An observation

Sir_LANs-a-lot · Post by **Sir_LANs-a-lot** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 10:30 am

Hi,

Might've been seen before but I hadn't noticed it until I got an English manual - If the PSP is on and you hold the power button up for 2+ seconds to turn it off, it looks like it does a 'cold' shutdown because when you switch it back on it looks like it reads (or writes?) data to/from the memcard. It also boots the UMD disc (if one is inserted).

At a guess, I would hazard that this would be the method used to update the firmware after it's downloaded to the memcard.

Maybe useful? maybe not - Just thought I'd mention it as I'd not seen it before.

:)

zigzag · Post by **zigzag** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 2:58 pm

I'd guess everyone but you knows about this :)

wenmi · Post by **wenmi** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 7:27 pm

not everybody. i told a lot of people about it because they didn't know

press only short - standby (lasts for some days i think)
press for some seconds - completely turned off

i allways use standby. it doesn't need a lot of power.

pdc · Post by **pdc** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 8:44 pm

I think this is common knowledge for PSP owners.

Also, when the battery runs out, I believe the PSP puts itself into a permanent 'standby' mode, so you do not lose your game before you get to a power outlet :)

I'm basing the guess on the fact that when the PSP has shut down due to low battery, you cannot power it back up again to squeeze the last drop of juice out of the battery.
I'm yet to confirm this though. It would be nice to know!

@wenmi: yes, standby mode is excellent and uses so little power. It's a shame Lumines won't save your game if you have been in standby mid-game!! O_o

wenmi · Post by **wenmi** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 4:38 am

pdc wrote:It's a shame Lumines won't save your game if you have been in standby mid-game!! O_o

what do you mean with this? why should it save your game ? i don't understand

pdc · Post by **pdc** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 6:58 am

wenmi wrote:
pdc wrote:It's a shame Lumines won't save your game if you have been in standby mid-game!! O_o
what do you mean with this? why should it save your game ? i don't understand

(Lumines automatically saves your progress after every game you play)

If you start a Lumines game (e.g. Challenge Mode) and then go into standby, then come out of standby, the game carries on as normal.

BUT,
when you lose (Game Over), Lumines tries to save your game but it reports an error saving the game.
This saving-game error only happens when you are playing a game after being in standby. The error message is in Japanese, so I don't know what it says.

1. Begin game
2. Play game
3. Game Over
4. Auto Save to mem stick - OK

1. Begin game
2. Play game
3. Go into Standby/Sleep mode
4. Come out of standby/sleep mode
5. Game Over
6. Auto Save to mem stick - ERROR

I hope this is clear :)

Edit: after a quick search, it appears one of the options on the error message is 'Retry'. I try to avoid going into Standby with Lumines but I will see if it works.

wenmi · Post by **wenmi** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 8:57 am

i understand. well, this is kinda stupid.

another thing i recognized was that the psp sometimes takes a few seconds to load shortly after waking it up from standby. but as it doesn't take too long it is okay

Post by **ooPo** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 11:00 am

Ridgeracers doesn't take this delay, although the music start playing until the UMD has finished spinning up. You can still play as normal in the meantime.

Perhaps other games wait for some data before continuing...

pushpin · Post by **pushpin** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 6:08 pm

Well I'll add something even weirder to the mix here.

Today I removed my Golf disc, after I thought I had done a hard shutdown (holding off for a few seconds).

After removing Golf, I inserted Ridge Racer and turned the PSP back on.

Guess what I saw right away? Golf. I was able to play golf for the remainder of that hole, until it needed to load the data for the next hole and the load screen just hung.

I finally turned it off (for real this time) and put my Ridge Racer disc in.

Strange enh? But I guess not totaly nonsense.

wenmi · Post by **wenmi** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 7:04 pm

seems you only switched to standby.
than this will happen

Post by **Drakonite** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 7:24 pm

Funny... NGPC doesn't have that problem..

pdc · Post by **pdc** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 9:16 pm

@pushpin,

that's interesting & it's good to see that developers are minimizing UMD access.

pdc · Post by **pdc** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 9:29 pm

Also, it would be nice if the software could be aware of the PSP coming out of standby mode.

For example, Ridge Racers could pause for 3 secs to let you see where you are and FIFA 2005 could use their wonderful roll-in feature.

KiWi · Post by **KiWi** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 10:56 pm

pdc wrote:@pushpin,

that's interesting & it's good to see that developers are minimizing UMD access.

Ridge Racers is completely stored in ram !

When you're playing Ridge Racers, you can remove the UMD directly after the race start. The game asks you to to quit, but if you deny to quit, you can race the complete course ..

Only the music is missing - the game streams the BGM from the UMD

Post by **ooPo** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 4:27 am

Well, it would suck to see a loading screen halfway through a lap. :)

KiWi · Post by **KiWi** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 7:32 am

ooPo wrote:Well, it would suck to see a loading screen halfway through a lap. :)

Have a look @ Crazy Taxi for Dreamcast ... that's loading the textures for the buildings, objects and the streets on the fly .. if you're backup is burned in a bad order you're racing trough a wireframe landscape :)

It's very impressing what amount of data fit's into the psp mem and this shows also that the UMD is not really neccesary for playing games .. rips on memstick are theoretically possible

Post by **blackdroid** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 6:59 am

rips ?.. you stepped over the line, locked.

Post by **ooPo** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 8:50 am

Sony also discourages this form of streaming during gameplay as it seriously eats into battery life.