VHBL For Arcade Darts, Arcade Airhockey & Bowling, Arcade Pool (& Snooker), & World of Pool

What is it?

Vita Half-Byte Loader is a homebrew loader for the Playstation Vita, running through the PSP emulator on the Playstation Vita.

This is the official VHBL download page for people who own a copy of one of the following PSP Games Arcade Darts, Arcade Airhockey & Bowling, Arcade Pool (& Snooker), or World of Pool, and a firmware 2.60 or lower. If you don’t own one of these game, or have a higher firmware, go back to the VHBL page to see if we have a version of VHBL working with a game you own.

Check the VHBL page for more details on this tool.

Downloads




Choose the file that matches your game and your region:

Sources

Known issues

Not all homebrews will work with VHBL, head over to the gigantic VHBL Homebrew thread for details on what games work or not.

There is a bug with the default menu (wMenu) which might tell you with a red screen, something along the lines of:”Error! Couldn’t find any homebrews in ms0:/PSP/VHBL/ Please check your config file and/or restart VHBL”

If you see this error, don't freak out, just press LEFT TRIGGER

If you see this error, don’t freak out, just press LEFT TRIGGER

This is a known issue, and happens only as long as you don’t have any homebrew installed. To get rid of this error message, press the LEFT TRIGGER on your console, this will force wMenu to go to the SAVEDATA subfolder.

The issue is a simple one but I was too lazy to fix that. People with the right coding skills might want to have a look at the source of wMenu here and send me a patch.

alternatively, you can give a try to an other menu such as 138Menu here

How to Install and Run HBL on the Arcade exploits

  • It is *strongly* recommended that you turn of all wireless connections on your PS Vita, and that you use OpenCMA on your PC instead of the regular CMA. This is recommended because otherwise your console has a way to force you to upgrade the firmware even before you get a chance to use the exploit.
  • Extract the HBL archive matching your version of the game in your CMA PSP Savedata folder. It is a folder on your PC named PSSAVEDATA/[lots of random characters here]. If you don’t know where it is, check your settings in CMA
  • Connect your PS Vita to the PC through the CMA, it should give you the possibility to copy the savedata from your PC to the Vita. If not, you probably extracted it in the wrong folder. (Note: You will also want to install some homebrews with a similar technique, read the section below)
  • To run HBL, start the game, then load your savegame, and go to profile-> alter name (except for Arcade Darts where that step is not necessary). At this point, VHBL should start

How to Install and Run Homebrews

Installing homebrews on the PSP was an easy task. On the Vita, until better solutions are provided, it’s quite a pain in the ***.
The CMA will only let you copy savedata, and will not recursively browse folders.

To address this, HBL comes with a tool that can extract archives with a specific structure.

Packaging the homebrew for installation on the Vita:
1) download PSP homebrews from your favorite website
2) extract the homebrew somewhere on your hard drive, and with your favorite utility, zip it again with the store setting (no compression), in a file that you will name “INSTALL.ZIP” (uppercase is important). If your compression tool does not have compression options, I recommend 7zip.
3) take any PSP savedata (but not the one used for HBL!), and add the “INSTALL.ZIP” to that folder, in your PC CMA folder. so your PSP Savedata will look something like this:
in folder PSSAVEDATA/1a2b3c4def5678/UCUS12345000/ (or something like this) you will have the following files:
– ICON0.PNG
– PIC1.PNG
– DATA.BIN
– PARAMS.SFO
– INSTALL.ZIP

On this page you will find several pre-packaged homebrews that have already been prepared to run with VHBL.

Installing:
1) run OpenCMA on your PC, and CMA on your Vita
2) copy the previously packaged SAVEDATA (see above) with your homebrew in “INSTALL.ZIP” on your Vita
3) run HBL (how to run HBL is explained in the previous section)
4) navigate with the HBL menu to the SAVEDATA folder, then go to the folder you just downloaded (in my example, UCUS12345000), and click cross or circle on it
5) At this point, the HBL menu should ask you if you want to install the homebrew. select yes, and wait until HBL is done extracting your homebrew
6) The homebrew is now installed, and you can run it by going to the VHBL folder, if everything went well, a new subfolder with your homebrew has been created here, and you can run the homebrew

Need more help? Check our forums for more downloads and tutos

Older versions

Older revisions of this VHBL port and more download links can be found on our Downloads page, here.

More

OpenCMA is strongly recommended to install if you want to use VHBL. Open CMA is a tool by Virtuous Flame that allows you to copy files from and to your vita without being connected to the internet. This is useful, especially if you don’t want Sony to forcefully update your firmware.

Looking for homebrews that run on VHBL? Check this thread with dozens of tested and pre-packaged homebrews.

68 Responses

  1. julian says:

    I have “Arcade Darts” in bubble (in the PS3) but i can´t transfer it to my PSV. I´m in 2.12 with Gamocracy xploit. I must Update or not?

    Tengo arcade darts en la burbuja (en el ps3)pero no puedo pasarlo a mi PSV. Actualmente tengo el exploit Gamocracy y aun estoy en 2.10. Debo actualizar o no?

  2. Trek says:

    Staff could help me? ‘m not doing it!
    Where I use the source? And how do I use it? Mini that I have is the Arcade Airhockey. I downloaded the file, copy the save folder and added the menu 138. Just do this? how to add a PSP emulator? I can not add any emulator through this tutorial.

    I hope you can help me I’m new here and not quite understand. thank you

  3. Bossman says:

    I understand perfectly how to get emulators and everything else onto the vita, but I have a problem with the VHBL. I have the arcade airhockey and bowling, so I downloaded the appropriate file from here, saved it onto my pc, extracted it, and moved the extracted file into the PSAVEDATA file along with my snes9x emulator file.
    When I go into CMA on my vita, the VHBL file is show as a corrupt file, but the SNES9X is fine.
    What am I doing wrong?

  4. tito says:

    i cant find the games on psn

    • mmm says:

      They were removed from the Playstation store. If you don’t have any of the games already, then you’re out of luck, unfortunately.

  5. Syme says:

    Try looking for the ‘Arcade Sports Bundle’ on PSN.

    I couldn’t find any of the individual games themselves, but the bundle I mentioned has Arcade Darts + Arcade Air Hockey and Bowling in it…

  6. Exnotime says:

    I am getting error(c1-2858-3) using the arcade darts(eu) exploit

  7. hans says:

    i don’t understand where to put the 2.60 VHBL files. The folder structure is totally different now and there is no PSP save data folder.

    • fabrizio says:

      go to the path where you store savegame (it is written on the prompt of CMA):

      your_path/Ps Vita/PSAVEDATA/*a lot of number*/copy here the file in the rar 😉

      BTW, with v2 version of vhbl (for arcade darts EU) there are still the same problem. a lot of homebrew has problem (ie. gpsp freeze with a lot of roms) or don’t run at all (ie psfiler).

  8. i have a suggestion why they d’ont make the exploit compatible with a free game

  9. ninja1290 says:

    i cant find any of the exploits on PSN
    help anyone?

  10. Tyler says:

    Hey, I was wondering, because they take games off the store when they are exploitable and then update the firmware, can I buy a game after the firmware comes out and the game is back in the store and port it to my vita through ps3 or pc and then never update the firmware then exploit it?

  11. PlaGeRaN says:

    also getting an error with arcade and snooker pool game, can’t edit profile name. but I tried the v3, gonna test the others. hopefully one of them works.

  12. PlaGeRaN says:

    managed to get it working with The Z’s version, only prob is…..

    How do I backup my emu savestates and savedata? any ideas before the big jump?

  13. Psvita_master says:

    I got arcade air hockey but i can’t install it on my ps vita any suggestions?

  1. January 23, 2017

    […] VHBL For Arcade Darts, Arcade Airhockey & Bowling, Arcade Pool (& Snooker), & World o… […]

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