GUIDE: How to use Hellcats Recovery Flasher

Ok I know most people know how to use this program, but it seems people are using the wrong versions or people say "Use hellcats recovery flasher" and they don't know what it is, so rather people keep repeating themselves, I thought i'd do a quick guide that you can refer people to.



How to use Hellcats Recovery Flasher

First of all, you'll want to download the latest version of the program. Currently version 1.60, get it here. The download will be a RAR folder. Save it to your hard drive somewhere (preferably in it's own folder, called Recovery Flasher or something similar), then extract all of the contents using WinRAR or similar extraction program. You should then have, somewhere on your PC, the following folders and files:

How to downgrade PSP 1000 with firmware 3.50 and lower (For installing CFW)

Ultimate Downgrader Thread

The following guides are for downgrading the firmware of PSP 1000 models running 3.50 firmware and lower only. If you have a PSP 2000, PSP 3000 or your firmware is above 3.50, look at other options for hacking your PSP. These will not work and could damage your PSP.

All of these guides have the aim of getting your PSP to version 1.50 using purely software hacks as an alternative to hardware methods (Pandora Battery), from which you can then install Custom Firmware. Click the link at the end of each guide for details on how to do that.

Disclaimers:
1. Any downgrader has potential to brick your psp, so proceed with caution and at your own risk. If you brick your PSP it CAN now be recovered, but you will need additional hardware for that (Pandora Battery).
2. ALWAYS downgrade with a fully charged battery pack and the psp plugged into the ac adapter.
3. Only download the software from well known sites linked in the guides.
4. Follow the directions carefully to avoid possible damage of your psp.
5. For safety reasons, please use a reformated empty memory card when attempting to downgrade. Backup any data before reformatting.
6. throughly read the README files that come with all software. most questions can be answered there instead of asking in this thread

The Xbox 360 GPU

The Xbox 360 GPU

While Microsoft's focus on the CPU was efficiency, with the Xbox 360's GPU, it pulled out all the stops. Designed by ATI, Microsoft controls the IP of the GPU; meaning, Microsoft can manufacture and do what it wishes with Xenos (although we're assuming that they can't stick it on graphics cards and start selling it to the public).
The GPU also acts as a North Bridge in the system, but we'll get to that role a little later. Like the Xbox 360 CPU, we've talked about the GPU in great detail in the past, but we'll briefly go over the highlights here.

Xenon vs. Cell

Xenon vs. Cell

The first public game demo on the PlayStation 3 was Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 3 at Sony’s PS3 press conference.  Tim Sweeney, the founder and UE3 father of Epic, performed the demo and helped shed some light on how multi-threading can work on the PlayStation 3.
According to Tim, a lot of things aren’t appropriate for SPE acceleration in UE3, mainly high-level game logic, artificial intelligence and scripting.  But he adds that “Fortunately these comprise a small percentage of total CPU time on a traditional single-threaded architecture, so dedicating the CPU to those tasks is appropriate, while the SPE's and GPU do their thing."
So what does Tim Sweeney see the SPEs being used for in UE3?  "With UE3, our focus on SPE acceleration is on physics, animation updates, particle systems, sound; a few other areas are possible but require more experimentation."
Tim’s view on the PPE/SPE split in Cell is far more balanced than most we’ve encountered.  There are many who see the SPEs as utterly useless for executing anything (we’ll get to why in a moment), while there are others who have been talking about doing far too much on SPEs where the general purpose PPE would do much better. 

The Xbox 360 CPU

The Xbox 360 CPU

The original Xbox used a hybrid mobile Pentium III/Celeron processor, but for the 360 Microsoft went to IBM and got the rights to a PowerPC core.  The move to the PowerPC instruction set meant that there would be no direct binary compatibility with older Xbox titles, but the sacrifice was obviously deemed necessary by Microsoft. 
The CPU itself features three of these PowerPC cores and is currently manufactured on a 90nm process, however Microsoft will most likely be transitioning to 65nm as soon as possible in order to reduce the die size and thus manufacturing costs.  Remember that a die shrink from 90nm down to 65nm will cut the size of the CPU in half, and should be possible for Microsoft sometime before the end of next year.