Releases & Changelog
Where SMS builds come from, which version you are running, and the long history behind
the player. The short version: grab the ready-made SMS.elf from the project's releases, or
build it yourself — either way you get the same media player, with this fork's
storage additions on top of two decades of SMS development.
Getting a build
SMS ships as a single PlayStation 2 executable, SMS.elf. There is nothing to install into the
system — it is a self-contained homebrew ELF that you launch like any other. The IOP driver modules it needs
(for USB, MX4SIO, HDD, network and so on) are embedded inside the ELF itself, so the one file is everything.
Download the release ELF
The current stable version is
v3.0.0-rev1.
Download the standard Simple-Media-System.elf,
the smaller self-extracting
Simple-Media-System-packed.elf,
or the ZIP containing both.
Copy it to a bootable device
Put SMS.elf wherever your homebrew setup launches ELFs from — a USB stick, the memory card, the
internal HDD, an MX4SIO card, an MMCE device, and so on. SMS itself will then browse whichever storage you turn
on from its Settings menu.
Launch it
Run it from your loader of choice (wLaunchELF, a boot menu, FMCB/FreeMcBoot, etc.). On first launch nothing auto-starts — you enable the devices you want. See Install & First Boot.
This build
This documentation set describes the following version of SMS:
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Version / tag | v3.0.0-rev1 (shown in-app as Version 3.0, Rev.1) |
| Released | 2026-07-25 (Pacific) / 2026-07-26 UTC |
| Source commit | 95b803ba07d1c55aa644acbd633936eb0a1e6ad6 |
| Executables | Simple-Media-System.elf and the smaller self-extracting
Simple-Media-System-packed.elf |
| Lineage | Storage-focused fork of Simple Media System, originally by Eugene Plotnikov |
| Toolchain | Built with the pinned ps2dev/ps2dev:v1.0 toolchain via make |
| Drivers | IOP .irx modules embedded in the ELF (including a patched mx4sio_bd driver) |
Published asset SHA-256 hashes
| Asset | SHA-256 |
|---|---|
Simple-Media-System.elf | 045c38fb9213fc0ce4eeef16a8c0d70eb1a9fa4846a04b153912e712ca8d8493 |
Simple-Media-System-packed.elf | 20edc456817c17f768ea598c1ffe4d263ec53fd16ce5e0df3a61c121f00707fb |
Simple-Media-System-95b803ba.zip | db06917cda9c6f918821c62e6b088e7054246896f805fcaade0187535715a7dc |
The version number appears on-screen during SMS's startup/initialization, as it has since the original releases. If you are unsure which build you have, watch the boot sequence.
What is new in this fork
This fork focuses on storage breadth — reaching more of the devices a PS2 can talk to — and on making setup happen entirely on-screen. The headline is that MX4SIO microSD playback works. The full list:
- MX4SIO microSD playback — video and audio play smoothly from a microSD in an MX4SIO (SIO2) adapter, with a hardened driver for reliable playback, its own device icon, and an Autostart MX4SIO toggle. See MX4SIO.
- MP4 video playback —
.mp4files containing MPEG-4 Part 2 (mp4v) video and AAC audio now reach the existing decoders correctly, including seeking, audio-only MP4 fallback andmoov-at-end files. See Video Playback. - UDPFS network drive — browse and stream from the PS2-Servers UDPFSD folder protocol over the LAN, with clean session shutdown.
- Internal HDD — exFAT as well as APA — read media from a modern exFAT drive over ATA (BDM) in
addition to the classic APA/PFS
SMS_Mediapartition. See Internal HDD. - i.LINK (IEEE 1394) storage — mount a FireWire drive as a media source over the BDM stack. See i.LINK.
- MMCE devices — browse media from an SD2PSX or MemCard PRO2 in the memory-card slot
(
mmce0:/mmce1:). See MMCE. - On-screen network & SMB setup — configure your IP and connect to a Windows / Samba share entirely from the pad, using a real on-screen keyboard — no pre-made config files to hand-edit. See Network Setup.
- Settings that save to the boot device — configuration persists to the memory card, or, if SMS was booted without one, next to the SMS ELF on the device it started from — so a memory-card-less setup keeps its settings. See Settings.
- Refreshed theme — new desktop artwork and device icons, on top of the existing
.smiskin engine. See Themes & Skins. - DualShock 3 and DualShock 4 support — USB and Bluetooth controller input, including in-app Bluetooth pairing.
- Reliability fixes — settings now load back correctly after a save, memory-card detection is more robust, a clean install starts with nothing auto-running, and the status redraw is synchronized before the clock resumes after leaving menus or playback.
Historical changelog
SMS has a long history. It was created by Eugene Plotnikov as, in his own words, "the simplest DivX
player able to play good-resolution movies at good frame rate on the unmodded PS2 without any extra equipment,"
and was developed intensively across 2005–2009 before the ps2homebrew community carried it forward. The high-level
lineage below is drawn from the project's own CHANGELOG.md — refer to that file in the repository for
the exhaustive, entry-by-entry history.
| Era | What arrived |
|---|---|
| Mid–2005 — foundations | The core DivX/XviD/MPEG-4 player using the PS2's IPU for colour conversion;
CDDAFS (playing data off a burned audio CD on an unmodded console); early A/V synchronisation and V-Blank sync;
internal HDD support with the SMS_Media partition; a heavily PS2-optimised FFmpeg-derived core. |
| Summer 2005 — the GUI | The three-area GUI that SMS still uses — device menu, file browser and status line — with pause / resume / stop, the file browser, and screen-alignment adjustments; USB mass-storage support; AC3 audio; config saved to the memory card. |
| Late 2005 — network & discs | Network (host:) playback; ISO CD/DVD and later DVD-Video disc reading on unmodded consoles; more codecs; skin/background-image support; a proper SMS menu and internationalised, scalable fonts. |
| Late 2005 / early 2006 — subtitles & playlists | External SRT / SUB subtitles with adjustable size and colour, plus manual A/V and subtitle sync; multi-audio-track support; the object-oriented desktop rewrite; early MP3 / M3U playback and "play all in folder". |
| 2006 — more formats & input | Remote-control support; MPEG-1/2 program-stream video; DTS and OGG Vorbis audio; on-disc file management (copy/delete on the internal HDD); pan-scan and display tuning; HD/DTV video-mode groundwork. |
| Late 2006 — SMB | The SMB/CIFS network client, so SMS could browse Windows / Samba shares over the network adapter; faster network transfers; UTF-8 subtitle support. |
| 2007 — HD video & WMA | 720p / 1080i and VESA/DTV video modes; a new floating-point MPEG audio decoder; WMA (ASF) and raw PCM audio; multiple SMB servers; assorted decoder and sync refinements. |
| 2008 — audio breadth & pictures | AAC / M4A and FLAC audio; a baseline JPEG viewer with slideshow and rotate; big (4 GB) OpenDML AVI support; USB/FAT driver rewrites; an on-screen exception handler. |
| 2009 — later refinements | 576p video mode and 2:2 pulldown for smoother 24fps playback; audio-driver and AC3 downmix improvements; further USB/FAT speed work — the last stretch of the original development line before the project's community era. |
| This fork — v3.0.0-rev1 | Working MX4SIO playback, MP4/mp4v video,
UDPFS, exFAT/ATA HDD, i.LINK, MMCE, DualShock 3/4 input, on-screen network/SMB setup, save-to-boot-device config,
a refreshed theme and the reliability fixes listed
above. |
CHANGELOG.md; open it there if you want the exact entry for a given feature or fix.Why does this fork jump to version 3.0?
SMS versioning has never been a single tidy line — the original author noted early on that different "distributors" would put their own signature on their builds. This documentation set describes the build labelled v3.0.0-rev1, displayed by SMS as Version 3.0 (Rev.1): a storage-focused fork that keeps SMS's decades-old playback while adding the devices, MP4 path and on-screen setup covered throughout this site. The version shows on-screen during startup, so you can always confirm what you are running.
Is this an official SMS release?
No. This is a community fork built on the work of many contributors — Eugene Plotnikov's original SMS, the ps2homebrew community's modernisation, and KrahJohlito's BDM/MX4SIO integration foundation among them. It is offered as-is, not as an official release. See Credits & Sources for the full acknowledgements.
Legacy tools & downloads
Companion tools and files for classic SMS, preserved from the original ps2-home.com forum posts so they don't vanish. They are third-party works by their original authors, kept here purely for archival — we didn't write them and can't vouch for the Windows binaries.
.exe tools below are old Windows binaries (2005–2014) from the PS2 homebrew community, with no stated
license; we have not run or vetted them, and antivirus may flag old packed executables — use at your own discretion.
Credit belongs to their original authors. Some archives are .rar (open with 7-Zip / WinRAR).| Download | What it is | Author / source |
|---|---|---|
| SMS manual (PDF) | The classic Simple Media System user manual. | SMS community · ps2-home.com |
Language pack — SMS_lng09 |
20 community translations (.lng): BG, CA, CZ, DE, EN, ES, FR, HU, ID, IT, NL, PL, PT, PT-BR, RU, SE, SK,
TR, UA. Vintage 2009 — likely missing newer menu strings, so treat as a reference/starting point. |
Translators credited in the pack's README (EN by Eugene Plotnikov) |
| pic2smi | Windows tool: converts a picture into an SMS .smi skin / background. |
ps2-home.com |
| smspal | Windows tool: edit / generate an SMS palette (SMS.pal). |
ps2-home.com |
| Rad HOST Client 1.8a | Windows PC tool: streams media to SMS over its host: connection. |
ps2-home.com |