PlayStation Vita

[copied from No-Intro wiki - needs polishing]

The PlayStation Vita is a powerful dumping machine for Vita carts, but it might take a few tries for someone setting up their homebrew-enabled console the first time to be able to get the tools working. This page is a work in progress, and will soon include more step-by-step instructions on how to set up a “standardized” PlayStation Vita for dumping purposes.

Highly recommend reading this great comparison between available tools written by Yifan Lu.

1. PSVgameSD + PSVStrip Method
2. NoNpDrm Method

TL;DR - Go to the Dumping section

This dumping method is based on PSVgameSD, created by Motoharu Gosuto. The PSVgameSD application acts as a dumping tool as well as a virtual drive for the dumps it creates. It allow us to create a 1:1 dump from the game cartridge, which then can be virtually mounted on a PlayStation Vita, emulating the exact same behavior as we inserted the original game cartridge on the device. This leads to a perfect dump for preservation archival purpose.

This method of dumping was approved in No-Intro in 2019, once user iCEQB provided a solution for the “unique license file” problem (as the license file generated inside each game cartridge is different, two dumps from different game cartridge of the same game will never match). This solution then grew into a tool called PSVStrip.

PSVStrip is a tool that allow us to strip all data introduced by PSVgameSD and null all unique bytes within a PlayStation Vita dump. This makes sure that we only preserve all common bytes across multiple cartridges of the same game, while at the same time staying as close as possible to the original media as it can get.

This modified version is useful for preservation according to No-Intro standards, but will leave the dump unplayable. An option in PSVStrip was developed in order to re-add the licensing data and header info back to a stripped dump and make it playable.

Note: The dumps generated by PSVgameSD has a “.psv” extension, however this method and its results are totally unrelated to the “BlackFin” project. For more information, see this explanation.

There are some game cards that have a writeable partition called “grw0”. Its been confirmed that this partition allows to write save data and updates files on the game card itself.

Currently, those types of game cards can be dumped, but the “grw0” partition won't get dumped. Due to the partition being used by the game, if the a dump is mounted with the PSVgameSD app, bad behavior is expected to happen, at least when trying to save or updating the game. Further research on this is needed.

Due to this, dumps coming from game cartridge with a “grw0” partition will be accepted in No-Intro but marked as “Bad Dump” in order to identify them. In the same way, we advice dumping these with NoNpDRM method as well, as dumps with that method do not need the “grw0” partition to work properly.

You can easily confirm if a game cartridge has “grw0” partition by looking at the cart contents through VitaShell. Once the game cartridge is inserted, you should see “gro0” partition (this belongs to the game cartridge). If “grw0” exists, it should be just next to it.

Please, even if are not interested in dumping, helping us identifying these kind of game cartridge would be really useful.

Games confirmed to have “grw0” partition:

Epic Mickey 2
Persona 4 Golden (Japanese version, at least)
Muramasa Rebirth

[PCSB-00050] Army Corps of Hell [EU]
[PCSB-00135] LEGO Batman 2 - DC Super Heroes [EU]
[PCSB-00304] LEGO Legends of Chima - Laval's Journey [EU]
[PCSE-00237] LEGO Legends of Chima - Laval's Journey [US]
[PCSB-00103] LEGO Harry Potter - Years 5-7 [EU]
[PCSB-00071] Michael Jackson - The Experience HD [EU]
[PCSE-00119] Ragnarok Ace [USA]
[VCAS-32024] Ragnarok Ace [Asia]
[PCSE-00015] Shinobido 2: Revenge of Zen [USA]
[PCSB-00166] Spy Hunter [EU]
[PCSE-00012] Supremacy MMA [USA]
[PCSB-00065] Super Monkey Ball: Banana Splits [EU]
[PCSE-00017] Super Monkey Ball: Banana Splits [USA]
[PCSF-00247] The Jak and Daxter Trilogy [EU]
[PCSB-00047] Touch My Katamari [EU]
[PCSB-00031] Virtua Tennis 4 [EU]
[PCSG-00018] Katamari Damacy No-Vita [JP]

• A PlayStation Vita (1000 original model or 2000 revision model)
• At Vita Memory Card (minimum 4GB)
• Henkaku software installed (able to load homebrew, https://vita.hacks.guide/)
• VitaShell homebrew installed (to be able to navigate through the Vita's file system, as well as enabling access to it by USB on PC)
• PSVgameSD plugin and app installed

1. Once all the tools are correctly installed, go to the LiveArea menu and launch the Virtual GC bubble.

2. You will be presented with a console UI. Press “Left” or “Right” on the d-pad to switch between different modes - choose Physical MMC mode.

3. Once selected, press “Up” or “Down” to navigate through dump files and select the Game Cart.

4. Press “Cross” to start dumping the came card (this option is only available if a game card is correctly inserted)

5. Process should start automatically, displaying the “Dump progress” and indicating the sectors still to be dumped. The process can take long to finish (30-45 minutes), so just leave the device to do it's thing.

6. If the dump was successful, a FILENAME.psv dump file will be stored in the “ux0:iso” folder.

7. In order to transfer it to a PC, enter VitaShell and then connect your PS Vita to the PC using a USB cable. Open the VitaShell settings menu by pressing the START button of your PlayStation Vita. Once opened, go to the “USB device” option and select “Memory Card”. Press START once again to close the settings menu. Then, press the “SELECT” button of your PlayStation Vita to enable the USB connection. Your PC should now automatically detect the Memory Card as a new USB device.

8. Copy the “.psv” file from within the “iso” folder to your computer for further analysis.

To be able to compare your dump to other dumps for verification purposes you have to remove the license information using PSVStrip:

PSVStrip.exe -psvstrip source.psv destination.psv

Another method for users on Mac and Linux is described on the No-Intro forum.

Once that's complete, you can continue to Gathering and Submitting Dump Info

This method extracts the encrypted game files from the Game Card as they are and generates a fake license in order to make them usable. This is not a perfect dump from the game cartridges, but will still keep all the original game related files inside the game cartridge without being modified or patched, and it preserves games with the “grw0” partition until the issue is solved with PSVgameSD or another tool.

• A PlayStation Vita (1000 original model or 2000 revision model)
• At Vita Memory Card (minimum 4GB) - (optional, this method can be used with “psvsd” mod which uses the 3G module on 1000 3G Vita models as a MicroSD port)
• Henkaku software installed (able to load homebrew, https://vita.hacks.guide/)
• VitaShell homebrew installed (to be able to navigate through the Vita's file system, as well as enabling access to it by USB on PC)
• NoNpDrm plugin installed

1. Having the game card inserted in the Vita, use VitaShell to navigate through the Vita's file system and look for the “gro0” path. This path corresponds to the Game Cart.

2. The game files are stored in “gro0:app/TITLE_ID” where TITLE_ID corresponds to the game Serial ID. Example: Uncharted - Golden Abyss (Europe) is “PCSF-00001”, so “TITLE_ID” folder should be “gro0:app/PCSF00001”

3. You now have two options:

3.1 Fast PC transfer: You can mount the Game Card over USB. To do so, open VitaShell settings menu by pressing the START button of your PS Vita. Once opened, go to the “USB device” option and select “Game Card”. Press START once again to close the settings menu. Connect the PS Vita to your PC by USB. Then, press the “SELECT” button of your PS Vita and it will enable USB connection. Your PC should detect automatically the unit and give you access to the it. Just enter the “app” folder in the unit, and copy “TITLE_ID” to your desktop.

3.2 Copying files to the Memory Card and then transferring these to PC. Use VitaShell to copy the “gro0:app/TITLE_ID” folder to “ux0”. Then, select “Memory Card” on “USB device”. Press “START” to close the menu and press “SELECT” afterwards, to activate the USB connection from your Vita to the PC. The Memory Card unit should be properly detected, allowing you to copy the “TITLE_ID” folder to your computer.

To finish the dump we must generate a fake license file. For this, you need to launch the game in your Vita as you were going to play it, with the NoNpDrm plugin enabled. As soon as you start it, exit the game and enter VitaShell.

The license to be faked will be a “.rif” file with a long name, which should be stored at “ux0:nonpdrm/license/app/TITLE_ID/6488b73b912a753a492e2714e9b38bc7.rif”.

Copy this file from the Vita to the PC. Rename it as “work.bin” and copy the file to “TITLE_ID/sce_sys/package/”, so you have “TITLE_ID/sce_sys/package/work.bin”. With this step, the “NoNpDrm” dump is now completed.

Once that's complete, you can continue to Gathering and Submitting Dump Info

Description of how to verify that is a dump is correct.

Dumping tool: 
Dumper: 
Affiliation: 
Dump creation date: 
Dump release date: 

Title: 
Region: 
Edition: 
Languages: 
Language Select: 
WikiData ID:

Size: 
CRC32: 
MD5: 
SHA-1: 
SHA-256: 

• General Note: If you are submitting this info to a person/group in order for them to add it to a database, you can skip the transcription of some things, and leave it to them. But it can make the process smoother if you do the transcription yourself.

Point to external submission information for No-Intro/Redump.