Rany Battikh

PSIO Firmware update (February 2020)

Australian team Cybdyn just released a firmware update for their PS1 Parallel I/O port device, the PSIO:  http://bit.ly/sag-psio

Since the latest update back in November 2019, Cybdyn have been hard at work trying to improve the PSIO‘s overall performance and fixing some game-breaking bugs; here’s what they came up with for Menu System 2.6.11/ARM 2.6.7:

  • After changing video modes, the ‘System Diagnostics’ GPU counter will no longer be zero.
  • When returning from the ‘Screen Adjustment’ option, the music volume is reset to the correct lower value.
  • Manually defined EXTDSP files are no longer ignored when using a MULTIDISC.LST file.
  • The PS-EXE “BOOT” string in the ‘Details’ page for games no longer displays paths.
  • If a very long string was entered for the username, it would overflow the dialog box and Menu System header.
  • If you were changing usernames and the SD Card was removed, the Menu System title would stay saying “Enter a new Username”.
  • Added a check for LibCrypt games to the ‘Details’ page.
  • The boot times have been reduced by ~2 seconds.
  • Added a new setting to the ‘Sound Effects’ option which will keep all of them on except for the scrolling effects.
  • “007 – Tomorrow Never Dies” fixed.
  • “Driver” no longer crashes when restarting a mission.
  • “Tony Hawks Pro Skater 2” fixed.
  • ‘System Loader’ fixed.
  • Full ATV register support added (volume control and fading in games now works).
  • Updated the CU2 format to now include pregaps.

The update process is as simple as dragging a single file (menu.sys) to the root of the SD card, then letting the PSIO auto-update itself while booting up.

Just a handful of games remain completely unplayable, using the PSIO, and that’s a giant feat considering the sheer amount of commercially released games on the PS1.