PSU
This article is about the PSU file format. For information on the PS2's power supply, see Power Supply.
The PSU file format is an archive format used by PS2 save data management tools like uLaunchELF and mymcplus. A PSU corresponds to the savedata files of one icon displayed in the PS2 savedata management menu. The PSU file format has the advantage of conserving timestamps and permissions of files, and makes savedata transfer and management easier than having to deal with unpacked files contained in folders. The PSU file format has the drawback of adding one more layer for file management: when emulating a PS2 game, the emulator uses a memory card image file, which contains savedata folders and files. If you want to edit a file in the memory card image, you do not need to deal with PSU files, although using PSU files has the advantage of lessening the risk of corrupting other games savedata.
Usage[edit | edit source]
Obtaining a PSU file[edit | edit source]
From an actual PS2[edit | edit source]
By running uLaunchELF on an actual PS2, one can export PSU files from the PS2 Memory Card to USB or network.
From a PS2 emulator[edit | edit source]
PCSX2 stores the PS2 savedata in a virtual memory card file whose extension is .mcd. Each per-game savedata contained in the MCD file can be extracted to a PSU file by using mymcplus tool for example.
Extracting a PSU file[edit | edit source]
The best way to extract a PSU file would be to use pypsu by McCaulay if it was not bugged (for example on Jak X: "[-] month must be in 1..12", and on games that have a filename identical as the folder name, cannot export that file).
A GUI tool for PSU file edition is
but it is only for Windows and its source code is missing.
So the current workaround is to convert PSU to another savedata format, like PSV or MAX. For example, you can use
to convert to PSU or MAX, then extract files from PSU or MAX using
In the past there was a tool named psutools (link requires registration, to mirror)
A good tool might finally be