## Financial reporting

Android provides nice CSV files that you can extract the necessary information from (to do accurate accounting), and you can get these over a convenient API.

Apple, however, doesn't even expose the most important report (the payment report) through the API at all! You HAVE to log in to Connect and manually download it!

## App Store review

App Store Review is by far the worst experience I've ever had in all of my computing history. It's like talking to a brick wall that only replies once a day, if you're lucky.

It was a hercuelean effort just to get my two apps (PPSSPP Free and Gold) reviewed, then for a while the free version was suspended due to a non-existent issue, but then I thought the coast was clear and I could just focus on features and bugfixes, instead of App Store regularatory details. Oh, how wrong I was. Suddenly, on the third bugfix update, the Gold version got really badly stuck in review.
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