NHDDL — a PS2 exFAT BDM launcher for Neutrino

NHDDL is a Neutrino 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, IGS and other stuff is out-of-scope of this launcher.

Usage

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.
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.

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 ATA, USB, MX4SIO, UDPBD or iLink:
  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

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 ATA, USB, MX4SIO, UDPBD or iLink:
  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 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

To skip all other BDM 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 BDM devices, mode: mx4sio must be present in nhddl.yaml to initialize only MX4SIO.

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 BDM 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 BDM 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 BDM devices, mode: ilink must be present in nhddl.yaml.

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.

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)
• mcX:/NHDDL/nhddl.yaml (memory cards, case-sensitive)
• mcX:/NHDDL-CONF/nhddl.yaml (memory cards, case-sensitive)
• massX:/nhddl/nhddl.yaml (BDM devices)

This file is completely optional and must be used only to enable 480p in NHDDL UI or switch NHDDL to a single device mode.
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.

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: 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:

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
   - 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

Common use cases

Switching NHDDL to ATA-only mode

To switch NHDDL to ATA-only mode, you'll need to create nhddl.yaml with the following contents:

mode: ata

Copy this file to Neutrino directory next to nhddl.elf.

Switching NHDDL to USB-only mode

To switch NHDDL to USB-only mode, you'll need to create nhddl.yaml with the following contents:

mode: usb

Copy this file to Neutrino directory next to nhddl.elf.

Switching NHDDL to MX4SIO-only mode

To switch NHDDL to MX4SIO-only mode, you'll need to create nhddl.yaml with the following contents:

mode: mx4sio

Copy this file to Neutrino directory next to nhddl.elf.

Switching NHDDL to UDPBD-only mode

To switch NHDDL to UDPBD-only mode, you'll need to create nhddl.yaml with the following contents:

mode: udpbd
udpbd_ip: <PS2 IP address>

If you've previously set up the network via uLaunchELF and your memory card has SYS-CONF/IPCONFIG.DAT file, you don't have to add udpbd_ip.

Copy this file to the Neutrino directory next to nhddl.elf.

Switching NHDDL to iLink-only mode

To switch NHDDL to iLink-only mode, you'll need to create nhddl.yaml with the following contents:

mode: ilink

Copy this file to Neutrino directory next to nhddl.elf.

UI screenshots

Title list

Title options