PS4: How to update to a specific Firmware (Works For 4.0.1)

With the new jailbreak presentaion in GeekPwn, the people who are in FW 3.55 would want to update to 4.0.1, without having to update to 4.0.5 and lose to opportunity to jailbreak (Ouch)
Lets put clear that this works for ALL the FW, not to the specific 4.0.1, but in this one we’re going to update to 4.0.1

Requirements:

• A Flash USB of 1GB at least
• A PS4 on a FW lower than the one you want to update (Sorry, not downgrading on this one)
• The update file (Link in first step)
• A PC

So, lets start!

1. First of all, you gotta download the 4.0.1 FW in a PUP file,Which you can get clicking this link. Note: if you want another PS4 FW update, Check this page
2. Now, format your USB to FAT32 (This will wipe all your data, so make a backup!) – Note: optional if your USB drive is already in FAT32 and has enough space to hold the update file.
3. Now, make a folder in your flash drive called “PS4” (without the “) Remember it gotta be in UPPER CASE.
4. Inside the PS4 folder, make a folder called “UPDATE” (again without the “) IN UPPER CASE.
5. Copy the file you downloaded at the start of the tut to the UPDATE folder.
6. Rename the file to “PS4UPDATE”

We’re ready in the PC, now lets go to the PS4.

7- First of all, shut down COMPLETELY your PS4.

8- Now, put your finger like if you were turning the console on, but release it when you hear two beeps.

9- Connect the FLASH drive to the PS4, followed act connect via USB the DS4 and press the PS Button.

10- Select the “Update FW” Option (I think is option 3) and select via USB drive.

11- Follow the steps on screen, and select “Okay”/”Accept” in everything.

The PS4 will reboot a couple of times, and guess what, you have successfully updated your PS4! 

See you next time!

Release: PS4 Linux. Steam + Emulators + office out of the box

This is not SteamOS on the PS4, but this is still the real deal. /Talk member D-ecks, who’s provided us with a great tutorial on how to install Linux on your PS4 recently, is now back with a full Linux distrib that lets you run Steam + some other cool features out of the Box. This is it, you can now easily run more than what Fail0verflowshowcased a few months ago. Of course, you’ll need a 1.76 PS4 in order to achieve this.

The instructions are fairly simple (full step-by-step description below): download the Linux distrib, install it on a bootable usb Key, and then run it on your PS4 from popular tool PS4 Playground.

D-ecks had announced a while ago that he was working on this distrib, based on the work from OsirisX who was  the first to publicly launch Steam (and explain how to do it) on the PS4. After a bit if beta testing he has decided to release the distrib.

We reproduce below the step by step instructions from D-ecks with somee minor modifications for clarity. His thread has more details, including how to make the bootable usb key from Linux and OSX as well.

Pre-configured linux distro, based on Fedora 23 with kernel patches from Fail0verflow team.
Uses OsirisX’s works (3d acc., steam).

Requirements:

• The Linux+Steam Distrib
• PS4 with 1.76 FW
• USB flash drive 8GB+
• Any internet connection
• USB keyboard/mouse
• USB hub (optional)

Instructions:

WINDOWS

Download and unpack the image (How to Download Torrents Using uTorrent)

Use a program that can write dd-images. My choice is rufus.

Use settings as pictured below

Locate PS4Linux_0.1.1.img and press Start

NEXT STEP

Insert prepared usb stick into your ps4, run PS4 Playground and click the “load linux” button. (Note from wololo: I have slightly modified that step in the hope to make it cleaner. Refer to D-ecks’ thread if you have doubts)

All done. Password for root and ps4 is 1
Also, you can boot this distro on PC as any other live usb (F8 when boot logo appears).

Known problems:

Wifi and BT doesn’t work
No Sound
No ethernet

Update: How to install games, etc…

D-ecks contacted me as there seems to be some confusion on how to install games if Wifi and ethernet don’t work. This is basically done by installing them in the USB key from your PC before running Linux on your PS4:

Installing games and programs:

• Boot prepared usb stick as any other Linux LiveUSB on your PC
• Configure Internet connection
• Update Steam
• Download and install anything you want (even wine)

Download PS4 Linux + Steam Distrib

You can download the torrent file here

Please report success/failure here, and do not forget to thank D-ecks for his work (also OsirisX while you’re at it!)

Wii U emulator: Cemu 1.5.0 public release, Cemu 1.5.1 available on patreon

We recently mentioned Cemu 1.5.0, which was available to patreon supporters of the popular Wii U emulator. Version 1.5.0 has now been released publicly, and you can enjoy the performance improvement that comes with it.

Cemu 1.5.0 brings the following changes, according to the changelog:

• New enhanced controller configuration menu and emulation
  • Configure up to 8 players (assuming the game supports it)
  • Added Pro Controller and Classic Controller emulation
  • Compatible with the original Pro Controller (using mayflash adapter)
• Improved shader emulation and graphic bugfixes
• Improved sound emulation
• Reduced VRAM usage
• Small bugfixes and changes

The Cemu 1.5.0 Wii U emulator has been said to bring huge performance improvements and run some games at full speed on reasonable PC configurations, such as in this video running Mario Kart 8 below. Note that Cemu does not play all Wii U games yet, and is actively being developed.

Meanwhile, Cemu 1.5.1 is already available to the project’s patreon supporters. Cemu 1.5.1 is a minor bug fix release and brings the following changes:

Input: Fixed input for controllers with off-center axes
Input: Added axis range scaler (50% to 200%)

H264: Fixed a bug in H264DECMemoryRequirement() that could lead to a crash.

CPU: Added new instructions to recompiler: ps_mr, ps_sel, ps_l/ps_st type 6, stfdx
CPU: Recompiler will now utilize BMI and AVX instruction set to generate faster code (if supported by host CPU)
CPU: Fixed a bug in code generated by recompiler for FSUB & FSUBS where the result would incorrectly become -0.0 instead of 0.0

AX: Added API AXSetVoiceSrcRatio()
AX: Fixed a bug in voice volume update
AX: Increased audio volume
AX: Added logging for audio API

GX2: Fixed wrong colors for certain texture dump formats
GX2: Fixed vertex ordering for special cases when PRIMITIVE_RECTS is used
GX2: New implementation for tiling aperature. Still heavily work-in-progress.

Reddit have an interesting FAQ explaining, among other things, why Cemu is not open source. I felt it was an interesting read:

Q: Why is it closed source?
A: “I have a very strong vision on how the future of Cemu should look like. This includes potential contributors with whom I am already in talks with. I believe that for speedy progress, a small team of long-term, dedicated and skilled team members is better than a big team of temporary contributors. Why? Because every contributor first has to acquire the necessary knowledge about the emulated system. More knowledge means more effective emulator development since a lot of time can be saved by 1) fixing bugs faster 2) implementing features correctly on first attempt. For this approach open-source is simply not necessary. In fact, it is easier to get talented developers to join long-term when their name will have more meaning in the credits. I have also considered donation-driven development. It works very well for artists and comic authors, and I see it as a great incentive for emulator development too. But it would be problematic for a open-source project.

---

But of course there are other concerns as well, like development suddenly focusing on a direction which is not favorable to the original intentions of the emulator. Example: Focus on hacky solutions to get games into playable state earlier. I can see this happen in a open-source environment more likely, because piracy can become the main source for development motivation. Another example: Splatoon is moving towards playability fast, but online features are of low priority to avoid people using the emulator to cheat in online-play and ruin the experience for everyone. With open-source code there is no easy way to steer the development focus away.

Needless to say there are personal reasons as well. Like not wanting to lose control over the project and being slightly reluctant to share the code with people who have no respect for the effort and time it took to get this far. Not to mention the 1000 messages I received along the lines of “This emulator is doomed when it doesn’t go open-source”. It makes me want to prove them otherwise. Oh and as I already stated, if development on Cemu gets stuck for a long period of time or if it is abandoned, the source code will be released anyway. I agree with the sentiment that the knowledge should not go to waste.”

Considering that the project is generating more than $2000 a month on patreon alone, I feel the authors are on good track to make it a full-time thing… How does the community feel about this?

Download Cemu 1.5.0 – Wii U emulator

You can download Cemu version 1.5.0 on their official site here.

Source: Cemu.info, via hackinformer

Wii U emulator: Cemu 1.5.0 runs Mario Kart 8 at full speed (Video)

Cemu 1.5.0 was released a couple days ago to people who are supporting the project on patreon, and it will most likely be released publicly to other people in the weeks to come.

The official changelog is as follows:

• New enhanced controller configuration menu and emulation
  • Configure up to 8 players (assuming the game supports it)
  • Added Pro Controller and Classic Controller emulation
  • Compatible with the original Pro Controller (using mayflash adapter)
• Improved shader emulation and graphic bugfixes
• Improved sound emulation
• Reduced VRAM usage
• Small bugfixes and changes

Of course, a changelog alone is not what the end user wants, and the community delivered, with countless people showcasing the emulator in videos on Youtube. Check for example this video of Mario Kart 8 running on Cemu 1.5.0 at full speed, by GBATemp member reznoire:

Download Cemu

Cemu 1.5.0 is currently only available for patreon supporters of the project, but you can download Cemu version 1.4.2 on their official site here. 1.5.0 will become publicly available in the weeks to come.

Source: Exzap on GBATemp

WUDecrypt Released – decrypt Wii U Disc images on MacOS, Linux, and Windows

Developer Makikatze dropped by the GBATemp forums this week to release Wii U tool WUDecrypt.

What is WUDecrypt

WUDecrypt is an open source tool to decrypt Wii U disc images in the WUD format.

Tools already exist to decrypt those Wii U images  provided you have the right set of keys, but they are Windows only. Makikatze’s tool is compatible with Linux and MacOS (and Windows as well). It’s also open source if you feel like contributing. WUDecrypt is programmed in C.

This is a “work in progress” release and the developer mentions the tool will be slow and might crash.

WUDecrypt – Download & use

you can download WUDecrypt 0.1.1 on the github page here.

The source code can be found on the same github repo.

The Readme has the following instructions to run the decryption process:

---

For wudecrypt to work, you will need a WUD image, the corresponding disc key and the Wii U common key. If you have all of these files, you can run wudecrypt via the following command:

wudecrypt path/to/image.wud /path/to/output /path/to/commonkey.bin /path/to/disckey.bin

wudecrypt has a fifth optional argument which can be SI, UP, GIor GM depending on which partition types you want to extract. To play the decrypted image, extracting only the GM type partitions should be enough. I mostly introduced this function as the extraction takes a very long time and it tries to avoid a whole lot of data you won’t need.

Source: Makikatze on GBATemp

Proof of concept webkit exploit running on PS4 firmwares 2.xx

Developer Fire30 released a webkit exploit proof of concept for the PS4, ported from a webkit heap buffer overflow revealed in 2014. I haven’t tested this myself, and this is still unconfirmed information at this point.

Fire30 says the exploit should run on any PS4 firmware below 2.50, although he mentions parts of the exploit implementation will only work on firmware 2.03, presumably because this is the firmware he’s using to write the code.

There’s not much to be said about this at this point, although in theory the kernel exploits BadIRET and dlclose could be ported to this exploit, if confirmed legit: it has been mentioned these kernel exploits are compatible up to firmware 2.xx, and the only thing preventing those from being used on any other firmware than 1.76 so far was because the only publicly available userland exploit has been the 1,76 webkit exploit.

A port of the dlclose exploit to this new webkit vulnerability could bring some Linux joy to more PS4 users, and help decrease the current asking price for hackable PS4s.

Download and install the CVE 2014-1303 Proof Of Concept for PS4

You can Download Fire30’s proof of concept on his github here. You’ll need a PS4 running below firmware 2.50, ideally firmware 2.03. According to the readme:

a poc for the CVE 2014-1303 originally disclosed by Liang Chen. It has been tested to work on system firmware 2.03, but should work for systems on a firmware < 2.50, the ROP test will however only work on 2.03.
Usage
You need to edit the dns.conf to point to the ip address of your machine, and modify your consoles dns settings to point to it as well. Then run
python fakedns.py -c dns.conf
then
python server.py
Debug output will come from this process.

Navigate to the User’s Guide page on the PS4 and various information should be printed to the console. The ROP test will print what is stored in the rsp register. Continuing execution after rsp is pivoted still needs to be done.

---

fire30 credits the following people, in addition to Liang Chen who revealed the vulnerability in 2014:
thexyz
dreadlyei

If you happen to have a PS4 running a firmware below 2.50, and have the skills to 1) confirm that this is true and 2) try and get the dlclose exploit to run on this, then by all means, help the PS4 scene 

Otherwise… stay tuned!

source: github, thanks to @isset_asset

Cemu (Wii U emulator for Windows) updated to 1.4.0c, improves speed & graphics

Exzap, the dev behind the wildly popular Wii U emulator Cemu, has recently released an update that brings it up to version 1.4.0c.

Cemu Wii U emulator changes in 1.4.0.c

According to Exzap, this latest version improves the graphics and CPU emulation by a significant amount. The full changelog from the announce:



• Added PowerPC JIT recompiler (up to 5-6 times faster CPU emulation)
• Decreased shader compilation stutter
• Improved audio emulation
• Large improvements to graphics emulation
• Tons and tons of smaller changes and bugfixes

Exzap mentions a few known limitations about Cemu 1.4.0:

• CEMU does not work with AMD’s graphic driver 16.3 and upwards. This issue will likely be fixed in the next CEMU release.
• Some games don’t boot or randomly crash when recompiler is enabled.

Hey, these are pretty ok limitations, knowing that Cemu wasn’t working at all on AMD not so long ago. Great to see steady progress here 

As with every new Cemu release, users so far are welcoming the new improvements. User SimonBestia on GBATemp says:



Super Mario Maker is running at 56-60fps on my PC!
It ran around 24fps on 1.3.3, now THAT’S a massive speed up!

Several users are reporting twice as much FPS on several games, others are reporting that games are now playable on Cemu with lower end configurations that did not work with former version 1.3.3. Overall, the feeling is that this version dramatically improves performance.

Download Cemu 1.4.0c

You can Download Cemu 1.4.0.c here

Source: Exzap on GBATemp