If you have a Sony PSX DESR recorder or an early Japanese PS2 with a PC CARD slot, review PSX DVR and PC CARD CompactFlash first. Both paths are experimental, and CompactFlash is implemented but awaits hardware validation.
Getting Started
From nothing to your first game running — pick a storage device, place your files, enable the device, and launch. Follow the USB walk-through after your homebrew launcher is ready.
RIPTOPL.ELF is already on your PS2 and booting, skip ahead to
Pick a device. If you still need to get the ELF onto your console, start with
Install & First Boot first.What you need
- A PlayStation 2 (any model) or a backward-compatible PlayStation 3.
- A way to launch homebrew ELFs — Free McBoot (FMCB), Free HD Boot (FHDB), a modchip, or equivalent.
- At least one storage option: USB drive, MMCE / MX4SIO SD card, iLink storage, SMB network share, or an internal HDD.
- A complete RiptOPL install kit — download
RIPTOPL-<version>.zipfrom the Releases page. Choose the preservedcurrent-fan-favoritedevelopment snapshot orrollingfor the newest development build. - At least one PS2 game image in ISO or ZSO format.
Which release should I download?
The rolling channel is rebuilt from rebuild/main on every push during the rebuild and is intentionally published as GitHub's full, non-pre-release Latest release. It may occasionally be unstable. The Current Fan Favorite Build is a preserved development snapshot selected after positive feedback; compatibility still varies by setup. Either way, the full installable package zip (RIPTOPL-<version>.zip) normally contains four labelled loader folders (the notes identify any omitted best-effort flavour), one canonical POPS/ folder (including every loose BDMA pair and the iLink .ilink pair), EMBER/, and a required extracted neutrino/ folder; a failed Neutrino download or extraction fails current packaging. No duplicate release-root POPSTARTER/ folder or embedded BDMA pair is used. The language pack is a separate optional RIPTOPL-LANGS-*.zip release asset. See Releases for details.
Pick a device
Choose a source that matches your hardware and game core:
| Device | What it needs | Where to go next |
|---|---|---|
| USB | USB drive formatted FAT32 or exFAT, plugged into the PS2's USB port | USB / MX4SIO / iLink |
| MX4SIO | MX4SIO adapter + SD card in the memory-card slot (FAT32 or exFAT) | USB / MX4SIO / iLink |
| MMCE | SD2PSX, MemCard PRO2, or compatible MMCE device in the memory-card slot | MMCE |
| iLink | IEEE 1394 (FireWire) SBP2 storage device | USB / MX4SIO / iLink |
| SMB | A network share on a PC or NAS (SMBv1 or SMB2: pick it with the SMB Version setting in Network; SMBv1 is the default. The experimental Neutrino SMB path uses SMB 3.0 on port 445); PS2 needs a network adapter | SMB |
| Internal HDD (APA) | Internal ATA HDD formatted with APA/PFS — classic PS2 HDD setup | Internal HDD |
| Internal HDD (exFAT) | Internal ATA HDD formatted exFAT — BDM path, same folder layout as USB | Internal HDD |
| Network boot (UDPBD / UDPFS) | PS2 network adapter + a PC running the server; Neutrino by default (UDPBD and UDPFS can also use the OPL core) | Network Boot |
The OPL folder structure
All folder-based devices — USB, MX4SIO, MMCE, iLink, SMB, and an exFAT HDD — share the same directory layout, at the root of the device (or inside a subfolder, if you set a prefix). RiptOPL creates these folders automatically the first time it boots and you enable a device — you do not need to create them by hand.
DVD/ PS2 DVD games (ISO or ZSO files) CD/ PS2 CD games (ISO, ZSO — blue-bottom discs) ART/ Cover art images (game-id_COV.png, game-id_ICO.png, etc.) CFG/ Per-game configuration files (saved by OPL automatically) VMC/ Virtual Memory Card images (8 MB – 64 MB .bin files) THM/ Theme folders LNG/ Translation files CHT/ PS2RD cheat files (.cht) IMG/ PS2RD prebuilt cheat image files (game-id.img) APPS/ Homebrew ELF applications
DVD/ or CD/. The CFG/, ART/, VMC/, THM/, CHT/, LNG/, and APPS/ folders still apply, but they live in the OPL data partition: at the root of +OPL, or in OPL/ on __common. See Internal HDD for how the partition is chosen.Supported game image formats
- ISO — standard disc image. Local FAT32 files must be below 4 GiB; exFAT permits larger files. SMB does not inherit the PS2 drive's FAT32 limit. See the source/core guides for restrictions.
- ZSO — compressed image for native OPL sources that support it; unavailable for HTTP and Neutrino. See ZSO Format.
- USBExtreme / ul.* — split files for the native OPL core. Keep
ul.cfgand everyul.*part at the library root, outsideCD/andDVD/. See USBExtreme setup. - HDLoader partitions — APA/PFS HDD only; installed with hdl-dump or OPL's NBD server.
Walk-through: USB to first launch
These steps use USB as the example — the pattern is identical for every folder-based device.
1. Prepare the drive
Format your USB drive as FAT32 (single files below 4 GiB; larger games need splitting) or exFAT (large single ISO files). Use the default allocation unit size when formatting exFAT. Create a DVD folder at the root of the drive (or let RiptOPL create it when you turn USB on in step 3), then copy your game ISO into it:
USB root
└── DVD/
└── My Game Title.iso
For games larger than 4 GB on a FAT32 drive, use USBExtreme / USBUtil to split them into ul.* files plus ul.cfg at the library root instead. On exFAT you can use a plain ISO regardless of size.
2. Plug in and boot RiptOPL
Connect the USB drive to the PS2's USB port, then launch RIPTOPL.ELF from your homebrew launcher (FMCB, FHDB, or equivalent). On a fresh install, RiptOPL boots to the main start menu (all storage backends ship off by default until enabled). The first boot also creates any missing OPL folders on the drive automatically.
3. Enable USB in Game Sources
On a fresh install, enable your storage options under Game Sources:
- Press Start, choose Settings, then open Game Sources.
- Turn USB on, and set BDM Devices Start Mode to Auto (or Manual).
- Press OK to return to the Settings screen, then choose Save Changes. Fresh settings confirm with Cross (Circle on Japanese consoles); the button is configurable, so follow the on-screen prompt.
The game list refreshes and your title should now appear in the active theme. Fresh settings use
<OPL>, 4:3 and Auto menu video mode. For an optional cover-art view, choose
Coverflow, PSBBN Flow or Grid under Settings → Interface → Theme View (or hold L3 on the main page), apply and save.
Enable Widescreen separately if you want 16:9. Existing saved settings override these defaults.
4. Launch a test game
Select your game using the D-pad or left stick: up/down in the built-in OPL list, or left/right in Coverflow or PSBBN Flow. R3 remains Favorite in either flow theme. See PSBBN Flow build availability. Press the on-screen confirm button to launch it (Cross with fresh settings, Circle on Japanese consoles). OPL loads the game using its built-in OPL core by default. If the game boots successfully, you are done.
If the game freezes or does not boot, open Game Settings for that title (highlight it, press Triangle) and try enabling compatibility modes one at a time. See Per-game Settings for a full explanation of the compatibility flags.
5. Save your settings
After a successful launch, go back to the main menu (press Start) and choose Save Changes. This writes settings_riptopl.cfg to your storage device so RiptOPL remembers your configuration on every subsequent boot.
settings_riptopl.cfg (with migration from
conf_riptopl.cfg). That filename is separate from stock OPL's master config, but
conf_network.cfg, app lists, per-game configuration and support files can still be shared.
Favorites import from uOPL/wOPL is one-way: the next write saves RiptOPL's own OFAV
format to favourites.bin, which those loaders cannot read back. Keep an original copy if
you use them too. The settings home follows boot-directory discovery or Custom Settings Path;
do not assume it is always mc0:/OPL/.Japanese game titles with English menus? See Unicode game title activation.
Where to go next
You have a working game. Here are the most common things to set up next:
Can I use RiptOPL alongside stock OPL or wOPL on the same memory card?
Yes, with shared-file precautions. See where the config file lives above and the settings-home reference. Back up favorites before the one-way import.
Do I need Neutrino to play games?
No. RiptOPL ships with OPL's built-in core, which handles the vast majority of PS2 games without any extra setup. Neutrino is an optional external core you can assign per game for titles that benefit from it — for example, those that need its compatibility modes or network-boot features (UDPBD / UDPFS). See Neutrino Core for details. Current installable kits require the complete Neutrino bundle. Copy that folder to a supported location; the loose loader update does not install it.
My game list is empty after enabling a device. What do I check?
First confirm the game files are in the correct folder on the device: DVD/ for DVD images, CD/ for CD images. OPL is case-sensitive — dvd is not the same as DVD. Also check that the image extension is .iso or .zso, and that the drive is plugged in before RiptOPL boots. For FAT32 drives, games over 4 GB must be in USBExtreme format. See Troubleshooting for further diagnostic steps.