NHDDL — a PS2 launcher for Neutrino

NHDDL is a Neutrino launcher that scans MMCE, APA or FAT/exFAT-formatted BDM devices for ISO files, lists them and boots selected ISO via Neutrino.

It displays visual Game ID to trigger per-title settings on the Pixel FX line of products and triggers per-title memory cards on SD2PSX and MemCard PRO2.

Note that this not an attempt at making a Neutrino-based Open PS2 Loader replacement.
Since NHDDL only launches Neutrino, GSM, PADEMU, IGR, IGS, cheats and other features supported by OPL are out-of-scope unless they are implemented in Neutrino.

Usage

Title list controls

• Press Up on the d-pad to select the previous title in the list
• Press Down on the d-pad to select the next title in the list
• Press L1 to switch to the previous page or go to the start of the list
• Press R1 to switch to the next page or go to the end of the list

Important notes

NHDDL requires a full Neutrino installation to be present at one of the following paths:

• <NHDDL launch directory>/neutrino.elf (might be case-sensitive depending on device)
• mmceX:/neutrino/neutrino.elf (MMCE devices, will work even if MMCE mode is not enabled)
• massX:/neutrino/neutrino.elf (BDM devices, if any of BDM modes are enabled)
• hdd0:/<OPL partition>/neutrino/neutrino.elf (APA device, if HDL mode is enabled)
  OPL partition must be one of the following, in order of priority: +OPL, OPL or __common
• mcX:/APPS/neutrino/neutrino.elf (memory cards, case-sensitive)
• mcX:/NEUTRINO/NEUTRINO.ELF (SAS-compliant path on memory cards, case-sensitive)
• mcX:/NEUTRINO/neutrino.elf (SAS-compliant path on memory cards, case-sensitive)

By default, NHDDL tries to initialize all supported devices. You can override this behavior and reduce initialization times by setting specific mode in launcher configuration file.
See this section for details on nhddl.yml.

Do not plug in any BDM storage devices while running NHDDL!
Doing so might crash NHDDL and/or possibly corrupt the files on your target device due to how BDM drivers work.

Versions

NHDDL comes in two versions: standalone and non-standalone.

Standalone version

The standalone version of NHDDL doesn't require any Neutrino modules and will boot from any device.
It makes the nhddl.elf larger, but allows NHDDL to support ELF loaders that unload everything before launchining NHDDL from BDM devices.

Note that Neutrino is still required for NHDDL to launch your ISOs.

Manual installation

To use NHDDL:

• Get the latest nhddl.elf
• Copy nhddl.elf to your memory card or storage device wherever you want.
• Additional step if you need only some of the available modes:
  Modify nhddl.yaml accordingly and copy it next to nhddl.elf
• Get the latest Neutrino release
• Copy Neutrino folder to the root of your PS2 memory card or your storage device.

Save Application System PSU

You can also get NHDDL as an easy-to-use PSU package here.
To install it:

• Copy generated nhddl.psu to your USB drive
• Open wLaunchELF on your PS2
• Choose your USB device and copy nhddl.psu
• Go back and open your memory card (mc0 or mc1)
• Open file menu and select psuPaste
• Get the latest Neutrino release
• Copy Neutrino folder to the root of your PS2 memory card or your storage device.

This will install NHDDL to your memory card along with the PS2 Browser icon.

Updating nhddl.elf is as simple as replacing nhddl.elf with the latest version.

Non-standalone version

The non-standalone version of NHDDL reuses Neutrino modules for BDM support and requires them to be present in Neutrino modules directory, which makes nhddl.elf significantly smaller.
These files should already be present in Neutrino release ZIP.
Use this version to save space on your memory card.

• Get the latest Neutrino release
• Get the latest nhddl.elf
• Unpack Neutrino release
• Copy nhddl.elf to Neutrino folder next to neutrino.elf
• Additional step if you need only some of the available modes:
  Modify nhddl.yaml accordingly and copy it next to nhddl.elf
• Copy Neutrino folder to your PS2 memory card or your storage device.

Updating nhddl.elf is as simple as replacing nhddl.elf with the latest version.

You can also install NHDDL from a PSU package (see this section), but you'll need to copy Neutrino installation manually using wLaunchELF or another PS2-based file manager.

If you're getting Failed to prepare external modules error while trying to run NHDDL from the USB drive, MX4SIO, iLink or UDPBD, make sure your ELF launcher initializes BDM modules and doesn't reset the IOP before loading NHDDL.
If this is the case, you must place Neutrino on the memory card, MMCE device or use standalone version instead.

Supported modes

ATA

Make sure that Neutrino modules directory contains the following IRX files:

• bdm.irx
• bdmfs_fatfs.irx
• dev9_ns.irx
• ata_bd.irx

To skip all other devices, mode: ata must be present in nhddl.yaml.

MX4SIO

The following files are required for MX4SIO:

• bdm.irx
• bdmfs_fatfs.irx
• mx4sio_bd_mini.irx

To skip all other devices, mode: mx4sio must be present in nhddl.yaml.

USB

The following files are required for USB:

• bdm.irx
• bdmfs_fatfs.irx
• usbd_mini.irx
• usbmass_bd_mini.irx

Using more than one USB mass storage device at the same time is not recommended. To skip all other devices, mode: usb must be present in nhddl.yaml.

UDPBD

The following files are required for UDPBD:

• bdm.irx
• bdmfs_fatfs.irx
• dev9_ns.irx
• smap_udpbd.irx

To skip all other devices, mode: udpbd must be present in nhddl.yaml.

UDPBD module requires PS2 IP address to work.
NHDDL attempts to retrieve PS2 IP address from the following sources:

• udpbd_ip flag in nhddl.yml
• SYS-CONF/IPCONFIG.DAT on the memory card (usually created by w/uLaunchELF)

udpbd_ip flag takes priority over IPCONFIG.DAT.

iLink

The following files are required for iLink:

• bdm.irx
• bdmfs_fatfs.irx
• iLinkman.irx
• IEEE1394_bd_mini.irx

To skip all other devices, mode: ilink must be present in nhddl.yaml.

MMCE (SD2PSX, MemCard PRO2)

MMCE devices are supported with embedded module.
To skip all other devices, mode: mmce must be present in nhddl.yaml.

HDL (APA-formatted HDD with HD Loader partitions)

The following files are required for HDL backend:

• bdm.irx
• dev9_ns.irx
• ata_bd.irx
• ps2hdd.irx
• ps2fs.irx The last two modules are a part of PS2SDK and included in NHDDL distribution.

Note that HDL backend does not support VMCs and virtual HDDs.
Cover art and title options will be loaded from one of the following APA partitions:

• +OPL
• OPL
• __common

To skip all other devices, mode: hdl must be present in nhddl.yaml.

Storing ISO (MMCE, BDM backends)

ISOs can be stored almost anywhere on the storage device, but no more than 5 directories deep.
For example, ISOs stored in DVD/A/B/C/D will be scanned and added to the list, but ISOs stored in DVD/A/B/C/D/E will be ignored.

Furthermore, directories that start with ., $ and the following directories are ignored to speed up the scanning process:

• nhddl
• APPS
• ART
• CFG
• CHT
• LNG
• THM
• VMC
• XEBPLUS
• MemoryCards

Displaying cover art

NHDDL uses the same file naming convention and file format used by OPL.
Just put 140x200 PNG files named <title ID>_COV.png (e.g. SLUS_200.02_COV.png) into the ART directory on the root of your device.
If unsure where to get your cover art from, check out the latest version of OPL Manager.

Configuration files

NHDDL uses YAML-like files to load and store its configuration options.

Launcher configuration file

Launcher configuration is read from the nhddl.yaml file.

Configuration file is loaded from one of the following paths:

• <NHDDL launch directory>/nhddl.yaml (might be case-sensitive depending on device)
• mmceX:/nhddl/nhddl.yaml (MMCE devices, if MMCE mode is enabled)
• massX:/nhddl/nhddl.yaml (BDM devices, if any of BDM modes are enabled)
• hdd0:/<OPL partition>/neutrino/neutrino.elf (APA device, if HDL mode is enabled)
  OPL partition must be one of the following, in order of priority: +OPL, OPL or __common
• mcX:/NHDDL/nhddl.yaml (memory cards, case-sensitive)
• mcX:/NHDDL-CONF/nhddl.yaml (memory cards, case-sensitive)

This file is completely optional and must be used only to force video mode in NHDDL UI or set NHDDL device mode.
By default, default video mode is used and all BDM devices are used to look for ISO files.

To disable a flag, you can just comment it out with #.

See this file for an example of a valid nhddl.yaml file.

Additional configuration files on storage device

NHDDL stores and looks for ISO-related config files in nhddl directory in the root of your BDM drive.

lastTitle.bin

This file stores the full path of the last launched title and is used to automatically navigate to it each time NHDDL starts up.
This file is created automatically.

cache.bin

Contains title ID cache for all ISOs located during the previous launch, making building ISO list way faster.
This file is also created automatically.

Argument files

These files store arbitrary arguments that are passed to Neutrino on title launch.
Arguments stored in those files are passed to neutrino.elf as-is.

For a list of valid arguments, see Neutrino README.

Example of a valid argument file:

# All flags are passed to neutrino as-is for future-proofing, comments are ignored
gc: 2
mc0: /memcard0.bin # all file paths must be relative to device root
$mc1: /VMC/memcard1.bin # this argument is disabled
# Arguments that don't have a value
# Empty values are treated as a simple flag
dbc:
logo:

To be able to parse those arguments and allow you to dynamically enable or disable them in UI,
NHDDL uses a dollar sign ($) to mark arguments as enabled or disabled by default.
Only enabled arguments get passed to Neutrino.

NHDDL supports two kinds of argument files:

global.yaml

Arguments stored in nhddl/global.yaml are applied to every ISO by default.

ISO-specific files

Arguments stored in nhddl/<ISO name>.yaml are applied to every ISO that starts with <ISO name>.

NHDDL can create this file automatically when title compatibility modes are modified and saved in UI.

Example of directory sturcture on BDM device

ART/ # cover art, optional
  |
  - SLUS_200.02_COV.png
nhddl/
  |
   - lastTitle.txt # created automatically
   - cache.bin # created automatically
   - global.yaml # optional argument file, applies to all ISOs
   - nhddl.yaml # NHDDL options, applied after initialization is complete
   - Silent Hill 2.yaml # optional argument file, applies only to ISOs that start with "Silent Hill 2"
CD/
  |
   — Ridge Racer V.iso
DVD/
  |
   - Silent Hill 2.iso
   - TimeSplitters.iso

UI screenshots

Title list

Title options