NHDDL - a PS2 exFAT BDM launcher for Neutrino
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NHDDL is a memory card-based launcher that scans FAT/exFAT-formatted BDM devices for ISO files, lists them and boots selected ISO via Neutrino.
It displays visual Game ID to trigger per-game settings on the Pixel FX line of products and writes to memory card history file before launching the title, triggering per-title memory cards on SD2PSX and MemCard PRO 2.
Note that this not an attempt at making a Neutrino-based Open PS2 Loader replacement.
It will not boot ISOs from anything other than BDM devices.
GSM, PADEMU, IGR and other stuff is out-of-scope of this launcher.
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NHDDL requires a full Neutrino installation to be present at one of the following paths:
- <NHDDL launch directory>/neturino.elf (might be case-sensitive depending on device)
- 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)
- massX:/neutrino/neutrino.elf (BDM devices)
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.
Do not plug in any USB mass 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.
Since v1.0.0, 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 USB.
Note that Neutrino is still required for NHDDL to launch your ISOs.
- Get the latest nhddl.elf
- Copy nhddl.elf to your memory card or storage device wherever you want.
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Additional step if you need only ATA, USB, MX4SIO, UDPBD or iLink:
Add a mode entry in nhddl.yaml and place 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.
Non-standalone version
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
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Additional step if you need only ATA, USB, MX4SIO, UDPBD or iLink:
Add a mode entry in nhddl.yaml and place it next to nhddl.elf - Copy Neutrino folder to your PS2 memory card or your USB device.
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 USB modules and doesn't reset the IOP before loading NHDDL.
If this is the case, you must place Neutrino on the memory card or use standalone version instead.
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.
ATA
Make sure that Neutrino modules directory contains the following IRX files:
- bdm.irx
- bdmfs_fatfs.irx
- dev9_ns.irx
- ata_bd.irx
MX4SIO
The following files are required for MX4SIO:
- bdm.irx
- bdmfs_fatfs.irx
- mx4sio_bd_mini.irx
USB
The following files are required for USB:
- bdm.irx
- bdmfs_fatfs.irx
- usbd_mini.irx
- usbmass_bd_mini.irx
UDPBD
The following files are required for UDPBD:
- bdm.irx
- bdmfs_fatfs.irx
- dev9_ns.irx
- smap_udpbd.irx
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)
iLink
The following files are required for iLink:
- bdm.irx
- bdmfs_fatfs.irx
- iLinkman.irx
- IEEE1394_bd_mini.irx
Storing ISO
ISOs can be stored almost anywhere on the storage device.
Only directories that start with ., $ and the following directories are ignored:
- nhddl
- APPS
- ART
- CFG
- CHT
- LNG
- THM
- VMC
- XEBPLUS
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 HDD.
If unsure where to get your cover art from, check out the latest version of OPL Manager.
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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)
- mcX:/NHDDL/nhddl.yaml (memory cards, case-sensitive)
- mcX:/NHDDL-CONF/nhddl.yaml (memory cards, case-sensitive)
- massX:/nhddl/nhddl.yaml (BDM devices)
By default, 480p is disabled 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.
Visit this site to generate nhddl.yaml for your installation.
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:
To be able to parse those arguments and allow you to dynamically enable or disable them in UI,Code:# All flags are passed to neutrino as-is for future-proofing, comments are ignored gc: 2 mc0: massX:/memcard0.bin # all file paths must always start with massX:. X will be replaced with the actual device number. $mc1: massX:/memcard1.bin # this argument is disabled # Arguments that don't have a value # Empty values are treated as a simple flag dbc: logo:
NHDDL uses a dollar sign ($) 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.
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Since v1.0.0, NHDDL is a fully SAS-compliant application.
Visit this site to generate nhddl.yaml for your installation or get a SAS-compliant PSU package
Visit this site to generate nhddl.yaml for your installation or get a SAS-compliant PSU package.
Source, up-to-date readme and release notes:
https://github.com/pcm720/nhddl
