By James Booth
As I've stated in other articles, the PSP's analog stick isn't exactly the most reliable design. They're prone to breakage and drifting. With the Macrofire utility, not only can you correct that drift, but you can also program button-macros for your favorite games on Sony's Playstation Portable shown in Figure A.
FIGURE A
The Sony PSP (Playstation Portable). (click for larger image)
In order to use Macrofire your PSP will need to have custom firmware installed. A previous article in Computing Unplugged provided instructions on how to install a custom firmware, but you're on your own in locating the necessary files, as well as in locating Macrofire. A quick search on Google or Yahoo! will head you in the right direction.
Due to the underground nature of custom firmware and the applications that go with it, be sure to use caution when searching for the files, there are some nefarious characters out there who will disguise viruses and malware as useful utilities; we're providing this material for information purposes only.
Installing Macrofire
To install Macrofire on your custom firmware-enabled PSP, copy the "macrofire.prc" and "macrofire.ini" files to the SEPlugins directory of your Memory Stick as shown in Figure B.
FIGURE B
Copy the Macrofire files to the plugins directory. (click for larger image)
Then, either create or edit the games.txt, vsh.txt, and pops.txt files in the SEPlugins directory and add the "ms0:/seplugins/macrofire.prx" (without the quotes) to each file and save, like the example in Figure C.
FIGURE C
Edit the games, pops, and vsh files. (click for larger image)
To enable Macrofire, enter the Recovery menu by holding the Right Trigger during the boot process; remember, this only works on a PSP with custom firmware installed. Use the arrows to navigate down to Plugins and select by pressing the X button. In the Plugins menu, Enable Macrofire in Pops, VSH, and Games by selecting and pressing the X button as in Figure D.
FIGURE D
Enable Macrofire in the Recovery menu. (click for larger image)
Exit the Recovery menu and the PSP will boot. You can now activate the Macrofire menu by pressing both Volume buttons at the same time, shown in Figure E.
FIGURE E
Press both Volume buttons to open Macrofire. (click for larger image)
Because the PSP resets each time it loads a game, wait until you're actually in the game before you open and set the parameters in Macrofire. Unfortunately, the readme file that comes with Macrofire is not in English, but if you look around you can find one; and if not, it's pretty intuitive to configure.
Configuring Macrofire
When the Macrofire interface opens, you'll need to actually turn it on by selecting "Macrofire Engine" and pressing the O button to toggle it on as in Figure F.
FIGURE F
The Macrofire menu. (click for larger image)
