Skip to content

Install and launch

What you need

  • A PlayStation 2 that can run homebrew: a memory card with FreeMcBoot or OpenTuna, PS2BBL, OSDMenu, a modchip, or any other way to start an ELF file. YAOPL is started like any other homebrew program.
  • A device for your games: see Choosing a device.
  • A backward-compatible PS3 also works, with limits: see PS3.

Download

Every change to master is built and published as the nightly latest pre-release. Versions checked on a console are published as releases with the same files:

File Contents
OPNPS2LD.ELF The loader, ready to run. PADEMU is on, IGS and RTL are off.
OPNPS2LD-<version>.7z The same ELF with LICENSE and CREDITS.
OPNPS2LD-VARIANTS-<version>.7z Four ELFs, one for each combination of PADEMU=0/1 and EXTRA_FEATURES=0/1, with LICENSE and CREDITS.
OPNPS2LD-LANGS-<version>.7z Translations and their fonts, for the LNG folder.
SHA256SUMS Checksums of the files above.

Only the ELF keeps its name in every build: https://github.com/yaopl/yaopl/releases/download/latest/OPNPS2LD.ELF always gets the newest nightly. The .7z files carry the version in their name.

Which ELF to take:

  • OPNPS2LD.ELF suits most people.
  • PADEMU=0 leaves out DualShock 3/4 pad emulation and pad macros. Take it if you never use a DualShock 3 or 4 on the PS2.
  • EXTRA_FEATURES=1 adds in-game screenshots (IGS) and right-to-left languages (RTL).

GSM, VMC, cheats, the parental lock and every device are in every build. START → About shows which options your ELF was built with.

To check a download, run sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS on Linux, or Get-FileHash OPNPS2LD.ELF in PowerShell and compare the hash with the line in SHA256SUMS.

Install

  1. Copy OPNPS2LD.ELF to a memory card (for example with wLaunchELF) or to a USB drive.
  2. Start it from your launcher. In wLaunchELF, open the file and press Circle. In FreeMcBoot or OSDMenu, add it as a menu entry.

The file name is the same as OPL's, so an existing launcher entry for OPL starts YAOPL once you replace the file.

Updating

To update, replace OPNPS2LD.ELF with the new one. Your settings, games, VMCs and art stay where they are. Settings made by official OPL work in YAOPL too.

First launch

The first time, YAOPL has no settings, so every device is off and it opens on the main menu.

  1. Choose Settings.
  2. Turn on the device that holds your games: set its Start Mode to Auto (start it at boot) or Manual (start it from its page when you need it). For USB, MX4SIO, iLink, an exFAT HDD and UDPBD this is BDM Start Mode; then open BDM Devices to choose which of them to use. See Settings.
  3. Optionally set Default Menu to the page you want to see at boot.
  4. Leave the dialog with OK, then choose Save Changes in the main menu.

Save Changes

The settings dialogs change settings only until YAOPL exits. Choose Save Changes in the main menu to keep them.

Press START (or the back button) to leave the main menu for the game list. On a page whose device is not started yet, press the confirm button to start it. YAOPL creates its folders on the device, and you can copy your games there.

Where settings are saved

YAOPL looks for its settings, conf_opl.cfg and its companion files, in this order:

  1. OPL on a memory card (mc0:OPL or mc1:OPL);
  2. the device YAOPL was started from (a USB drive or the APA HDD);
  3. a USB or other BDM drive, then the internal HDD.

When it saves, it uses the device it was started from, then a memory card, then a USB drive, then the HDD. With Notifications on (Display Settings), YAOPL shows where it loaded the settings from, and Save Changes says where it saved them. If the settings are found on a USB drive, its BDM Start Mode is switched to Auto; settings found on the APA HDD switch on the HDD page. The full list of files is in Configuration files.

Keys at startup

Hold these while YAOPL starts:

Keys Effect
START Start without loading any settings. Use it when settings from another OPL build make YAOPL freeze; then save your settings again.
Triangle + Cross Reset the menu's video mode to Auto, for when the screen stays black after a video mode change.

Version

START → About shows the version. Builds of YAOPL end in -yaopl, so they are easy to tell from official OPL builds:

  • A release is called like v2.0.0-yaopl, a release candidate like v2.0.0-rc1-yaopl.
  • A nightly build from latest is called like v2.0.0-nightly.12-1a2b3c4-yaopl: the 12th change on master since the last release, on the way to 2.0.0, built from commit 1a2b3c4.
  • Builds before 2.0.0 were called like v1.2.0-Beta-2415-ac3cf25-yaopl, numbered like upstream OPL.

Quote the version in issue reports.

PS3

YAOPL runs on backward-compatible PS3 models only (boards COK-001 and COK-002/COK-002W), with USB, SMB and the HDD. It needs an entry point for PS2 titles; custom firmware with Cobra is preferred, and only custom firmware supports the HDD.