XMB Manuals

In-Game Manuals for HDD games/apps

The manual appears with a "question mark" icon named "Software Manual" and the title_id of the game/app in small font under it, in column inside XMB In-Game mode by pressing button

Manuals can be used as a guide, changelog, readme, extra artwork, etc... and are loaded without having to quit the hdd app/game.

PS3 Games

Implemented around 4.00 firmware (not working on 3.55, working on 4.21+)

• Buttons
  • to zoom in (50% zoom)/zoom out (full screen)
  • Template:Padright and for "next" page
  • Template:Padleft and for "previous" page
  • (or for japan) returns to XMB In-Game
  • returns to game (directly, from MANUAL back to the game, bypasing XMB In-Game)

The zoom has 2 working modes, that depends of the aspect ratio of the image, there are not intermediate zoom levels, and the bigger zoom is predefined to around 50% bigger of the "full screen" mode:

• For 16:9 images
  • Image is displayed initially at "full screen"
  • When pressing image is zoomed-in around 50% bigger
• For non 16:9 images
  • Image is displayed initially at "full height" or "full width" (bigger one wins) to keep the whole image on screen by using transparent areas all around when needed
  • When pressing for first time, the image is zoomed-in to full screen, with some areas of the image out of screen
  • When pressing for second time, the image is zoomed-in around 50% bigger than the previous step

Structure tree & infos

NP**12345/MANUAL/001.DDS, 002.DDS    //XMB in English (United Kingdom & United States)
NP**12345/MANUAL/02/001.DDS, 002.DDS //XMB in French
NP**12345/MANUAL/03/001.DDS, 002.DDS //XMB in Spanish
...
NP**12345/MANUAL/17/001.DDS, 002.DDS //XMB in Portuguese (Portugal & Brazil) 
...

• Only for PS3 type, HDD Installed Contents
• Is not supported inside PS3 game disc structure... but is supported in the "GameData" installations made by PS3 disc games and by his game updates/patches
• To add multiple manuals for different languages use the subfolders 02 (for french manual), 03 (for spanish manual), etc..., the numbers follows the system Language codes
• Up to 999.DDS pages ? (speculative, because the image names uses 3 digits, e,g: 123.DDS but max not tested)

Image Formats

• The .DDS original format (found in NPUA80543) is DXT1C (dxt1, only color), without mipmaps. See: Multimedia Formats and Tools
• The resolutions (width x height) supported needs to have a number of pixels in width and height that is a multiple of 4 (this is a strict requirement of .DDS format)

• Most useful resolutions (because all modern TV's and PS3 are designed for it) are all that matches 16:9 aspect ratio, you can see a list of the most common here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16:9#Common_resolutions
  • Supported 16:9 resolutions: 640x360, 960x540, 1024x576, 1280x720, 1600x900, 1920x1080 (found in NPUA80543), 2048x1152, 2560x1440
  • NOT supported 16:9 resolutions (because are not multiple of 4): 864x486 (486 is not multiple of 4), 1366x768 (1366 is not multiple of 4)
  • NOT supported 16:9 resolutions (because are too big in bytes?): 2880x1620 (2,22 MB per page), 3200x1800 (2,74 MB per page), 3840x2160 (3,95 MB per page)

Page size by resolution (comparison)

DDS Format	16:9 Resolutions
	640x360	864x486	960x540 (qHD TV)	1024x576	1280x720 (HD TV)	1366x768	1600x900	1920x1080 (Full HD TV)	2048x1152	2560x1440 (QHD TV)	2880x1620	3200x1800	3840x2160 (4K UHD TV)
DXT1C, No mipmaps	112 KB	0 KB (error in dds tool)	253 KB	288 KB	450 KB	0 KB (error in dds tool)	703 KB	0,98 MB	1,12 MB	1,75 MB	2,22 MB	2,74 MB	3,95 MB

• Other resolutions (not 16:9)
  • Supported: 1280x1024

Page size by resolution (comparison)

DDS Format	Not 16:9 Resolutions
	1280x1024
DXT1C, No mipmaps	640 KB

Can be created with nvidia texture tool (nvdxt.exe) by using this command:

• Individual file:

nvdxt.exe -file input.png -dxt1c -nomipmap -output output.dds

• Individual file with cube filter rescale to 1920x1080 resolution, and highest quality compression:

nvdxt.exe -file input.png -dxt1c -nomipmap -prescale 1920 1080 -quality_highest -output output.dds

• Multiple files with cube filter rescale to 1920x1080 resolution, highest quality compression, and using folder paths for input and output (massive conversion of any supported image with any name and any resolution from CUSTOM_IMAGES folder to MANUAL folder)

nvdxt.exe -deep c:\CUSTOM_IMAGES -all -dxt1c -nomipmap -prescale 1920 1080 -quality_highest -outdir c:\MANUAL

• Nvidia Texture Tool notes:
  • Supported image formats: .tga .bmp .gif .ppm .jpg .tif .cel .dds .png .psd .rgb .bw .rgba
  • -file <filename>: input file to process. Accepts wild cards
  • -dxt1c: DXT1 (color only)
  • -nomipmap: don't generate MIP maps
  • -output <filename>: filename to write to [-outfile can also be specified]
  • -prescale <int> <int>: rescale image to this size first
  • -quality_highest: highest quality compression (this can be very slow)
  • -deep <directory>: include all subdirectories
  • -all: all image files in current directory
  • -outdir <directory>: output directory

Can be created with gimp plugin...
Please help to fill...

Can be created with photoshop plugin...
Please help to fill...

Links & Tutorials

• Here is a example of MANUAL in game, for PS Seismograph all / unsigned (7 pages not official version).
• here is a example of MANUAL in game, for FB Alpha Retro Loader by CaptainCPS-X (24 pages).
• git of CaptainCPS-X with infos for pkg.py to create propers pkg including MANUAL
• retroXMB MANUAL by Redemp
• True Ancestor PKG Creator patched for MANUAL
• PSX SCENE thread resource by Redemp

Gallery

Note: images has been converted to jpg for wikify purpose.

• 

  PS Seismograph page 002

• 

  PS Seismograph page 003

• 

  PS Seismograph page 004

• 

  FBAlphaRL page 001

• 

  FBAlphaRL page 003

• 

  FBAlphaRL page 017

PS2 Classics

• 0xx.dxt files: textures files
• manual.idx: index of the .dxt files

Standalone Manuals

PS3 PlayView

See PlayView for other PS3 standalone digital manual

PSP Digital Comic

Digital Comic for PSP

PS3 DigiManual

Named as Digimanual or Manual (Digital), they are stand alone pkg PS3 hdd games included in disc (PKGDIR for example) or available online.

Seems to be a standard utility (the eboot) specific to display this kind of manuals, so should be considered an app, not a feature of the firmware

Structure tree

NPUO30***/ (only from few US example)
    |
    |-ICON0.PNG (See Content Information files for HDD Game)
    |
    |-PARAM.SFO (SFO category HG)
    |
    |-PS3LOGO.DAT
    |
    |-USRDIR/
          |
          |-digiman.sdat
          |
          |-digiman_content.sdat
          |
          |-digiman_content_en.sdat (can also have others languages as digiman_content_es.sdat..)
          |
          |-EBOOT.BIN
          |
          |-assets/
                |
                |-image/ (can contain sub-directory such "screenshots", "modals"...)
                |    |
                |    |-.jpg and .png
                |
                |-sound/
                |    |
                |    |-.wav
                |    
                |-video/
                     |
                     |-.usm

Web Manuals

Online Manuals

Online instruction Manuals on XMB Network column. accesses the manuals hosted at (click in the table below to go to a specific manual page):

Read manuals.playstation.net/document and us.playstation.com/support/manuals

Users	Settings	Photo	Music	Video	TV/Video Services	Game	Network	PlayStation Network	Friends

Game Options Menu Manuals

Some games has an online manual that can be accessed from the "options menu" in main XMB (by pressing triangle over the game icon)

Manuals Multilingual Support

• Notes:
  • Portugues (Portugal), and Portugues (Brazil) can share the same manual ingame
  • English (United States), and English (United Kingdom) can share the same manual ingame