Install & First Boot

The RiptOPL menu and OPL core are in RIPTOPL.ELF. Neutrino and PS1 launching also need their companion folders. Extract the installable package, choose a loader, and copy the files needed by your source/core.

What is RIPTOPL.ELF?

RiptOPL is a downstream fork of Open PS2 Loader compiled to a single PS2 ELF binary. The standard build includes GSM video-mode handling (including the hardware-confirmed forced-progressive 1080p mode), DS3/DS4 pad emulation (PADEMU), Virtual Memory Cards (VMC), PS2RD cheats, and parental controls in one file. There are no per-feature variant builds to choose between for those; the one ELF does it all. Some build flags are left off by default. In-game screenshots (IGS) and right-to-left (RTL) language support are not compiled into the standard loader folders in the unified package — the Makefile ships EXTRA_FEATURES ?= 0 and both flags follow it. To get IGS or RTL, use a ready-made -extra1 loader from RIPTOPL-VARIANTS-*.zip or build with make EXTRA_FEATURES=1. DualSense / DualShock 5 (USB) support ships as a ready-made RIPTOPL-<version>-<SDK>-ds5.ELF for each available SDK flavour inside RIPTOPL-VARIANTS-*.zip. The standard loaders already include 1080p; its picker is gated behind a triple confirmation, and holding Triangle + Cross during console boot forces 480p for the menu only, on displays/connections that accept it. You only need make DUALSENSE=1 if you build your own DualSense loader — check the Releases page for current assets.

Release channels

Choose current development or a preserved development snapshot. Neither is a universal compatibility guarantee; check the release notes for the exact build and available files.

See Releases for the full asset listing and pull instructions. The short version: download the RIPTOPL-<version>.zip installable package, unzip it, and either install its ready app (APPS/APP_RIPTOPL/, or APP_RIPTOPL.psu on a memory card) or start with the pinned APPS/APP_RIPTOPL-PS2DEVPINNED/RIPTOPL.ELF when that best-effort flavour is present.

Getting RIPTOPL.ELF onto your PS2

RiptOPL requires a way to boot unsigned ELFs on the PS2. The two most common are FreeMcBoot (FMCB) on a memory card and FreeHDBoot (FHDB) on an internal HDD; FreeDVDBoot is a separate disc-based entry point. Any method that can launch an ELF works.

DVD/      ← DVD5 and DVD9 ISO images
CD/       ← CD-based game images (blue-bottom discs)
ART/      ← cover art images
CFG/      ← per-game settings files
VMC/      ← Virtual Memory Card images
THM/      ← themes
LNG/      ← language / translation files (see Languages)
CHT/      ← PS2RD cheat files
APPS/     ← homebrew ELF files (see Apps)

Optional: Unicode/Japanese game titles

For Japanese UTF-8 game titles with English menus, a compatible RiptOPL build can load font_CJK.ttf from the same directory as settings_riptopl.cfg. Restart to enable. The font is user-supplied; read the installation guide for naming, builds and memory limits.

First boot walkthrough

Fresh-start defaults

See the verified defaults guide for this C++ branch. Existing saved settings override these initial values.

Unlike upstream OPL — which ships with most features off and expects you to enable them — RiptOPL boots with a set of opinionated defaults that are on from the very first launch, before you have saved any settings. You can change any of them under Settings at any time.

Config file: settings_riptopl.cfg

RiptOPL's master settings use 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/.

If you previously used an older RiptOPL build that saved as conf_riptopl.cfg, the new build automatically migrates your settings the next time it saves — you do not need to rename anything manually.

Coming from official OPL

If the place RiptOPL reads its settings from has no RiptOPL settings but does have official OPL's conf_opl.cfg, RiptOPL starts from that file. Swapping RIPTOPL.ELF in for OPNPS2LD.ELF (in a PSBBN, OSDMenu or HDD-OSD launcher, or a plain memory card or USB install) therefore keeps the devices and options you already set. RiptOPL only reads that file and never writes it: the first save writes settings_riptopl.cfg to RiptOPL's own settings home.

Auto Loading (a game started straight from PSBBN, OSDMenu or another launcher) reads the same settings home as the menu, so global game settings apply the same way, and it starts the game on the core you chose: the game's own Loader Core, or the Default Loader Core when the game is set to Default, Neutrino included. If such a launch cannot go ahead, because the ISO is missing or the device cannot be used, RiptOPL opens its menu instead of stopping on a black screen.

The config file is discovered and written in this priority order (first found wins on read; saves always go back to the same path it was read from):

• The folder RIPTOPL.ELF was launched from (its working directory) — this is the config home
• Only when the boot path cannot be determined does OPL fall back, in a fixed sequence, starting with the config.path redirect pointer file in the current working directory (the Krah bootstrap — it stores the directory of the last saved config and is rewritten on every save)
• then mc0: / mc1: explicitly, then the boot device (mass: or hdd:), then MMCE, then BDM devices, then the BDM/internal HDD (hdd0:__common/OPL/)

Everything else — cover art (ART/), themes (THM/), VMC images (VMC/), per-game config files (CFG/), and favourites.bin — lives in the shared OPL/ folder structure and is read and written by any OPL-family build that understands those formats. RiptOPL will import an existing favourites.bin from wOPL or uOPL on first launch.

Cover art at a glance

All artwork lives in one place: the ART/ folder on the device the item is on. There is no second location and no fallback folder — if a cover is not appearing, the filename is what to check, not the path.

Only the key — the part before the suffix — changes with the kind of item:

The suffix says which image it is — _COV is the cover, _SCR and _SCR2 are screenshots, _BG a background, _ICO an icon. Which of them a given theme actually draws is up to that theme; see Theme Engine for authoring, and Coverflow for what the optional carousel theme uses.

Next steps