How to play music and games at the same time

PSP is a multi-featured hand-held device. It is not just designed for gaming but also for playing media files. PlayStation Portable's audio player supports a number of audio codes, including ATRAC, AAC, MP3, and WMA, and has the option to be played with or without a set of five visualizations. The image viewer will display several common image formats including JPEG, Bitmap, and PNG.

MPEG-4 and AVC video formats are also compatible with PlayStation Portable. With reasonable video and audio bit-rate settings (a resolution of 320×240, a video bit rate of 500 Kb per second, and an audio sampling rate of 22050 Hz) a 22-minute video file is roughly 55 MB, enough to fit on a Memory Stick Duo as small as a 64 MB. At the same rate, a hundred-minute feature film can fit on a 256 MB Memory Stick. As of firmware update version 3.30, H.264/MPEG-4 AVC Main Profile video files of the following sizes can be played: 720×480, 352×480, and 480×272. Many video files, both free-to-distribute and copyrighted, have been encoded for the PlayStation Portable and are available on the Internet.

PSP doesn’t just enable you to play or view media files but also offers a wide connectivity. It has wi-fi capability, which allows users for multiplayer games and network connectivity. It also has an IrDA port for infrared connection and USB port for connecting the device to other devices like a pc.

However, with this full-feature capability, many users still want to find ways to maximize their PSP’s. There are many who are asking if it is possible to play music and games at the same time and if it is, how to do it.

Truly, PSP has still many features to be revealed. It is also capable of multi-tasking (which means doing two or more tasks at once). Yes. It is possible to play music and games at the same time. How to do it? Well, here are the steps that you could try out:

1. Download a plugin irsmp3.prx
Link: http://forums.pspcrazy.com/forums/psp-homebrew-discussion/77491-plugins-playstation-portable-custom-firmware-only.html

2. On your root of your memory card make a folder called " seplugins " without quotes. MS/seplugins

3. Put the irsmp3.prx in the folder seplugins.

4. Open a text editor (sample: notepad) and copy/paste this:

ms0:/seplugins/irsmp3.prx
ms0:/seplugins/
ms0:/seplugins/
ms0:/seplugins/
ms0:/seplugins/


Save this as "game.txt" on the "seplugins" folder in your PSP.

Do the extact same thing but this time save it as "vsh.txt" on the "seplugins" folder.

6. Do a hard-reset on your psp, then turn it on again while holding the Right shoulder button to go into recovery mode. Go to the "Plugins" option, select the "irsmp3.prx [GAME]" ("irsmp3.prx [VSH]" for using it in XMB) option and click X. It should say "(Enabled)". Go back, and then Exit.

Start your game. Wait until it loads and then click note(the Button with a musical icon)+Left shoulder button. Thats it!
You can also use it while you’re on the XMB, on the Internet, while in USB connection and etc.

Here are the controls on how to use it.

(The Note button is to the left of select)
Note + Left Trigger = pause/resume playback
Note + Right Trigger = switch playback mode between random and sequential
Note + D-Pad Left = previous song (only in sequential mode)
Note + D-Pad Right = next song
Note + D-Pad Up = Volume up (for the mp3)
Note + D-Pad Down = Volume Down (for the mp3)
Note + Triangle = Change CPU speed
Note + Square = Toggle On Screen Display (default off)
Note + Circle = Reload list of mp3 files (needed if you change the files in the music folder using USB)
(when READY is displayed in the bottom left hand corner, press Note+ Left Trigger to start playback)
Note + Cross = Change brightness level (from current up to maximum)

One frequently asked question about this is that If you psp is doing two things at once, does it affect its performance? Well fortunately, there are many comments and testimonials of the people who have tried this that it doesn’t actually slow down the psp and it works great with games.