Glossary

Every POPStarter / POPSLoader acronym, prefix, file and $command defined in one place (40 terms). Search any term up top, or jump:

A B C D E F H I K M P S T V W

APA / PFS: The PS2 HDD partition format (APA) and filesystem (PFS). POPStarter's internal-HDD payload lives on APA/PFS — never exFAT.
BDM Assault (BDMA): The block-device backend layer. In the POPSLoader fork its BDMA Mode setting selects the mass-storage device — FAT32 (plain USB), USBEXFAT (exFAT USB), MX4SIO, MMCE, or ATA (exFAT internal HDD) — by loading the BDM driver set. It is how you reach exFAT USB, the internal exFAT HDD, and the other devices, and is required for every device except an APA/PFS internal HDD.
CHEATS.TXT: The per-game text file holding POPStarter $commands and raw GameShark codes. Must be UPPERCASE on internal HDD/PFS or it is silently ignored.
__common/POPS: The shared HDD folder (on the __common partition) holding the POPS emulator files plus per-game VMC and cover art.
Compatibility mode: POPS per-game fix levels 0x01–0x07, selectable as $COMPATIBILITY_0x## or a PATCH_X.BIN. All seven are described in the recovered Compatibility modes table: 0x01 restores music/voices, 0x04 fixes slowdowns and flickering, 0x06 disables the built-in BIOS OSD shell so some games stop freezing on startup, and 0x07 targets missing textures but is unfinished and marked obsolete. 0x01, 0x02, 0x03 and 0x05 are variants of the same hack and conflict with each other, so use only one at a time.
CUE2POPS: The PC tool that converts a PS1 CUE/BIN rip into a POPS .VCD.
D2LS: The “left stick is the D-pad” cheat. $D2LS leaves the pad digital; $D2LS_ALT leaves it analog.
DISCS.TXT: The multi-disc list naming each disc's VCD, placed in every disc's per-game folder for in-game disc swapping.
DKWDRV: DESR/DVD-ROM driver the fork hands off to for playing a physical PS1 disc.
ELF loader: The POPStarter component that chains into BOOT.ELF on exit. An incompatible BOOT.ELF causes the black-screen-on-exit bug; disable it with stock PATCH_9.BIN.
Enceladus: The Lua runtime the POPSLoader UI is built on.
$FORCEPAL / $NOPAL: $FORCEPAL forces the PAL patcher + Euro region; $NOPAL disables the PAL patcher so a PAL game runs native NTSC.
$HDTVFIX: The SetGsCrt hack, which is also config byte $412 (0x00 off by default, 0x01 on): one setting, three labels. It turns interlacing on (480i NTSC / 576i PAL) for HDTVs that refuse the PS1's 240p/288p over component and show a green screen instead. Can cause interlace flicker on CRTs, so don't use it by default.
Hugopocked fixes: The leading still-maintained community per-game patch pack for POPStarter — dropped into the game's own VMC folder (matched by VCD basename) to fix titles POPS gets wrong. Archive password hugopocked; don't stack with TROJAN_7.BIN. See the Hugopocked section.
IGR: In-Game Reset — a button combo that resets or exits the running PS1 game without powering off. Configured with $IGR0–$IGR5.
IMAGE0.VCD: The fixed VCD filename used by HDDOSD / PSBBN partition-installed POPS games.
IPCONFIG.DAT / SMBCONFIG.DAT: The SMB network IP and share-credential files placed in mc?:/POPSTARTER/ (note .DAT, not .DAY).
KELF: Sony's encrypted-ELF container format. POPSTARTER.KELF is the encrypted launcher.
MMCE: Memory-Card Emulator devices (SD2PSX, MemCard PRO2) exposing mmce0:/mmce1: via mmceman. Not a standard PS2 memory card.
MX4SIO: An SD-card adapter using the PS2 memory-card SIO2 port. A POPStarter side-module and a POPSLoader fork backend.
PATCH_X.BIN: A binary compatibility/visual patch dropped in the POPS folder. PATCH_0=disable IGR, PATCH_5=POPSLoader IGR textures, PATCH_8=force PAL, PATCH_9=disable PAL patcher / disable ELF loader.
PFS_WRAP.BIN: The embedded PFS wrapper POPStarter uses to read VCDs from the PS2 HDD.
POC2 / POPS-00001: The leaked early Sony PS1 emulator builds POPStarter evolved from; the historical USB method used manual HxD header patching.
POPS: Sony's official PS1-on-PS2 emulator (SLBB-00001), originally for the PSX DVR and PS2 HDD. POPStarter wraps it; it is not redistributed here (referenced by MD5 only).
__.POPS: The HDD partition-name prefix for the “new” HDD launch type — one VCD per __.POPS / __.POPS0–9 partition. Scanned in order, not aliased.
POPS0–POPS9: Numbered POPS folders at a device root. POPStarter scans POPS then POPS0…POPS9.
POPSLoader: The modern menu-driven front-end (this project) that lists PS1 games with cover art and adds MMCE / MX4SIO / exFAT backends. Built on the Enceladus Lua runtime by Ripto / NathanNeurotic.
POPStarter: krHACKen's homebrew launcher that runs PS1 games (as .VCD images) on a PS2 using Sony's built-in POPS emulator — the successor to POC2 / POPS-00001.
POPSTARTER.KELF: The encrypted (KELF) form of POPSTARTER.ELF required by some HDDOSD / boot contexts.
$SAFEMODE: Delays raw GameShark codes until after POPS startup. Needed only for raw codes — not for named $commands like $NOPAL.
SB. / XX. / PP. / __. prefixes: Renamed-POPSTARTER.ELF prefixes per launch type: SB.=SMB, XX.=USB, PP.=partition-installed (HDDOSD/PSBBN, PP.<partition>.ELF), __.=legacy HDD.
SetGsCrt hack: krHACKen's own name for the setting this site calls $HDTVFIX and the recovered config table lists at byte $412. If you came from the old ShaolinAssassin wiki, this is the entry you are looking for. One caveat: the original note says it helps "HDTVs that can't deal with the interlaced resolutions", which is back to front, since enabling it turns interlacing on. See the Config Table.
smb0:: POPStarter's mount point for the configured SMB network share.
SYSTEM.CNF: The PS2 boot descriptor. For partition-installed POPS games it points boot2 at pfs:/IMAGE0.VCD.
title.cfg: The OPL “APPS page” config pairing a renamed POPSTARTER.ELF with a game. Must be saved literally as title.cfg — not .txt.
TROJAN_X.BIN: POPStarter's name for a behaviour/fix patch file — not malware. TROJAN_0–5=IGR behaviours; TROJAN_7=krHACKen + Hugopocked cumulative per-game fixes (2020-04-02), placed in the per-game VMC folder.
VCD: The PlayStation Virtual-CD image format POPS plays. A PS1 disc rip becomes a .VCD via CUE2POPS.
VMC: Virtual Memory Card — a file emulating a PS1 memory card, stored per-game so saves persist.
VMCDIR.TXT: Placed in the disc-2/3 folders, it points them at disc-1's VMC so a multi-disc game shares one memory card.
wLE_kHn / uLE_kHn: A uLaunchELF-based VCD browser/launcher for POPStarter. Tip: omit the game ID from the VCD filename for a cleaner list.