PSPExp user manual
Your PSP becomes a games console again. PSPExp turns a Sony PSP into the screen, the controls and the speakers of a small computer: a Raspberry Pi, a ClockworkPi GameShell or an Onion Omega2+. The board runs the games; the PSP draws them with its own graphics chip, plays their sound and sends back every button you press. One USB cable is all it takes.
What you get on the PSP:
- A launcher made for the PSP's screen: games, emulated systems, apps and settings, with covers, favourites and search.
- Games the PSP never had: Celeste 64 (the 3D Celeste, on a Pi), Unreal Tournament (on a Pi), Doom (Freedoom), Quake, Quake II (demo), Luanti (Minetest, on a Pi), Lugaru HD, AssaultCube (online), Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory (online or against bots, on a Pi), Diablo (the shareware, or your own full game, on a Pi), Warcraft: Orcs & Humans and Warcraft II (your own copy's data), Command & Conquer and Red Alert (also on OpenRA, online, on a Pi), Sonic Robo Blast 2 (3D Sonic), SRB2Kart (Sonic kart racing, online), Cave Story, Dink Smallwood, The Ur-Quan Masters (Star Control II), Hurrican, Egoboo, Zelda: Mystery of Solarus DX, SuperTux, OpenTyrian, Simutrans, OpenTTD, the RPGs Alter A.I.L.A. Genesis and Theia: The Crimson Eclipse, classic Revolution adventures and more, installed from the Packages app in a couple of presses.
- Emulators: NES, SNES, Mega Drive, Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, Atari Lynx, WonderSwan. Put your ROMs on the board and they show up with box art.
- Music: an app with folders, a queue, shuffle and repeat, playing on behind everything else; MP3s are decoded by the PSP itself.
- Bluetooth headphones, on boards that have Bluetooth.
- A file manager that reaches both the board and the PSP's memory stick.
- A real terminal: the board's Linux shell on the PSP, typed on an on-screen keyboard.
It runs on the original PSP-1000 (tested) and needs custom firmware, since it uses a small kernel driver for the USB link.
Which board?
| Raspberry Pi | ClockworkPi GameShell | Onion Omega2+ | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | the most games, the smoothest play | a handheld pair: the PSP on top of a pocket console | the smallest, cheapest setup |
| Games | all 58 packages, OpenGL and 3D games (Quake, OpenArena) included, and the ones drawn by the Pi's own graphics chip (SuperTuxKart, Celeste 64, Nintendo 64, Unreal Tournament and more) | 47 packages: not the nine drawn by the Pi's graphics chip, nor Diablo and Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory; heavy 3D slower | 12 packages: Doom, OpenTyrian, Cave Story, Jazz Jackrabbit, the adventures, NES, Game Boy, SNES, Mega Drive |
| Bluetooth headphones | yes (Pi 400 tested) | yes (tried with earbuds) | no |
| Setting up | flash a card image (or add PSPExp to Raspberry Pi OS) | flash a card image | build and install from a computer (for tinkerers, for now) |
| Guide | Raspberry Pi | GameShell | Omega2+ |
Every board shows the same launcher on the PSP and plays the same way; only the setup and the list of packages differ.
Getting started
- Prepare the PSP: custom firmware and the PSPExp app, once.
- Set up your board: Raspberry Pi, GameShell or Omega2+.
- Start PSPExp on the PSP, plug in the USB cable, and the launcher appears.
- Using PSPExp: the launcher, packages, emulators, files, music, Bluetooth and the terminal.
The downloads (the PSP's files and the card images) are on PSPExp's Releases page, one release holding them all; the games come from PSPExp's package repository. Everything can also be built from this repository with the scripts the guides name.
When something goes wrong
| What you see | What to do |
|---|---|
| The PSP says "waiting for host" | Check the USB cable (a data cable, not a charge-only one) and that the board is on. The board's console starts by itself at boot; give it a minute after power-on. |
| PSPExp does not start from the XMB | Custom firmware is not running (on many PSPs it must be re-enabled after a full power-off). |
| A game froze or will not quit | Hold START + SELECT: after a second the game is asked to quit, after two it is ended, and the launcher comes back. |
| The PSP itself is stuck | Hold HOME for 2 seconds to leave PSPExp. |
| No sound | Settings > Sound: is it on Bluetooth headphones that are not with you? Choose The PSP. |
| The launcher offers "Update the PSP" or "Restart PSPExp" | A newer version was installed: choose it, it takes seconds. |
More: the cheatsheet for command-line use, and the other documents for how it all works and how to build it.