Question about PSP Firmware

[Cirrus]

Many of the threads on PSP emulation stuff are outdated that I have read through, so here's a question:

Can I tell without opening the box if a PSP is going to have "downgradable" firmware to get to 1.50? Basically, if it is 2.1 or above, I'm out of luck, right?

Is my only hope of running homebrew to search for a used one and check the firmware manually?

Thanks a lot.

[s1lence]

Right now if the firmware is over 2.0 you are screwed on the downgrader side. I guess any cheats to make a 1.5 system look like a 2.0 or greater don't work. So needless to say, im not going to be playing GTA any time soon.

[Cirrus]

So, if I find a 2.0 or below, I'm okay to do homebrew (assuming I downgrade to 1.50)? I have no plans on using it for anything except for emulation.

Also, I'm still wondering if there is a way to read the UPC code or something and discover the firmware version. Google is a bit sketchy on it, but I'm sure there's gotta be a way.

[Kejoriv]

I was looking for sorta the same info. Does anyone know of a good psp mod site?

[s1lence]

http://www.psphacks.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=9039

That has a little info.

http://www.psp-hacks.com/

Thats another site.

[Cirrus]

Well, I went to my local used game store and booted all of the used PSPs until I found one with 1.50 firmware, so that was good. Also, it has no broken pixels (yay).

I have pretty much got it up and running, but I wonder: what games still work with 1.50? What games don't? I am sure there is a list somewhere, but I cannot find it.

I am referring to the actual licensed UMD released games.

Also, is it risky playing PSP games? Will they try to update my firmware? Or is that something that ONLY happens when you do the update with your computer...?

Don't wanna ruin the firmware, hehe... since I don't really intend to use this for anything but emulation.