Some gent named droideka88 requested that I post this information here, so post it I shall.
I have modified the PSP version of Star Wars Battlefront 2. HOW, you ask? WHY, you ask?

Slow down there, buddy.

I modified it by dumping the UMD onto my memory stick, extracting all of the files from the resulting ISO onto my desktop, modifying the .LVL files via hex editor, then turning it all into an ISO again.
I did it because everyone knows SWBF2, though impressive as a portable game, is a crushing disappointment compared to the PC and console versions. However, I've only managed so very much. I'll explain that later.
Sadly, I can only save the modifications and play them if they're in an ISO, and ISOs can only be played on version 1.5 PSPs, which are becoming rare in comparison to the new 2.81s and whatnot. Or, you could burn the ISO to a UMD that will play on your PSP which, even if possible, has questionable legalities. Tell me how that works out.

Here's what I've managed!

I changed all of the Episode 3 clones into Episode 2 clones. Hey, they look a thousand times more awesome.

I unlocked levels that used to be unplayable. Yes, I did it indeed! But, the results aren't as pretty as we PSP players might like.
The only levels I could unlock without crashing on the PSP were Jabba's Palace*, Utapau** and Geonosis***, none of which were FULLY working, but a few extra minutes of effort from the creators would have made them fully functional. Every level is already in SWBF2 for the PSP, the game just prevents you from getting to them because they weren't completely finished due to extreme laziness.
Also, to unlock those levels, I had to get rid of other ones. I couldn't figure out how to ADD levels, just replace them.

* In Jabba's Palace, characters fall through the floor of Control Point 3 or instantly die when they get near it, and there are no Gamorrean Guards. THAT'S IT. Those are the only problems, but they took it out of the game entirely. BECAUSE HOW COULD THEY POSSIBLY FIX THOSE TWO INCREDIBLY SIMPLE PROBLEMS!??!?!
** On Utapau, the enemy AI won't use their hero, exactly like on the PC/consoles. Galactic Civil War won't work. Close-up floor polygons will sometimes disappear, though you can still walk on them. Utapau barely had any problems, but they cut it out. God forbid the little, insignificant floor polygons disappear every now and then.
*** Only Hunt on Geonosis worked. Capture the Flag and Conquest would crash instantly. I would guess that the vehicles aren't on the PSP, or the mission.lvl doesn't properly define everything for Geonosis, or whatever. I would love to get Geonosis working more than any other level. That level rocks.

On both Jabba's Palace and Utapau, there is NO FOG, like on the PC. This is only really noticeable on Utapau, because it has so much detail and you can see all the way across the map, but it doesn't go slow at all. This no fog thing shows that SWBF2 for the PSP would have run at full speed if there was no fog on any of the levels. Yes, the fog is completely useless.

As far as I'm aware, nothing from the PC can be transfered to the PSP. Though they're both almost exactly the same in the names of the files and directories, the PSP apparently doesn't support the PC stuff. Even sounds won't work!

So, there you have it. I have modified the PSP version of SWBF2 and I've done a small amount of interesting things, but I haven't made any dramatic leaps. What do all of you gents think?

I'd REALLY love it if someone would tell me how to hex edit more AI into a level, or raise the AI per team limit, ultimately so there's more than 10 AI per team. If I could manage that, I'd REALLY be making some advances.

This is fantastic news if true! However, I think we're all anxious to see some screens. I'm a proud player of the PSP version and I'm EXTREMELY interested in this development.

[Message deleted by member]

- Linus

Not to 'be-little' your work, but anyone can hex edit almost anything. Though, good job at being the first person to get it working.

And by the way, it is illegal (in USA). Sure you paid $50, but only for a license to use the software on the disk. If you read the license that you agreed to by using the disk, it says you may not edit any content in any shape/way/form for any reason. You paid for the right to play, nothing more. Feel ripped off? Great. Tell your parents to vote smarter next time.

The PSP has memory limitations. You may not be able to increase the AI limit, but don't let anyone stop you from trying.

Thanks for the welcoming, Linus. I guess you could probably modify the side.lvls, but I'm too much of a newbie to know anything about that.

I don't have a digital camera, just some cheap piece of crap that can't see backlight screens, but I'll see what I can do about screenshots. I think there's a program that might take screenshots on the PSP itself, though I don't think it works in a UMD game.

Oh, it IS illegal, Zerted? Well, my bad. I'd probably stop modifying it rather than risking FBI agents busting down the door and taking me to jail, if only SWBF2 for the PSP was fine the way it is. But, it sadly isn't. And I'm sure LucasArts, if they ever cared about any of their fans, would care more about people downloading the game than me buying it and changing some hex stuff. Changing hex stuff is, by the way, the only way to modify the PSP because PC stuff won't work for it.
I didn't say I felt ripped off, I said I would have felt ripped off if I hadn't gotten so much out of the game already (but not enough, I say!). I can't imagine how my parents voting smarter would change anything. Well, I can imagine, but I'm sure it'd be wrong.
And, though I am indeed aware that the PSP does have its limitations, the AI in SWBF2 take so little memory that you could have what literally looks like an entire army of them, and though rendering them visually would take some memory, their thinking processes would take hardly any at all, and I know that the PSP could handle at LEAST 16 AI per team, but I'd like to go crazy and try 32 AI per team first.

Speaking of which, does anyone know how to raise the limit to the AI per team or put more AI into specific levels via hex editing?

Back on topic, what would really be great is to get all the maps present back into the playlist.

And as far as why some of them were cut, my guess is that it was due to time constraints.

Yeah, probably. Though it would have been nice if the released magical patches that would fix everything, rather than saying, "Well, we've done all we can do." Oh, well. Hopefully I can make some advances.
But the biggest advance (for me) would be hex editing more AI per team, whether it be global or level-specific. Eh? Eh? Anyone know how?

Don't let it being illegal stop you. It shouldn't be illegal, and I don't think LA will care enough to try and go after you.

On the PC it is both global and level-specific. However, setting a value in the level will overrite the global value. You need to find where the level asks the shell for the value, then replace it with your number (assuming the PSP has bot settings in the shell).

You would think PSP would try to get Lucas Arts to allow/create mod tools for their console to attract users/buyers....

Oh lordy, another mini-Lev. :p

No, actually, Sony doesn't want anything to do with the homebrew community. Before PSP firmware update 1.5, the PSP could run unsigned software. They fixed that one in a jiffy.

Getting back on topic, I want to make a comment about the fog issue. I think you'll find on many of the more "epic" levels, the fog is needed- levels like Kashyyyk and Endor. However, you'll notice the smaller levels, and all the indoor levels, are devoid of fog. Unfortunately, I don't think the developers spent enough time optomizing the BF2 engine for the PSP.

please put the modify iso in the download section...i just cant wait...thanks man

So I should look in shell.lvl, Zerted? Then look I shall!

TheTao is right, Adreniline. Sony hates people making the most of their games. They'd rather have people buy games that are only worth playing the way they are for a very short while before they get boring and the player suddenly thanks to himself, "Should I have bought this game?"
Though the biggest fear Sony has about homebrew is probably the potential to emulate ISOs of their games by downloading them and not paying for them, which would be cheating the game creators out of the money for their product.

If you've ever played Utapau, you'll know it's a level where you can see all the way across in some places, and there's WAY more detail than you'd see in a map like Kashyyyk or even the forested Endor.

Dentistdroid, I can't release a modified ISO because I would be distributing a full game that a lot of people may not actually own. Even if I could morally and legally distribute the ISO, it'd be huge. However, the very second I figure out how to raise the AI count, I'll release a modified mission.lvl and shell.lvl with very detailed instructions on how to use them.

Remember that your PSP MUST meet these two qualifications to play ISOs:
You need a memory stick that is at least 1 gigabyte, because the SWBF2 game, when fully compressed, is 579 megabytes.
Your PSP MUST (all-caps x2!) be a version 1.5, because only 1.5 can emulate ISOs. If you check on websites like DCEmu and PSPhacks, you can find stuff on downgrading. Versions above 2.71 or PSPs with numbers on the right side of the inside of the UMD area cannot be downgraded to 1.5, and in that case, you'll be doomed and dismayed. I know. Sucks. I used to be in that boat. One of the first things I did once I got a 1.5 PSP is dump and modify SWBF2.
And remember: If you get your PSP to play ISOs, use this power for good, not evil!

At this point in time, the only way I could get Jabba's Palace and Utapau into the game was to replace the Yavin and Tantive IV levels. I can't even begin to imagine how I will add levels (rather than replacing older levels) with hex editing, but this is an early effort, so it's hopefully not permanent.

dentistdroid wrote:please put the modify iso in the download section...i just cant wait...thanks man

NO, NO, NO. That's warez, because you're posting the entire game online. What *can* be done is to post the new mission.lvl, and each user can compile it on their own.

Yeah, when I get more AI into each level, that's what I'm going to do, with some very specific instrutions on how to dump an ISO, extract all of the files, replace the mission.lvl and shell.lvl, then put it all back into an ISO, with links to downloads of required programs to make it as easy as possible.
There's nothing about a complicated process that I love more than clear, descriptive instructions! Though, even when I make really obvious instructions for something I've done, people still do something horribly wrong, then they're like "OMFG IT DIDN'T WORK!" "Did you read the readme?" "NO"

I'm afraid I really misunderstood what you said, Zerted. The PC and PSP .LVLs are almost identical, except for the levels tha they specify, and the PSP shell is designed differently so some of that business is different, too. In neither of them can I find anything in the shell.lvl or mission.lvl that specifies how many AI are in a level, or the global amount of AI... I found something called "SetUnitCount" in the mission.lvl for each mission, which would serve a very obvious purpose, but SetUnitCount is always followed by non-number characters if it's followed by anything at all. Maybe I'm just stupid. The global amount is surely somewhere. It is a number, after all, but when you're searching for "10" in a hex editor, you're going to get an overly broad range of things to choose from.

Wow, now I'm really confused. Just now, I changed every occurence of the number 10 in the shell.lvl to 32, and it didn't seem to do anything at all. Definitely didn't change the AI Per Team limit from 10 to 32. Maybe I WON'T be changing the global limit, though it will be just as well if I can change map-specific limits, since the maps are permanent, anyway.
... I just gotta' figure that out, now.

Don't let it being illegal stop you. It shouldn't be illegal, and I don't think LA will care enough to try and go after you

Yes, I do think that this is like that copyright thing that Fred was discussing a while back in the "A Clone Apart" thread. It's not illegal is it isn't enforced, which apparenty can hold up in court.

Anyways, I'd hate to congratulate you on doing something 'illegal', but good job. the PSP was more limited than it h ad to be.

SetUnitCount() takes the team number then the unit count. I have no clue how is looks in hex. Do you have the PC version? Maybe you can munge a changed SetUnitCount() on the PC to see how it changes then make the same hex changes on the PSP.

What's the maximum amount of AI allowed in a level before the "Uber Mode" option is needed? I can't hex edit Uber Mode into a level, so I need to set the AI amount as high as possible before it's considered Uber.

I actually got Geonosis 2CTF working, but I couldn't play as the Republic (would crash unless I was CIS), and there was a lot of stuff missing, namely the vehicles, the Geonosians, and the ground. I could still walk on it, though.

I'm really curious about the actual PSP format of mission.lvl. I'd be willing to bet that mission.lvl is proably one lvl that gets built the same way on all platforms, so if you actually knew what all maps were dropped, what maps are there, etc it is quite possible that a new mission.lvl could be built that would load all the maps. I very highly doubt the model and terrain formats are the same, so we probably couldn't do new levels, but I bet we could get all the maps and modes that exist on the UMD working.

What does the ISO run off of? A memory stick?

The ISO does indeed run off of the memory stick. It couldn't run off of anything else.
The shell.lvl, not the mission.lvl, controls the levels that appear on the list. I have to modify the shell.lvl to get levels to appear, but because I can't add or remove letters/numbers from a hex file, I have to replace existing levels with the ones that were cut out.
Even when I gain access to a certain level, it usually won't work, anyway. I've already explained the problems with Geonosis, Utapau and Jabba's Palace. The other levels just won't load at all, as far as I can manage. The reason levels were taken out was because the creators didn't finish them in time to release them. It seems like it wouldn't have taken much time from them at all to make the levels work completely, but oh well.
My biggest concern at this point, because the outtake levels are all more or less broken, is getting more AI into the default levels because I'd love to have some epic battles on the PSP.

With hex editing you can add textures to the .lvls so take the ground textures for geonosis and use the lowbit ones and hex edit it in for it to appear. It should work. You can get new textures in by hex editing low rez tgas. Plus the .lvls come with extra "stuff" like the pc did (wookie catamaran) so edit those out and you will get more space to "add" levels like Utapau.

I have also tried doing this since you posted, but encounter limitations. Utapau, geonosis, and Coruscant have worked for me (I forgot which lines to edit for it though, ill have to check...) Ill try to get screens up when I have the chance. So good work dude!

P.S. : If posting for downloads, post file by file or it is an illegal ware.