Release: New CIPL and Despertar del Cementerio v10 for every PSP!
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After Davee’s Aiseirigh release a few days ago, we’re proud to announce that new CIPL (custom IPL) and Despertar del Cementerio (DC) v10 are now available for every single one of the 8 different PSP models.
Thanks to Davee’s vastly improved and updated IPLSDK, and also balika‘s previous CIPL & DCv9 code for 03g devices, it was possible to bring these old PSP scene staples to the newer devices.
Quickly summarised: Despertar del Cementerio allows you to unbrick any PSP, while the ARK CFW with CIPL allows you to use a fully and truly permanent custom firmware on any PSP (yes, it is better than Infinity).
Acid_Snake, zecoxao, krazynez and their various testers have spent the last few months working on updating DC for firmware 6.61 and also utilised Davee’s IPLSDK, alongside balika’s CIPL code, to allow CIPL support for the formerly so called ‘unhackable’ PSP models (PSP 2000 TA-088v3, all four different PSP 3000s, PSPgo and PSP E1000).
This means that DCv10 now supports flashing a truly permanent and full variant of the 6.61 ARK4 CFW, which is currently the most advanced and versatile custom firmware for any Playstation Portable.
The ARK CFW has matured over the last years and outshines the other popular PSP CFWs, the ME/LME CFW and PRO CFW, by providing more features, a brilliant in-XMB method of configuring its CFW settings and plugins, better and faster iso loader drivers, support for more optimised and also niche iso formats (such as ZSO, JSO, DAX and a newer v2 variant of CSO), more robust safety measurements, and it also offers the most variations of usage (temporary, launchable via an XMB icon, perma patched, new CIPL, entirely off of the memory stick, etc). It even supports the PS Vita’s PSPemulator and Adrenaline!
DC-ARK is the true 10th version of Despertar del Cementerio, as it comes with all features (but based on firmware 6.61) that the traditional DCv8 (5.00 M33) offered.
The new CIPL Installer, the DCv10 tools and the ARK4 CFW are all available via the official ARK repo.
IMPORTANT: Uninstall Infinity (via ChronoSwitch Downgrader) before using the CIPL Installer, as they are not compatible with another and will conflict with each other!
But what actually is Despertar del Cementerio and what advantages does the new CIPL have when compared to a perma patch such as Infinity 2?
Despertar del Cementerio – A legendary unbricking tool:
Despertar del Cementerio running on a PSP 3000 03g
Despertar del Cementerio (up to v8) used to be the staple tool veterans of the PSP hacking scene used on their old PSP 1000 and 2000s to flash a custom firmware, simply unbrick their PSPs or various other things that DC offers.
Despertar del Cementerio is a tool that usually needs to be booted via service mode, which means it either traditionally requires a Pandora Battery and Magic Memory Stick (for the PSP 1000 and PSP 2000), or nowadays a physical BaryonSweeper alongside the pySweeper software and a Magic Memory Stick (this is mandatory for PSP 3000s, PSPgo and PSP E1000, but optionally also works on PSP 1000 and 2000).
The most used features of DC were its capability to unbrick a PSP, flash a custom firmware or simply let you downgrade a PSP’s firmware, back when that mattered. That aside, DC can do much more!
Another neat feature of DC is that it allows you to boot a custom firmware entirely off of the memory stick, which effectively allows you to hotswap between custom firmwares on the fly, simply by booting them from the memory stick, regardless of what firmware is currently installed in the flashes of your PSP.
That aside, DC can also display hardware information about your PSP, re-format and re-partition the PSP’s flashes (which fully wipes the firmware!) and of course shutdown or reboot your PSP.
Additionally, DC also allows you to create and restore a nand dump of your PSP’s flashes, which means you can easily restore its entire firmware to a previous state, if you happen to mess up.
Keep in mind though that nand dumps can be dangerous, as they are entirely unique per PSP and MUST NOT be shared between two different PSPs, not even between two identical models (e.g. two PSP 2000s), otherwise you risk damaging your PSP’s IDStorage, which can lead to severe consequences, such as the inability to play UMDs, broken wireless capabilities, the inability to launch any game or homebrew on your PSP and even flat out full bricks that aren’t even fixable by reflashing the firmware! You have been warned!
The last remaining feature of DC is its ability to regenerate and restore these broken IDStorages, but that feature is still only available to the PSP 1000 and 2000, and remains one of the very last few things that have not been ported to the newer devices yet.
But enough about Despertar del Cementerio, what about the new CIPL support?
CIPL: Custom Initial Program Loader:
The main difference between the old ‘hackable’ PSPs (PSP 1000 and most PSP 2000s) and the new ‘unhackable’ PSPs (2000v3, 3000, PSPgo, E1000) was that the former supported CIPL, while the latter did not.
While I am not going into details about the PSP’s IPL itself, head over to the wiki if you’re interested in it, I will talk about the advantages that a CIPL offers when compared to other permanent methods of installing a CFW.
Other permanent methods of installing a custom firmware, such as the old 6.20 perma patch or even Infinity v2, are technically inferior to CIPL, as these perma patches are effectively just auto-launching the temporary variants of LCFWs (such as LME, ARK or PRO), and makes them appear permanent. This means if you happen to mess around with the PSP’s flash0 and end up corrupting important firmware files, you most likely cannot recover from this issue and end up with a bricked PSP.
CIPL itself is much more powerful, as it replaces the original IPL of the PSP’s firmware and allows you to have lower level access during its boot chain. This allows you to utilise various additional safety measurements, which in turn allow you to recovery from a brick in most cases, without requring a Pandora or BaryonSweeper kit.
Additionally, it also allows you to install plugins and themes directly into the flash0, something that traditionally had only been possible on PSPs (1000/2000) running old CIPL CFWs, as messing with flash0 prx files and some RCO files was nearly always a certain brick, if done on the newer (non-CIPL) PSPs.
The new CIPL has the same features that the old CIPL had, but now also works on all PSP models, old ones and new ones alike!
Additionally, the new CIPL for the ARK CFW has even better safety measurements installed than the old CIPL, as it now allows you to directly unbrick your PSP in most cases, even if the entire firmware itself is corrupted, as long as the already installed new CIPL is still intact.
The ARK CFW with new CIPL allows you to easily boot DC-ARK off of your memory stick, if you keep holding the L trigger while turning on the PSP, without requiring a Pandora or BaryonSweeper kit!
This means even if you currently do not have a Pandora or BaryonSweeper kit, you can take a look at and test DC-ARK yourself, if you install the ARK CFW and its new CIPL onto your PSP.
But if your PSP is already bricked, and you have no means of installing ARK CFW and new CIPL, then you will of course still require a Pandora or BaryonSweeper kit, depending on your model.
Requirements, Installation and Usage:
The installation and usage of the CIPL is quite straightforward, while DC-ARK has multiple ways of installing it.
Let’s start with CIPL:
That’s it. Your PSP should now be running the new CIPL alongside the ARK CFW.
Why don’t you turn it off and on again, to see if it worked? 
DC-ARK has a few ways of installing it, either directly from your PSP or using a PC tool (requires Python), and its usage has mostly the same requirements that Aiseirigh did (BaryonSweeper, pySweeper, etc). Let’s cover the PSP method first:
If everything went fine, then your memory stick should be properly prepared to boot DC-ARK via service mode (via Pandora or BaryonSweeper kit), in case your PSP ever happens to get bricked.
The PC method should be quite straightforward to use as well, assuming you have taken care of its requirements (needs Python and also check its requirements.txt file):
The tool should now be preparing your Magic Memory Stick. It automatically downloads the correct firmware file from Sony’s server, extracts the required firmware files, copies all the necessary files over to your memory stick and injects the IPL into it as well, assuming your memory stick has sufficient boot sector space.
If your memory stick does not have sufficient boot sector space, you can use e.g. PSPTool to re-format your memory stick for it to have more boot sector space.
Now that you DC-ARK Magic Memory Stick is properly set up, you can now proceed to actually booting into service mode, by utilising your physical BaryonSweeper and pySweeper software. Please refer to Section Three of the Aiseirigh documentation over here, it will guide you through it, as it can also be used for booting up DC-ARK.
The PlayStation Portable’s 20th Anniversary:
Initially we considered releasing Despertar del Cementerio v10 (DC-ARK) and the new CIPL support for all PSP models on the day of the PSP’s 20th Anniversary, which would have been the 12th December 2024, exactly 20 years after the PlayStation Portable’s initial release in Japan, but since we have already finished the work on these projects, and finished it a lot faster than we initially anticipated, we decided to release it a bit earlier, today, on the 20th April, or “4/20” if that is more to your liking.
While the last decade did not see as many releases for the PSP hacking scene as it did during its first decade, there have certainly been multiple great breakthroughs in the last few months and years, as we were finally able to bring back some of the glory of the old PSP hacking scene to the new PSP models, well if you want to call any of the 15 to 20 year old PSP models “new”, that is.
I’ve been accompanying some of you guys for the last 10 to 15 years on this blog, even if I took off some of those years, and we have experienced some great things together.
After the supposed standstill of the (very) old PSP hacking scene when Dark~AleX left and 5.00 M33 and 5.50 GEN were the only CFWs for quite a while, we got to experience the revitalisation of the PSP hacking scene, when Total_Noob, the PRO team and Neur0n blessed us with 6.20 TN HEN, the 6.xx PRO CFWs and the 6.xx ME/LME CFWs.
Then there was the entire PS Vita chapter from PSPemulator hacks to actual native PS Vita hacks, and in the recent years yet another minor revitalisation of the PSP hacking scene thanks to Davee’s Infinity patch, everyone involved in the BaryonSweeper project and of course everyone from the ARK team, who are still providing us with updates for the PSP and its most feature-rich custom firmware ever created!
I would like to thank everyone involved in the PSP hacking scene, old and new alike, for letting us experience this great time! I’ve certainly enjoyed my time here and in the scene, how about you guys?!
Now that full parity has been achieved between the old PSPs and the new PSPs, what else can be done for this old and trusty handheld console?