PSP Slim owners out there will be happy to know that they're getting a hefty bit of homebrew support, courtesy of ubjerjack. The developer is letting the community know that he's releasing a PSP Slim-compatible version of his six emulator projects. We've listed all of them below, as well as the system's they'll run on your handheld:

• Handy PSP: Atari Lynx emulator
• Atari800 PSP: Atari 800, 800XL, 130XE and 5200 emulator
• fMSX PSP: MSX emulator
• NeoPop PSP: NeoGeo Pocket and Pocket Color emulator
• SMS Plus PSP: Sega Master System and Game Gear emulator
• ColEm PSP: ColecoVision emulator
  

As with all homebrew applications, we advise readers to view each emulator's readme for proper installation and usage instructions. You may also want to visit uberjack's site for any further updates, or to report any problems you've encountered.

Download: Handy PSP (Atari Lynx) for PSP Slim
Download: Atari800 for the Slim
Download: fMSX for the Slim
Download: NeoPop for the Slim
Download: SMS Plus PSP for the Slim
Download: ColEm PSP for the Slim

  

It's been a while since we've picked up word from uberjack's SMS Plus PSP application, which is why we're happy to report that the coder's recently released a new update. In case you're wondering what SMS Plus is, it's a PSP-based emulator designed to play games from the Sega Master System and Game Gear consoles. It's based on Charles MacDonald's SMS Plus emulator. Getting back to our topic, here are v1.2.4's tweaks:

• Various bug fixes
• Added animations to the menu UI
• Fixed buffer overflow error affecting units without a battery
  

Installation and usage instructions for SMS PLus PSP v1.2.4 are available in the readme included with the file bundle. While you're here, make sure to visit uberjack's other emulator works, such as the PSP ports of fMSX and Atari8000. Enjoy the download.

Download: SMS Plus PSP v1.2.4

PSP homebrew developer Brunni has just announced the release of the MasterBoy application as an entry to the ongoing Neo Summer Coding Competition (2007).

This app is a PSP-based emulator capable of playing games from the Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Super Game Boy, Sega Master System (SMS), and Game Gear.

MasterBoy is based on Brunni's MMSPlus SMS Emulator, which was a winning entry in last year's Neo Summer Coding Competition. MasterBoy carries several new features and functions:

• Rich interface with discrete effects, redefinable shortcuts and buttons (with autofire feature). Also it's fully skinnable.
• Manage and sort your favorites folders and files to access them easily.
• Integrated music player supporting GYM and VGM formats.
• Several display options like Gamma and Color Vibrance, which allows you to choose how colored you want your display to be.
• Z80 under/overclocker: allow you to correct games that are often slowing down or displaying glitchy / blinking sprites.
• Some improvements over MMSPlus in the SMS/GG part:
• Speed up.
• Now 16-bit render mode is enabled by default. You can revert to 8-bit if you want, and it will run even faster.
• Compatibility issues
• Better country detection (now nearly all games should detect the country correctly and not play too fast anymore).
• The bar at the left of the screen can be automatically hidden (depending whether the game is actually using it or not)

That's the basic rundown on Brunni's MasterBoy emulator. To better understand this application's full details, be sure to view the readme and PDF that are included in the file bundle. Enjoy the download.

Download: MasterBoy v2.0

Thanks to Borg Queen X for the news tip!

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Update: Brunni has updated MasterBoy to v2.0a. Unfortunately, we haven't found any documentation on what's new in this release, save for the new v2.0a text that appears on the app's GUI when run in the PSP. We're assuming it's to fix several detected bugs. The download is available if you're interested in upgrading.
Download: MasterBoy v2.0a

*Original article posted on August 21, 2007, 9: 23 AM.

PSP coder uberjack just announced that the SMS Plus emulator homebrew has received an update. This latest release has been labelled as v1.2.3, and features improvements such as enhanced emulation speed, and various other bug fixes:

• 20% speedup in emulation speed with new 8-bit video rendering
• Option to turn off FM emulation (an additional 48% improvement in emulation speed - all games now play at 100% speed with VSync enabled)
• Various small bug fixes
  

In case you're wondering, this application is actually uberjack's PSP port of Charles MacDonald's SMS (Sega Master System) Plus emulator, with this release coded in C. Installation and usage details should be available in the readme provided with the download - make sure to check that to know how to run SMS Plus. Also make sure to check out uberjack's other emulator's works, namely ColEM-PSP and fMSX-PSP.

Download: SMS Plus PSP v1.2.3

A new homebrew emulator for the Sony PlayStation Portable has been added to Uberjack's list of homebrew emulator releases. This time, the fMSX-PSP and ColEM-PSP coder has released a Sega Master System and Game Gear emulator called SMS Plus PSP.

SMS Plus PSP is a PSP port of Charles MacDonald's SMS Plus emulator. The coder says that SMS Plus PSP was written in C and uses GU (Graphical Utility toolkit) for rendering. This is an initial release, so we don't have a changelog to post yet. If you encounter any bugs or would like to make a suggestion, click on the Via link below.

Don't forget to read the readme file included in the download. There, you'll find all the pertinent info including installation and usage instructions.

Download: SMS Plus v1.2.1

For those of you who either never got to play the original on the Sega Master System, or are simply too young to know much about it, After Burner was the shizzle. Designed by legendary videogame designer Yu Suzuki (of Shen Mue, Outrun and Virtua Fighter fame) the game was an action packed romp through fire filled skies of death, doom and destruction, this pretty much was Ace Combat before there was Ace Combat, it was that damn good.

The new game is called After Burner: Black Falcon, and reportedly sees players sniffing out the origins of a mercenary group called "Black Falcon", who've been naughty and stole 13 top secret aircraft. The game promises to offer an extensive single player campaign along with 19 officially licensed customisable aircraft and competitive and co-operative Wi-Fi multiplayer modes.

Even more exciting is the fact that the game is being worked on by Planet Moon studios, the guys who brought us the excellent MDK, Giants: Citizen Kabuto, Armed And Dangerous and (unfortunately) Infected on the PSP. Word is the game's set to land PSP-side in the spring of 2007.

NOTE: Images above are from the Sega Master System game!

The wonderful e[mulator] has been updated to v0.82e today by developer e. If you've missed this one before or are a newcomer to the homebrew scene, e[mulator] is a multi-platform emulator supporting Gameboy, PCEngine, WonderSwan, Sega Master System, Sega Game Gear, and NES.

It also currently supports Atari Lynx but e has noted that this feature is still quite buggy; although a fix added since the last version should fix it. It is also supposed to support NeoGeo Pocket, but e has pointed out in his readme that it's still very slow and doesn't have savestate support.

Here is the changelog for this version:

• Bug fix to characters that weren't displaying correctly
  
• WS : SRAM retention, state retention and operation verification being completed
• Lynx: Operation of the Lynx part of this emulator should work correctly.
  

Thanks for the tip Byte!

Download: [e[mulator] v0.82e]

Just a while back, [Bo]Trops served up his PSPMaster v0.0.9b. But now, his homebrew Sega Master System emulator is updated to a Beta-2 version. In the previous beta version, he was only able to improve on video and rendering, and added sound filters of interpolation and reverb.

Here's what's new:

• Support for 3 colors fonts
• VGM music player added
• Fixed a video palette bug
• Improved render and video routines, making SMS games run at 133MHz and game gear at 100MHz

A lot of us grew up with Sega (back in le olde dayse, when Sega was still a major game developer). It's good that some of the homebrewers allow us to tap into the past and relive the glory of the 80s.


Download: [PSPMaster v0.0.9 Beta-2 for firmware 1.0]
Download: [PSPMaster v0.0.9 Beta-2 for firmware 1.5]

Brunni has released an update to his MMSPlus - a Sega Master System and Game Gear Emulator - today, updating it to version 1.0b with a bug fix. In case you haven't head of it before, MMSPlus was first released last month as a NeoFlash competition entry and since then has been updated with a few updates and bug fixes. You'll be pleased to know that most SMS games run perfectly at 166 MHz and Game Gear at 133 MHz. Here's the feature list:

• It can play GYM music files (Files are placed in a ZIP file, used as a playlist. 6 sample GYMs are included, simply load music.zip in the emulator directory.)
• Nice interface, skinnable and with a lot of options.
• Save state images are generated in real time rather than being stored in the save file itself. Note that sonic blast gradients are rendered correctly.
• You can redefine all keys, including shortcuts (like state change/save/load, turbo mode, pause, reset), and there is an auto-repeat feature.
• You can also set the in-game screen as a background, useful to continue at the heart of action.
• Nice icons by Phoebius
• Backgrounds by Japi.
• MMSPlus features a rich interface with simple effects and good usability.
• It's fully skinnable.

The 1.0b update is a minor bug fix, but is no doubt a helpful one. Brunni has fixed the blank bar to the left of the screen, it is now available as an option in Video > Render and it's disabled by default.

Download: [MMSPlus v1.0b]

Last month, [Bo]Trops released a PSP emulator for the Sega Master System and Game Gear Emulator called PSPMaster. The homebrew emulator allows gamers to play olden but golden titles released at a time when PSP was still decades away from our fingers.

It seems just yesterday that [Bo]Trops released v0.0.8, and now he's back with another update. Wait, that WAS yesterday. Today, PSPMaster v0.0.9b has been released which proves the guy behind this doesn't believe in wasting time. In this version, the changes include:

• Improved render and video routines
• Two added sound filters: interpolation and reverb

Stay tuned as we bring you the next update tomorrow! Just kidding...but we have a feeling it's coming sooner than we all think.

Download: [PSPMaster v0.0.9b]