Cheats (PS2RD)

RiptOPL ships the full PS2RD cheat engine. Drop a .cht file in the CHT folder, enable cheats in Game Settings, and choose whether OPL applies them automatically or shows you a selection menu before the game boots.

ℹ Neutrino and cheats

The PS2RD cheat engine is an OPL core feature. When a game's Loader Core is set to Neutrino, opening Cheat Settings shows a notice that the feature is not used with the Neutrino core, and no cheat options are presented; the cheat engine does not run — Neutrino manages the game environment itself. If you need cheats for a title, leave its Loader Core on OPL (the default). See Neutrino Core and Per-game Settings for details.

The CHT folder and .cht file format

OPL looks for cheat files in the CHT/ folder on your storage device (USB, MMCE, MX4SIO, iLink, SMB, or the internal HDD). The folder lives alongside DVD/, CD/, CFG/, and the other standard OPL folders. On an APA/PFS HDD it lives under hdd0:__common/OPL/CHT/.

Each file covers exactly one game. The filename must match the game's startup name (its disc ID, e.g. SLUS_123.45) with a .cht extension:

CHT/SLUS_123.45.cht

The format is plain text in PS2RD format: cheat entries consist of a description line (the cheat name) followed by one or more hex code lines. Each code line is exactly 16 hex digits in two groups of 8, separated by a space:

Infinite Health
20123456 3F800000
Infinite Ammo
2034ABCD 00000063

Comment lines starting with // or # are ignored.
A description line can be up to 128 characters; a single cheat entry can carry multiple code lines.
OPL supports up to 250 named cheat entries per file.
Files of any size are accepted; the engine reads as much as memory allows.

Where do I find .cht files?

PS2RD-format cheat files are the same format used by PCSX2 and many older cheat databases. Search for your game's disc ID plus "ps2rd" or "cht" to find community-maintained files, or build one by hand from Action Replay / CodeBreaker codes converted to the raw address/value form. The OPL compatibility list at OPL-CL sometimes lists known-working codes for specific titles.

Enabling cheats for a game

Open Game Settings

Highlight the game in any list, press the confirm button (cross by default), and select Options from the game menu. Then open Cheat Settings.

Set the settings source

The Settings Mode picker at the top of the Cheat Settings panel controls whether OPL reads cheat options from the Global Settings (shared across all games) or Per-game Settings (stored in a per-title file under CFG/). Choose Per-game Settings if you want different cheat choices per title.

Enable the PS2RD Cheat Engine

Toggle PS2RD Cheat Engine on. The hint reads: "Lets PS2RD Cheat Engine patch your game." The cheat mode selector below it becomes active once cheats are enabled.

Choose a cheat mode

See the Cheat Modes section below. Select Auto Select Cheats or Select Game Cheats and save.

Cheat modes

The PS2RD Cheat Engine Mode setting has two options:

Mode	Behaviour
Auto Select Cheats	All cheat entries in the `.cht` file are enabled and applied automatically when the game launches. No selection screen is shown.
Select Game Cheats	A cheat selection menu appears at launch time. You can navigate the list and disable individual cheats for that session. Master Codes cannot be disabled — they are required for any other codes to function and are always applied.

ℹ Master Codes

A Master Code (sometimes called a "must be on" or "activator" code) is a prerequisite hook that the cheat engine must write before any other codes in the file take effect. OPL identifies these by their address type and always keeps them enabled, even in Select Game Cheats mode. You will see them in the selection menu but cannot toggle them off.

PS2RD Cheat Image (.img)

In addition to text .cht codes, OPL supports a prebuilt PS2RD cheat image — a binary patch file (extension .img) that is applied directly to the game at boot, in parallel with (and independently of) any text cheat codes. This is a separate, optional feature controlled by its own per-game toggle.

The IMG folder

Image files live in an IMG/ folder on the same device, alongside CHT/. The filename convention mirrors the cheat file: the game's startup name with an .img extension:

IMG/SLUS_123.45.img

Enabling the image

In Cheat Settings for the game, find the PS2RD Cheat Image toggle (config key $EnableImage). The hint reads: "Apply a prebuilt PS2RD .img patch to your game." This toggle is off by default. Turn it on to have OPL load and apply the .img file when the game next launches.

The $EnableImage toggle is independent of PS2RD Cheat Engine — you can use the image patch with or without text cheats enabled.
If the .img file is absent or fails to load, OPL logs the error and continues; the game still boots.
The image is limited to 4 KB (1 024 32-bit words). Larger files are truncated to that limit.
Like text cheats, the image patch does not apply when the game's Loader Core is set to Neutrino.

What is a PS2RD .img file?

A PS2RD cheat image is a flat binary array of 32-bit address/value word pairs in the same format as the in-memory cheat list the engine compiles from text codes. It can be produced by tools that export cheat engine state or by hand-crafting the binary. Unlike a .cht file there is no human-readable text — it is a raw patch list loaded directly into the EE core at boot. It was popularised by wOPL and the wider OPL community as a way to distribute patches that bypass the text-parsing step entirely.

Config keys reference

Cheat settings are written to the per-game CFG/ file (or to the global settings if the source is set to Global). The relevant config keys are:

Key	Values	Meaning
`$CheatsSource`	0 = Global, 1 = Per-game	Which config layer cheat settings are read from.
`$EnableCheat`	0 = Off, 1 = On	Enables the PS2RD Cheat Engine for this game.
`$CheatMode`	0 = Auto Select, 1 = Select Game Cheats	Whether all cheats run automatically or a selection menu appears at launch.
`$EnableImage`	0 = Off, 1 = On	Loads and applies the prebuilt `.img` binary patch alongside (or instead of) text codes.

🎚️Per-game SettingsFull walk-through of every per-title option panel ⚛️Neutrino CoreWhy cheats are greyed under Neutrino 💾VMCVirtual Memory Cards — another per-game feature