GpSP

gpSP

Developer(s)	Exophase
Last version	0.91
Active	No (main branch) Yes (libretro core)
Platform(s)	PlayStation Portable
Emulates	Game Boy Advance
Website	Blogspot
Programmed in	C, C++, Assembly
Source code	GitHub

gpSP is an open-source Game Boy Advance emulator created by Exophase for the PlayStation Portable. Compatibility is very good and is recommended for using GBA ports of SNES games rather than SNES emulators themselves due to poor focus on the PSP. Its open-source nature makes it a good candidate for porting to similar lightweight platforms like the Raspberry Pi.

gpSP is also available as a libretro core for RetroArch.

Downloads

	Official gpSP releases fix (2009-07-20) Dead
	gpSP mod & gpSP-J (2012-06-16) Dead
	Pandora gpSP 0.9.2.8 Github
	gpSPDC 0.9 Alpha
	gpSP 0.9-2Xb-u6
	gpSP 0.9-2Xb-u6
	gpSP 0.9.2
	gpSP dingux 20100302Github
	gpSP Didj 0.9
	gpSP 3.3 T1Uo gpSP kai
	gpSP4Cute 0.9-2Xb
	gpSP-rpi 0.9
	gpSP-3DS 0.9
	gpSP-Nspire 0.9 port
	Downloads page for RetroArch gpSP

BIOS/Cheats

gpSP/TempGBA BIOS : (Required)

gpSP Cheats : Download

Uo gpSP Kai

Uo gpSP Kai

Developer(s)	Exophase,Takka
Last version	3.4 Test 4 Build 230
Active	No
Platform(s)	PlayStation Portable
Emulates	Game Boy Advance
Programmed in	C
Source code	GitHub

Unofficial gpSP kai created by Takka - gameplaySP Gameboy Advance emulator for Playstation Portable

Credits

• Exophase : main developer - Official release "gpSP" 0.91.

• takka : developer - Unofficial release "Uo gpSP kai" 3.4 test 4 build 152.

• toBsucht & EricPshat : for testing and helping translating.

Review

Latest source code by takka stopped development in 2009. Since then, there has not been any significant improvements. Release from an unknown developer, version 3.5, is actually an old version - version 3.3 test 2 build 132 without any significant changes and improvements in functionality. So a developer decided to finalize the emulator for the stable release.

A developer going by the name "ErikPshat" has taken it upon himself to rejuvenate a homebrew emulator called gpSP kai. Dubbed UO gpSP Kai, aka GameplaySP, is a Gameboy Advance emulator for the Playstation Portable. The developer has released his unofficial build which introduces some bug fixes, adds a few fixes such as running almost all games from ZIP archives. Below you can view his release notes for UO gpSP Kai version 3.4 test 4 build 230.

Downloads

UO gpSP Kai 3.4 Test 4 Build 230

Known issues (minor problems)

• Good compatibility.
• Uo gpSP Kai Compatibility List
• 128k save files unsupported - (Ex. Pokémon Mystery Dungeon) - Only worked TempGBA/TempGBA-mod
• Required - gba_bios.bin

Note: Some games don't work using a workarounds trick. 32MB ROM only works unzip.

1. Sigma Star Saga: Still unable to show health bar.

2. Dragon Ball Z: The Legacy of Goku II: There is a sequence in the game in which you have to fly to a different location. The problem is, whenever you do so, the message "The game will not run in this hardware" appears on the screen.

3. Powder 117 and Qwak: failed to run.

4. Golden Sun: the Lost Age: Moving cursor to the bottom of the world map causes soft-lock/freeze.

5. Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories: It freezes at the opening movie and the sound glitches. A workaround would be, before the game freezes at the opening movie, attempt to quick-save the game and then load it back. It should work normally.

6. Riviera: Works - Only run in extracted file.

7. Grand Theft Auto Advance: It has a bug that after starting dialogues, the game crashes. This save allows you to bypass the damaged portion in ROM dump: GTA Advance .SAV file expanded in GBA/SAV folder. The name of the compression should be exactly the same as ZIP archive, which is ROM GBA under any name. When loading a game, choose load of preservation, and not as a new game.

8. Pokémon Mystery Dungeon - Red Rescue Team: Reached the save room in the tent where the Pokemon sleeps and the game would normally be saved. Then came out of the emulator and again went into the game, game is booted normally like you have in the picture "Continue" (Resume your adventure from where you last saved.).

• Save size: 128 KB (131,072 bytes).
• Name: "Pokemon Mystery Dungeon - Red Rescue Team.sav"
• Folder: UO gpSP kai/GBA/SAV

(E) version of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon has the save problem. (U)version works fine.

9. Advance War 2: Popup on the top always didn't show up. Popup on the bottom works like normal, only the top have a problem. Both keep glitching, sometimes all the sprites just vanish, the text too. In some tutorials/battles where a character would normally be talking, the dialogue box would be invisible.

UO gpSP kai 3.4 test 4 build 230 also has the same problem. Old version of gpSP 3.2 user test 02 no problems at all.

--Setting Working Advance War 2--

::: Use Settings are :::

- GFX Filtering: yes

- Frameskip type: auto

- Frameskip value: 9

- Frameskip variation: uniform

- Audio emulation: yes(?)

- Audio buffer size: 4096 bytes

- Clock speed: 300MHz

- Update backup: auto

- Enable home: no

- Debug mode: yes

- Fake fatv: yes (Pokémon ROM Hacks crash the emulator without it)

- Boot mode: game cart

10. Megaman Battle Network: End of the game when entering Underground Railroad.

11. Megaman Battle Network 4: Apparently an unknown random virus encounter.

12. Wario Ware Inc.: Final Wario Games in Story Mode, graphics will randomly glitch between games, making it impossible to play any games afterwards.

13. Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3: (And probably many other games) Patching GBA ROMs.

If other games works using the ROM patching solution.

14. Sims 2 Pets: Graphic bugs, but not unplayable.

15. Banjo Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge: Crashes to BIOS in the very beginning.

16. DragonBall Z Legacy of Goku: Freezes after hack announce.

17. DemiKids Light Version: Crashes before begin a game.

18. Digimon Racing: Freezes on the beginning.

19. Doom 2: Bad scaling, freezes on the beginning.

20. Harry Potter Quidditch World Cup: Minor graphical glitches, and freezes before entering games.

21. Harry Potter and The Order of Phoenix: Constantly coming back to language selection screen.

22. Mario Tennis Power Tour: Crashes to BIOS.

23. Megaman Zero: Heavy graphical glitches.

24. NBA Jam 2002: Blank screen on start.

25. Pokémon Pinball Ruby and Sapphire: White screen on start.

26. Rayman Raving Rabbids: Heavy graphical glitches.

27. Steel Empire: Black screen at start.

28. Super Monkey Ball Jr.: Game crashes, was working on version 1.0.4.

29. Street Racing Syndicate: Crashing when choosing language.

30. Dragon Ball Z: Legacy of Goku II: Works fine, but sound issue.

31. Metroid Zero Mission: Works fine, sound issue a weird warping of the music that causes the audio to bob and weave, as well as a periodic, persistent ticking sound.

32. Mother 3: Work unzip, .sav file problem.

33. Final Fantasy VI - Sound Restoration (E)

• TempGBA4PSP: game is laggy, especially when characters talk.
• UO gpSP Kai (3.4 test 4 build 230): emulator show the following error: bad jump 80080180 (30000620) and then crash.
• gpSP-J: seems to run this game fine.

34. Classic NES Series: Loading a game presents with a screen stating "Save State X/O" but it moves to a black screen with "bad jump 600080 (3007484)" if any button is pressed.

35. Pokémon Mystery Dungeon - Red Rescue Team: Work unzip, .sav problem.

The game is not able to load/create a save file, as it says "the game cannot be saved". tempGBA can load/save just fine.

As a workaround, place a .SAV in your ROM directory where the game is at.

1.gpSP

2.TempGBA

Note: 32MB (128k - .sav file are created with some games) save supported on TempGBA. 32MB save is still unsupported with GpSP.

36. Breath of Fire 2: High-fort after Boss Battle during escape scene.

Configuration Settings

Graphics & Sounds:

Display Scaling: Scaled 3:2
Screen Filtering: Yes
TV Output Ratio: ratio 4:3
TV Output Interlace: progressive
Frameskip Type: Automatic
Frameskip Value: 0 or 1*
Frameskip Varation: Random
Audio Output: Yes
Audio Buffer: 4096 Bytes
Scale: 100

Language and Other Options:

Clock Speed: 333Mhz
Update backup: Exit Only
Enable "HOME": No
Language: English
Fake Fat: No
Boot Mode: Game Cart

To check VSH Menu, press Select on the XMB and ensure your clock-speed is at 333/166.

Note: Use 0 for Frameskip Value if you can for the smoothest experience. If there is audio tearing, change it to 1. The random skip variation should help smooth things out if you need to use a Frameskip Value of 1.

PPSSPP

Uo gpSP Kai Blue Screen

Attempting to initiate GpSP in PPSSPP gives a blue screen. However, the emulator is still running behind it, and it can be seen in split-second if going full screen or windowed is attempted. If it displays black screen when attempting to run any ROM, it can be reverted by going either full-screen or windowed.

To fix the blue screen on PPSSPP, follow this setting:

PSP\memstick\PSP\SYSTEM\ppsspp.ini

Enable : SoftwareRenderer = True

RAM

1. Bleach Advance: 32MB
2. Kingdom Hearts - Chain of Memories: 32MB
3. MOTHER 3: 32MB
4. Riviera - The Promised Land: 32MB
5. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon - Red Rescue Team: 32MB

Unzipped 32MB ROM files gives a faster loading.

- UO gpSP Kai 3.4 test 4 build 230 = 16MB Max
- UO gpSP Kai 3.5 Mod = 32MB Max
- UO gpSP Kai 3.4 test 3 build 152 = 32MB Max

32MB Max ROM Buff is achieved when Unlock Extra Memory is enabled from Recovery Menu. If Unlock Extra Memory is disabled, it limits to 16MB. However, other gpSP emulators still achieves 32MB Max ROM Buff. 32MB ROM / 32MB buff = Faster loading, less glitchy 32MB ROM / 16MB Buff = Very slow loading, PSP freezes occasionally, unpacks and duplicates ".zip" ROM to ".gba", using more space.

Creating & Adding Cheats

Uo gpSP Kai Cheats

::Requirements::

- Action Replay or Gameshark Codes for a certain game - gpSP kai Cheat Creator.exe - Hacked PSP with the most recent gpSP Kai

1) All gpSP Kai cheat codes should be inserted in ms0:/PSP/Game/gpSP Kai/GBA/CHT , assuming that gpSP Kai is any version of the Gameboy Advance Emulator. These cheat codes have a specific format, which is .cht .

2) Gather the Action Reply/Gameshark codes that you want and open up the gpSP Kai Cheat Creator.exe program. Enter the game name at the top bar in the program (i.e. Pokemon Emerald). The game name will help you identify the cheat file.

3) There is a specific form in which you need to enter these codes to get a .cht file.

Action Replay Form :

PAR_V3 (name of code) <---make sure PAR_V3 and the code name is separated by a space XXXXXXXX YYYYYYYY XXXXXXXX YYYYYYYY

Enter the code as shown in the X and Y column above if it is an Action Reply Code. Remember that there are 8 characters in each column because it is an Action Replay Code. Column X is separated from Column Y with a space. If the code has more than two lines, do not get part of it and instead get the whole thing.

Gameshark Form :

gameshark_V3 (name of code) <-----again, gameshark_V3 is separated from the code name XXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXX

Enter the code as shown in the X rows. In gameshark form, there are not columns, but there are rows. Remember that there are 12 characters in each row because it is in gameshark form. After one row ends, another row starts. If the code has more than two lines, do not get part of it and instead get the whole thing.

4) Enter the codes that you have gathered in the wide box area of the gpSP Kai cheat creator program after you put them in the gameshark/Action Replay form from above. After every code, make sure to not leave them attached to eachother, for this will mess up the code. Press the "enter" key to separate them.

5) Create the .cht file after you enter all the codes.

6) Connect your PSP to your computer using a USB Cord. Go to this directory: ms0:/PSP/GAME/gpSP Kai/GBA/CHT . This directory may not be the same as others, and if that is the case, then just look for the CHT folder in your gpSP Kai.

7) Insert your new .cht file into the CHT Folder

8) Disconnect your PSP from the USB Cord and start up your gpSP Kai. After you start the game that you made the .cht file for, press the triangle button to open up the gpSP Kai menu. In that menu, you should see the words "Cheats and Miscellaneous Options". Click on those words to take you to the cheats part of the menu.

9) Go to "Load Cheat File". Then, you will see the .cht file that you recently created. Click on that cheat file.

10) Loading the certain .cht file will show you the cheats that are in that .cht file. You can disable/enable those cheats in the menu.

Comparisons

TempGBA-mod VS Uo gpSP kai

• TempGBA is slower, but is more accurate and has better compatibility. The 150% SW mode makes the video output cleaner. It has less glitches in some games than gpSP (e.g. Golden Sun). It doesn’t have the option for full-screen and 16:9 aspect ratio.
• Uo gpSP Kai is faster and has cheat support, but lower compatibility. Uo gpSP Kai offers full screen but the image is extremely pixelated.

gpSP-mod

gpSP 0.9 is the last Official release by Exophase. It has since been forked and improved upon by other Developers, like gpSPmod and gpSP-j. While gpSP-j has more compatibility, gpSPmod has more options for customization [Full Screen (16:9), Cheats, etc]. The variant gpSPmod is a fork of gpSP for the PSP. It is generally recommended to use UO gpSP Kai 3.4 Test 4 Build 230. gpSP-j compatibility is unknown being the fact that it is a port by a Japanese coder. So all info is in Japanese. More info can be found here. The website contains info on UO gpSP-j, TempGBA4PSP-mod, gpSP, and UO gpSP Kai.

• gpSP forks review
• Brewology (PSP Homebrews site)
• EmuCR.com (Download)
• Techbroot (gpSP Information)

TempGBA

TempGBA was a Game Boy Advance emulator written for the Supercard DStwo, a third-party flash cart where GBA ROMs can be installed on to play on the GBA. An open-source BIOS file (Based on VBA-M's high-level BIOS emulation) made by Normmatt was bundled with this emulator. Though, a legal GBA BIOS should offer better compatibility. The latest version was 1.45, dated 14/09/13.

It is based on :

gameplaySP (gpSP) 0.9 by Exophase, with help from various GBA developers

gpSP Kai Unofficial 3.3 by Takka

The CATSFC GUI by ShadauxCat and Nebuleon (improving over BAGSFC) with language files contributed by the GBAtemp community for CATSFC

• GBAtemp's thread by the author, Nebuleon
• The Emulation Realm (DStwo Only)
• Libretro port (libretro port on PSP)
• tempgba-1.45 emucr (Works on DStwo Only)

PSP Version

Main article: Emulators on PSP#Game Boy Advance

There is also a version likewise based on the gpSP built for Sony's PlayStation Portable called TempGBA4PSP 26750221. A Japanese coder TempGBA4PSP is the most recent GBA emulator for the PSP, and has superior compatibility with most problematic games. This includes Normmatt's open source BIOS and the updated Game Config. However, it and another emulator named gpSP-j have mixed performance results on the PSP. One alternative that has good performance is gpSP Kai that can be used in exchange for bad sound quality. So in the end, a little known gpSP variant called gpSPmod 20090720 has great performance and sound, although it may not be able to run some problematic games.

Download

• TempGBA4PSP-26750221
• TempGBA4PSP-mod's GitHub

(Updated 20160527 releases based on older version. Has cleaned up menus and the X/O buttons work correctly, but it also removed the cheat function and fullscreen scaling. It will also require frameskipping set to auto/2 to get acceptable speed.)

• wololo thread (14/05/16)
• GBAtemp
• Japanese blog (Old files for PSP)
• Axfc UpLoader (Old files for PSP~Japanese site)
• Techbroot (Works on PSP)
• Mediafire (Works on PSP)

References

Game Boy Advance emulators(edit)

• Windows: ares • BizHawk • GBE+ • Mesen • mGBA • VBA-M • NanoBoyAdvance • No$GBA • SkyEmu
• Linux: ares • BizHawk • GBE+ • Mesen • mGBA • VBA-M • NanoBoyAdvance • No$GBA • SkyEmu
• macOS: ares • GBE+ • Mesen • mGBA • VBA-M • NanoBoyAdvance • SkyEmu
• BSD: ares • mGBA
• Android: gpSP • mGBA • VBA-M/VBA-Next
• iOS: gpSP • mGBA • VBA-M/VBA-Next
• MS-DOS: No$GBA
• Symbian: gpSP
• Web browsers: mGBA • SkyEmu
• Didj: gpSP
• Pandora: gpSP • mGBA
• Dreamcast: gpSP
• GameCube: gpSP • VBA-Next • VBA-GX
• DS: GBARunner3
• Wii: VBA-GX • mGBA
• 3DS: gpSP • mGBA • Virtual Console
• Wii U: mGBA • Virtual Console • VBA-GX
• Switch: mGBA • VBA-Next • Sloop
• Switch 2: Sloop
• PS2: gpSP
• PSP: gpSP
• PS3: VBA-Next
• PS Vita: gpSP • mGBA • VBA-Next
• PS4: VBA-Next
• Xbox: VBA-Next
• Xbox 360: VBA-Next