Apparently we're on twitter too
The PRO team (the people behind the PRO Custom Firmware, probably the most popular piece of software of the PSP scene these days) are back with a huge release: a PSP CFW for the Vita, running on the recently revealed UNO exploit. Codename: ARK
If you’ve been using the UNO exploit, ARK is basically an alternative to Total_Noob’s CEF. At the core, ARK is a port of Pro CFW to the PS Vita, and seems to bring features that might be lacking in CEF. In particular, the Readme emphasizes the following:
Features
- PSX game support (soundless so far, our sound plugin is too glitchy for public use at the moment)
- ISO/CSO game support
- NoDRM Engine for decrypted dlc playback
- MS-SpeedBoost (most noticable on games like soul calibur)
- Stargate Game Patches (fixes several anti-cfw games)
- Customizable Main Menu
- Plugin support
- Recovery support
- ISO-cache support (speed up ISO gaming)
Some of you might remember a leak of some of Coldbird’s work a few months ago, which led him to leave the scene. ARK is the project that was leaked back then (although the leak was encrypted, and therefore not usable), and that the Pro team decided to release today. I assume the decision was taken a while ago, but porting the existing work to the new firmware 2.02 might have taken some time.
Although I haven’t tried this specific build, I was lucky enough to try early builds of the ARK project a few months ago, and overall I was impressed. Coldbird left the scene while he was in the middle of bringing sound support to PS1 games, so it is unclear if the sound plugin for PS1 will ever see the light of day, but independently of that, I am pretty sure ARK brings a nice new option to those of you looking for alternatives to CEF.
Credits for the ARK project are the following (from the readme):
- Dark_Alex for the initial M33 CFW who guided us mentally through several CFW generations by giving good examples on how to patch Sony OFW.
- VirtuousFlame: For the ISO Loading Code, Custom PSX EBOOT Support, PSPCipher and most of the CFW related code.
- Coldbird: For Proshell, and all his CFW related code & Vita redesign of PROCFW.
- Yosh: For the initial sceWlanGetEtherAddr leaked kxploit, yMenu, other kxploit related things and various pieces of code.
- thecobra & frostegater: For precisions about this kxploit.
- neur0n for his syscall execution in kernel mode, several bug fixes and other CFW related code.
- ardi for his umd4homebrew to enable UMD in homebrews.
- Zer01ne for the initial Uno exploit discovery.
- All our testers.
- And last but not least – Sony for making wonderful, however very locked down, portable gaming handhelds.
Download, install & use
You can download the files here. You’ll notice that one of the download links is “ad sponsored” (linkbucks). We offer alternate links, but the revenue from these ads go to the Pro team and help fund things such as the server for Prometheus online. Alternatively, the pro team has a donation link for those who want to show their support.
In order to install, just unzip the savedata matching your region to your CMA folder, and install the savedata using CMA, like you would install any other PSP savedata to your vita (more details in the readme). If you’re on Windows, we recommend to use OpenCMA when you copy files to and from your vita.
To run ARK, once you’ve installed the Savedata to your Vita, just run UNO, and press “X” when asked to do so by the game, this should load the eCFW menu.
Coldbird’s FTP for Vita is also a recommended tool to install once you’re all set, to make copying backups and homebrews easier.
As I said, I haven’t tested this build yet, so give the files a try, and post your comments here. In particular, I’m sure we’d all like to know how it compares to CEF 
Important note: This release requires that you are running on a PS Vita with firmware 2.02 or lower. It also requires you to have a legit copy of the PSP game UNO installed on your Vita. UNO has been removed from the PSN by Sony a few days ago, so if you missed the exploit announcement and don’t have the game on your Vita, you’re out of luck, this release will not help you in that case.
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So is this better than TN-C eCFW?
Like does it provide more features/ better stability/ game support etc?-
better stability, more games supported, takes advantage of the extra processing power available to the PSP emulator, which makes even CSO games load Ultra-fast!
It also gives me a feeling that the controls are more responsive than before (even more responsive than the PSP), it probably plays the games a bit faster than the PSP
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i tried every thing cwcheat not working
ms0:/PSP/SAVEDATA/NPUH10027DATA00/CWCHEAT.PRX
,1
ms0:/PSP/SAVEDATA/NPUH10027DATA00/ICHEAT.PRS,1
ms0:/PSP/SAVEDATA/NPUH10027DATA00/ICHEAT.PRS,1
ms0:/PSP/SAVEDATA/NPUH10027DATA00/TempAR/tempar.prx 1
ms0:/PSP/SAVEDATA/NPUH10027DATA00/TempAR/tempar.prx,1
ms0:/PSP/SAVEDATA/NPUH10027DATA00/TempAR/tempar.prx
ms0:/seplugins/cwcheat/cwcheatpops.prx,1-
all the non of Plugin works
can any one post txt for cwcheat-
ive tried everything too it just doesnt work on my vita
i even have the files just like my friend has it working on his and it still doesnt work …. this is insane
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you need to add what you want to plugin to work in..
like this,
umdemu,ms0:/seplugins/prxshot/prxshot.prx,on
game,ms0:/seplugins/prxshot/prxshot.prx,on
pops,ms0:/seplugins/prxshot/prxshot.prx,on
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Doesn’t work for me, gives me black screen and then error C1-2858-3.
Any idea here?
Got a vita with 2.02 and UNO EU Version, TN-C worked fine for me.
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Happened to me too, try deleting some homebrew and it worked for me.
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when i customized the main page, i added like 3 pics i wanted to use. it seems when it gets past like 2 pics, the screen goes black then starts at the main page again. when i also scroll to other areas, the 2nd or 3rd pic will show then the screen goes black then starts again at the main page. any ideas why? all of my pics are 480×272 and upper case for the extentions with the right BG_0.PNG, BG_1.JPG, and so on.
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I don’t think yMenu does JPG
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silly one how to return to the menu from psp game ? start doesnt work???
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L+R+START+DOWN
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If u are playing psx u will have to do quit the psp game “UNO” i cant use L+R+START+ Down it works in home-brew though
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you can exit PSone games by holding ur finger on the screen for a couple seconds then when the setting menu pops up just exit out and you will see the psp menu where you cane exit the game or change settings
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HeLLO! please i need some help! I usedd ark and i had an error c1-2858-3 , i installed it without open cma.
So,i deleted my UNO ,installed it again from PSN and put tn-c menu again with open cma , now i am back to TN Menu but when i put ARK it crashes,it shows me the loading thing but no menu appears! Please help! -
So is this better than TN-C eCFW?
Like does it provide more features/ better stability/ game support etc? o.o?-
Yes. It auto detects needed drivers for ISOs, faster loading no matter what your playing in any format, actual POPS PSX emulation (Exactly like PSP one with similar compatibility without sound… yet), and has its own recovery menu, so if it crashes you dont need to plug into a computer to fix anything. Just get it, theres no risk.
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Also, remember to return its Start+Both shoulder buttons (L+R)+Down on D-pad.
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cheers works very good
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Function to exit HB/ISO/CSO like holding START in CEF would be nice
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Sry havent seen im on COmment Page 2 L R START DOWN works thx
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This is cool… I wonder if this will allow improved compatibility with emulators. I haven’t yet been able to get Snes9xTYLmecm to work on the Vita. Perhaps this will do the trick.
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NOTE: In order to run Pre-installed ISO games you will need to start ARK in the recovery menu by holding R than pressing X while Still Holding R
you will continue to locate the ISO from the save data which you installed it into
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Press start to launch the game
this isnt the most convient way to load your pre-installed ISO games but it is effective you will have to close Ark to return to the recovery menu to get back to the game ISO Hope this helps!
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Also apparently you will eventually have the game in your ISO folder ha ha i’m writing this as I mess with its functions so this was my second load through the recovery menu and one-millionth time back in the ISO folder from the menu
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I don’t have to do that, I just do the same thing in yMenu, you do know that you can navigate to different folders in ymenu right?
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I posted this for people having the issue of the iso not showing up in the ISO folder in Y MENU you have nothing to be worried about ^^
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Hi – noob question here, how to add ISO game?
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You are going to want to put the ISO game into the save folder make sure it is uncompressed aka: not a zip or rar folder
and you want to make sure the game name is 1-8 letters everything in its title should be CAPS
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I’ve already done that, GAME.ISO — I placed it on the save folder then copied it on my VITA — but it is not appearing– do I need to do anything?
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Read my previous comment before you made yours I discussed its entirety of what your asking already
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thanks a bunch!!! i did not see your first post!
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‘Tis a joyous Sunday for me.Finally,the next step in eCfw.
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PSX compatiblity means no need of extra files for playing PSX files, and also mayor game compatibility?
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Well I couldn’t run Motorstorm Artic Edge PSP with the Total_Noobs CEF(Maybe I was doing something wrong) but I left it in my ISO Folder and it runs perfectly with this ARK CEF so thats better compatibility in my book so far!
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what about psp isos/csos like shinobido and/or undisputed , etc. ?
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a friend even gave me his seplugins folder just how he has it working on his vita his plugins.txt file just how he has it … all i had to do was copy it to my vita AND IT STILL DOESNT WORK my god i dont understand this plugins thing seriously …. crazyness
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Try using the ARK pymenu.
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Did you copy your seplugins folder to the same *place* listed in his plugins.txt file?
It’s really not hard to do this correctly. If all else fails, look at the examples in the readme.txt and make your own.
If you’re using a plugin on a PSP game, and that plugin is in the folder /PSP/SAVEDATA/NPEH00020DATA00/ on your vita, and the plugin’s file name is cwcheat.prx:
umdemu,ms0:/PSP/SAVEDATA/NPEH00020DATA00/cwcheat.prx,1
The same thing for a PS1 game, with cwcheatpops.prx, would be:
pops,ms0:/PSP/SAVEDATA/NPEH00020DATA00/cwcheatpops.prx
The no-spaces is important.
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hey,
so euhm i’m looking at a psplink2.0 file named 9402_psplink_V2.0.tar.bz2
and the question i have is how to configure it for TN-C and nethost
and how to setup the pc tools for itallso 1.0 1.5 or 1.5nocorrupt
as i’m clueless with nethost but could be wise
to load ur brew from the pc in u’r remote exploit o_0 ?.?thkx anyway
must try some ark now … ship it to the moon xD -
Man this cfw sucks, tried it out and id rather stay on tn, plugins dont work, installing games dont work, iso/cso installation dont work, psx dont work, the reason why it works is because those who already installed games using tn cfw are still there and playable, but using this cfw to install games is useless -.-, It’s a start Pro team, it still needs a lot of work and next time give some guidance in order to install games, plugins, iso/cso and psx, please
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will they gonna port it to Gravity Crash Exploits?
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Excellent news!
It’s good to see that the idiot troll guy did not defeat cb in the end, and his team went on to make this excellent ecfw.
I think as people learn the advantages of this, they’ll stop complaining.
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too many bugs on this..man what a let down..my frens & I will stick to TN..
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Please be more precise than “too many bugs”
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at least report them in the forums so that we can look for solutions
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hi, erm i would welcome complaints
as it gives us something to work on
or make better … im looking forward
for cef ecfw ark tn opportunitees
and progression in space time continiumas im still waiting and thinking witch
psplink compilation should work
on either tn cef ark or ecfwi bet nethost … but havent really tried yet
cyah -
seems like there’s a lot of issues and there’s no reason for me to switch to ARK so I’ll hold off for now
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I don’t think there are more issues than on CEF. When I tested ARK, it had overall better compatibility. People just need to get used to the different shortcuts, ways to install homebrews, etc…
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Yeah, it worked for me too.
Patapon 3 didn’t work at TN cef, but on ARK it was working.
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So say if I were to customize or see the settings for the menu, what buttons do I hit?
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no customizing at the moment
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psvita hacking is dead dint made full cfw so sony cheer up for that lol.
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We’re all waiting for your native hack, then
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having issues with this…
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that explains a lot
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Metal Slug Anthology/Complete always crashed on TN-C when selecting Metal Slug 6. Works great now on ARK.
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I hope this gets ported to older exploits like monster hunter!
Thanks pro team! -
Sorry to say so , but what in the hell does this offer xtra over TN ? no sound for PSX mabey an occoassinal game xtra that wil work now, no cpu speedup etcetra, ymenu looks better but its not really functional eihter , stick to TN !
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Lots of extra’s:
It DOES use the extra CPU power
It loads CSO VERY fast=ISO’s don’t have the advantage of being faster anymore
Better game compatability
We would have had PSX sound support if somebody (Sam Jordam) hadn’t leaked coldbird’s work and forced him to quit.
yMenu is quite functional, you just need to understand how to use it
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Not so didffiult i would say to understand the ymenu , but TN is far better
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and speedingup a cpu must be a choice , not al builtin function
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Can anyone tell me how to install ftp to vita with this? I’m completely lost :/
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Okay I figured it out, while on TN download ftp and install it then you can download things through FileZilla or another ftp application.
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Does..does this mean i can finally listen to flac on mah psp? D: D:
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derp, vita..was reading and typing ._.
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To be honest you are better off listening to mp3 320kbs on a mobile device because it saves space and is the same quality as flac on a mobile device.
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I got big bulky headphones i walk around with, though. D:
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Seems you have audiophile tendencies like I do, though like Jd8531 said its just best to downsample. I have semi decent headphones with a nice 40mm driver on them, so I prefer flac on go but usually I do it with my phone when I am not streaming Mp3s from my music server at home. If you have the HDD space, you should make an exact 1:1 copy of your music, one in FLAC, and one in a very high bitrate MP3. Myself I love the sound of V0 encoded Mp3s.
Sorry for the off topic rant. Going to try out Ark now and report some PSX compatibility in your thread Jd8531!
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Thanks! But yea EQ and a decent pair of headphones make a world of difference when listing. But I cant tell the difference between FLAC and MP3/AAC on an iphone or Vita except for a small amount on some albums.
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*Listening -_-
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Doesn’t work for me, gives me black screen and then error C1-2858-3
plz help -
Thank you for the release, yet the YS Seven still doesnt work and the CW cheat, the menu shows up but the cheats are blank..
Cheers
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can someone help me to get plugins to work? i dont understand how to get the pathing to work.
i got cwcheat in the seplugins folder in my ms0/psp and then wat? can someone post a file of how they got theirs working? -
i have no idea how to run an iso in my vita, i have try CAP the title of iso as TN do, but the game is not in the menu when i run ark, and i try hold r+x, but nothing happen, pls help
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use up and down to browse to your savedata folder and find the iso.
(I can’t believe that yMenu is supposed to be popular yet many people don’t seem to know about it)
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i tried, but still cant find the games, any other suggestion?
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The game name must be 1-8 letters all capital (CAPS1234.ISO) if it doesnt display in the YMENU try the recovery menu and launch it through that.
recovery menu (press x and hold R before ARK starts)
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I think there should be a way to get back to the main menu of the loader like total n00b’s menu, where you can choose how long you hold the start button to reload the main menu. <–If that makes any sense
it just gets annoying having to reload UNO any time.-
There is, L+R+START+DOWN
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lmaooo!!! why not more complicated?
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still have a few fingers left
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hahaha be careful what you wish for
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Because lots of emus already use the “simple” combinations to open their own menu, I assume
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Start + L + R + Dpad Down
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People SHOULD read before posting. The L+R+START+DOWN was said multiple times on the first page and several more on the 2nd.
PLUGINS DO WORK. Again go read the first page. I’ve posted how they work and also have a look at the original post then look at YOUR mistakes and try again. I’ve seen some obvious mistakes multiple times.
There are still a few questions not answered.
HOW do you customize the menu? It says its customizable but there isn’t a way that anyone has posted yet.
I’m after a way to show CSO/ISOs without hunting every time.
Is there a way to change the default folder? It should be ISO not the savegame folder OR have the ISOs show up like the other PSP/PSX games.If ISOs showed up in the list at the start this would be as good as CEF TN-C but as they dont show up its just annoying and that makes it not as good.
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I’m still betting there will be posts after this one asking for a way back to the menu from ISOs.
And a 2nd bet, there will be more “plugins dont work” posts too.
Who whats to bet against me?
LOL-
i dont really care. just want to know if games like shinobido or undisputed work on arc?
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Have you tried them yet?
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they dont work on tn. datz for sure.
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Challenge accepted.
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I’m guessing your a noob as they are working fine for me.
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shinobido and undisputed are working fine on arc ecfw?
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Psn store still has UNO up. Is this a copy we can buy and use for the ark exploit or is it patched?
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It is not patched (Sony don’t patch games, they patch firmwares), but this is surprising that it’s still up… what country are you in?
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Its not in the AUS/EU store.
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Its stupid as they have the ability to patch games and they do patch games so why don’t they just add the two together and release a patched game instead of releasing a whole firmware for 1 game?
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They don’t have the ability to patch games, since they don’t own the source code. I’m pretty sure it’s a contractual limitation. As far as I know, they have *never* patched a game over an exploit. I used to believe it had been the case for GTA, but they only actually patched the UMD to require the latest firmware at the time.
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They do. Go have a look at Little Big Planet for PSP. Its got about 5 updates for that 1 title.
They can easily enough put those updates into the game itself so they can patch it but they are stupid and patch the full firmware instead. Not the smart way to do things. What if the firmware bricks consoles?Its the same for PS3 games. Just about every game has at least 1 update and there is no reason why PSN games cant have the update already incorporated into it. Saves a lot of time and download.
I got a game the other day. It was 1.2GB and it has 3 1.5GB updates. BUT when its all finished its only 1.5 GB total. They should put all the patches together with the full game and release the 1 download.This goes for EVERY PSN title. They already have the game on their servers and they have the patches so just patch the game and there you go, saves downloads and saves releasing buggy useless firmware updates.
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Just coz they haven’t patched a game because of an exploit doesn’t mean they shouldnt start.
They can patch games so they should. Get the devs who made the game patch it. -
You say they can patch game, you have no proof of that. The patches you are talking about would be easily bypassed, by simply installing the game then turning the network off. I’m pretty sure they can’t force a third party dev to patch their games, by contract, or that has to be a limited request in time, which does not apply correctly for security patches.
They can probably have financial clauses if it is found an exploit was intentionally put there by the devs, or contractually say they will remove the game from the store, but I am pretty sure they have no way to force the devs to go back to their source code, years later, if another, easier way, is possible.
How about games for which the creators are not even there anymore, such as Motorstorm Arctic Edge? Do you think when a company goes bankrupt, they upload their source code to a place that would be convenient for commercial partners such as Sony to look at and fix?It is way much more cost effective to patch the firmwares, from Sony’s point of view.
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Hey guys i’m at a total loss on how to use this ARK exploit despite reading the directions and the posts in this thread. I have the exploit up and running, but cannot get FTP software to be recognized, or the ISOs i’m using.
Isn’t it just a matter of putting the files (with edited titles) in the savedata file, and then using CMA to copy them over? But I keep doing that, and nothing new shows up within the ARK exploit. PLEASE HELP! Totally lost.
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umdemu,ms0:/seplugins/cwcheat/cwcheat.prx,1 : this works for me with cwcheat. just add the above string to PLUGINS.TXT then place it in ARK SAVEDATA and make sure the path as in the string is correct
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How can I install PSPFiler on ARK? Just dropped PSPFILER.ZIP inside /ISO folder but when I press X it’s not ask to extract it like CEF does.
Thanks in advance!
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Forgot to tell: I move the file with FTP for Vita who was already installed before change from CEF to ARK.
Motorstorm Artic Edge was unable to run with CEF and now run smooth with ARK. Tried 4 ISOs and 1 CSO without succes, now It’s ok at first try.
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Made a mistake, a massive one, when trying to update. Didn’t realize minis get pulled from the cma transfer list. I feel like a complete moron, and now I have a worthless vita with games I can’t touch on it. Pretty angry…
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Will there be an Asia exploit available soon? Or is it just wishful thinking on my part? Q.Q
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This version has a terrible iso extractor.
It’s like extracting stuff with CMD line. urghhh, move your isos with CEF and replace files and launch with ARK.
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I’m with wololo with this one, but FTP takes so long though.
I agree the ISO accessing is more convenient on TN’s CEF, coz it made things more simpler for the Total Noobs out there and I feel ARK caters more for PRO’S(if I may)…with a readme with NOT MUCH tips/guidance… feel what i’m sayin’
I switch from TNs CEF to ARK for the Speed and more games compatibility.
I love’em both so I’m not choosing sides
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Wow…I just realized that in the main menu, pressing up will go back to the previous menu and I can now select the games from ISO folder.
Anyway, it can play the games really good. I used CEF TN before and it won’t work anymore since I accidentally transferred unpatched ISO games in the folder.
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