PS3 Tricks
These are all the things i have learned from numerous hours on many message boards!
1) Play games from any country
Harbouring a desire to play Super Gaiden Ninja XI? Now you can. In fact, you can handily play any PS3 game from any country. On holiday in the States and spot the latest release at a bargain dollar-to-pound price? Help yourself. So far, at least, PS3 games aren’t being region coded. That said PS2 and PS1 games are so you can’t play a US title on a Euro console. And let’s not forget that Blu-ray movies are region-coded so the barriers aren’t completely down yet.
2) The secret video reset
One of the most annoying aspects of the PS3 are its video settings. Take it up to the bedroom portable or round to a friend’s house and there’s a good chance that you won’t be able to see anything onscreen because your ‘new’ TV is running at a different resolution or using a different cable connection. And – because you can’t see anything – you can’t change it. Until now. Shut down your PS3 then restart by pressing and holding the power button. This will reset your PS3 to its most basic 480p graphics mode so you’ll be able to see enough to choose RGB SCART, component, HDMI or whatever from here.
3) See how much charge is on your pad
There’s no indication of how much charge is left on the pad itself. Instead it appears on screen during games. Press and hold the PS button on any joypad. An indicator will appear, showing your pad’s charge as a small battery. A full battery pic means a fully-charged pad. Neat.
4) Download game saves
Chances are someone out there has already beaten that boss for you and saved their game afterwards. Why not take advantage of it? Google ‘PS3 game saves’. There are hundreds of finished and half finished game saves scattered all over the internet. Download the save you want – it’ll come in a ‘PS3′ folder that you can lift onto a USB stick and put into your PS3. Go to the Game menu, choose your stick and the game save you downloaded should be right there. Press Triangle to copy it to your hard drive.
5) Make free video phone calls
You will need a USB headset (like the one you use for PS2 Socom) and an EyeToy camera. Plug in both via USB then go to your Friends menu. Choose a friend you’ve signed up earlier and press Triangle. Choose Start New Chat and type a message. Something like ‘Videochat?’ should do the trick. Now, providing they’re in front of their powered-up PS3 (perhaps you could text them to tell them to be in position?) then they’ll see your message and be given the option to accept your videochat.
Now, provided they too have a camera and headset, two windows will open, one showing you (so you can make sure you’re looking your best), the other displaying your mate. Best of all you can hit Triangle again and invite more people to join your chat – up to a maximum of six. And the cost? Not a bean above your usual broadband connection charges.
6) Browse multiple Internet windows
Open the browser (go to Network) and surf to a page you want. Now open up the menu
with a press of Triangle and choose ‘Open In New Window’. Enter another URL and then
do the same again. Keep going until you’ve got six windows open.
Now press L3 (done by clicking down the left stick). You’re now in multi-page mode.
Move the left stick to flick through the web pages as though they were bits of paper,
then click L3 again to zoom in.
7) Upgrade your hard drive
We took the drive out of our PS3 and found it to be a Seagate Momentus 5400rpm 60Gb 2.5inch SATA drive.
We swapped ours out effortlessly for a Seagate Momentus 120Gb 2.5inch SATA drive and it worked perfectly.
Remove the cover flap on the bottom of your PS3 with a fingernail.
Undo the blue screw and slide the drive over to the right and out of your PS3.
Undo the four screws on the ‘caddy’ and remove the old drive.
Put your new drive in the caddy (it should be exactly the same size, of course) and re-do the four screws.
Slot it back in and slide to the left to make the connections. Re-do the blue screw,
pop the cover back on and restart your PS3. Say ‘yes’ to the message on screen and voila -
new super-size hard-drive. (Go to Settings, System Settings, System Information to check).
8. Share your bought downloads
You can download anything you’ve bought from the store to five PlayStation 3’s.
This is useful if you’ve got more than one PS3 (of course) and also if you’ve wiped
your hard-drive and don’t fancy paying for the same download twice…
However, you can also choose to share your download with your mates. The PlayStation
Store logs how many times each download has been downloaded by each user.
On your mate’s PS3 Create New User and log onto the store with your ID.
You’ll now be able to go to your download and see that you’ve already
downloaded whatever it was that you paid for. You can now download it again,
using another of your downloads and giving it to your mate for free. Or a small optional charge…
9) Force a PS3 to show your files
Put your photos in a folder called ‘PICTURE’ or your videos in a folder called ‘VIDEO’ or simply *force*
your PS3 to look at your files on your stick regardless of what you called them or where
you put them. Insert your stick and go to the menu option you want (Photos, Music, whatever).
Press Triangle to bring up a menu and choose Display All. This will show every file on the stick.
It even works for a plugged-in iPod, though the multi-folder structure you’ll reveal is a bit baffling.
Still, your songs are in there if you’ve got the patience to find them.
10) Change your album art
When you import a music CD your PS3 automatically pulls down the album art and stores it with the tracks.
Occasionally it gets it wrong, however, or it may simply not be able to find the art of your hipper,
less commercial tracks. This is easily fixed however. Download a pic of the art you need as a
jpg on your PC and put it onto a stick (in a folder called PICTURE, ideally). Copy it to your
Photo menu (press Triangle). Now go to Music and select the album folder with the offending art.
Press Triangle and select Information. Go to the Photo menu and select your new picture. Bingo.
11. Setting up your memory stick for easy PS3 use.
Can’t find that song you just put on your memory stick? Unable to locate that game your trying to
transfer? Its prolly not in the right folder.
You can hit Triangle and then choose “display all” and hunt for it or you can prevent that from ever
happening by making the following folders.
Music: Music
Movies: Video
Pictures: Picture
PS3 game saves: PS3>SAVEDATA
PS1/PS2 game saves: PS3>EXPORT>PSV
12. Video Compatibility
Trying to play a video but keep getting an “Unsupported format” Message? Odds are the video is not in an Mpeg format.
This is easily fixed. Simply google “Xvid4psp”. This is a program that can convert most video formats
into mp4 with very little image quality being lost. As a bonus it can also reduce the file size considerably.
13. “Wireless” internet access with your 20gb PS3
For this you will need at the very least a computer or laptop near your ps3 and a ethernet cable
(a router, internet access etc expected also). After you connect your ps3 to the computer or through a
router (perhaps for multiple systems) and to the computer, right click on my network connections and click properties.
Then right click your wireless internet connection and click properties. Click the advanced tab and check the boxes
for “Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s internet connection” if you have a drop down box
under that, select the connection that you connected your ps3 to. Then also click the check box that says allow other
network users to control or disable the shared internet connection.
Click ok, and wait for your computer to save the settings then enjoy. This also works with xbox, ps2,
gamecube, and dreamcast(that is if you can find the broadband adapter for it….).
14. Bluetooth Headset Functionality
If you have a bluetooth headset you can set it up under one of the 7 bluetooth ports available via the ps3.
To set it up put your headset in pairing mode, and then go to settings on your XMB. Click accessories and
click register bluetooth device.. Then choose register headset/microphone/headphones. Then follow the instructions.
Go to audio device settings to test your bluetooth connection after everything is set up.
15. How to view the PSN stores in other regions
First creat a new user and name it what ever you like. I suggest naming it what region PSN store that accout
will be linked to. There are only 4 major regions worth making an account for USA, UK, Hong Kong and Japan.
Next just make a new master PSN account on that user. Choose the desired region when asked for a country.
From there its should walk you through the entire proses.
The USA, UK and Hong Kong set up menus will all be in english so you should have no trouble getting things set up.
The Japanese PSN set up however is, you guessed it, in Japanese. Not to worry. Simply go to this web sight.
www.freewebs.com/buggie66/index.html
There you will find a step by step guide on how to make a Japanese account. There are even pictures detailing
every step just incase you get confused.
16. Setting up Remote play
This is based on your PS3 having the newest firmware and is a 60gig:
1. Connect your PSP to the PS3 with a usb cable (the one that came with the PS3 will work). Turn on your PSP,
go to settings, and choose USB connection
2. on your PS3, go to settings, choose remote play settings, and choose to register a device. It will take a few
seconds to register your PSP. once its done, you can get out of USB mode on the PSP and disconnect it from the PS3 system.
If you want to make sure your PSP registered, choose the “registered devices” category on the PS3 remote play settings.
A list of registered PSP devices will appear (the nickname you gave you PSP will be shown, along with it’s mac address.
3. Next, go to network on the PS3 and choose the Remote Play option. It should say to connect a registered PSP to the PS3.
4. now, make sure the WLAN switch is slide up on the PSP, and in the PSP menu, go to network and choose Remote Play
(which should say the nickname of the PS3 it is connected to). A list of your network connections will appear,
with a new one that says “PLAYSTATION(R)3″. Make sure you are a reasonable distance from the PS3, and choose that
connection. A few seconds of connecting later and………
5. VIOLA! Your PS3 XMB menu should appear on your PSP! You can now look at photos, listen to music, and watch videos
stored on the PS3’s HDD on the PSP! You can even go into the Playstation store, go on the web browser, and send messages
to your friends on your freinds list! ZOMGLAWLCOPTERZ!1!111!!
*note: pressing the “HOME” button on the PSP will bring up some options you can tinker with*
6. When you want to quit remote play, Press the “HOME” button on PSP and Choose to quit back to the menu. Then on the PS3,
press circle to go back to the XMB. And that, kiddies, is how you do it.
17.Nov.08 
PS3 
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