Hacking Downside to Shrinking ISO's?

[Augusta]

I know that when it comes to wii, most of the programs automatically scrub the game for you and you can convert them back to iso is need be.

Can the same be said for gamecube discs? I just ripped some of my zelda games for gc so I can put them away in storage. If I shrink them, do I have anything to worry about? Can I still burn the same shrunken image and run the game fine or even un-shrink if I have to?

 

[jesterscourt]

Scrubbing them just removes null data. So a scrubbed game isn't official from a "scene" perspective, but it works the same way as a regular dump.

An analogy would be you have to ship a package to a friend, 25 packs of playing cards. You have two different packages that you could send them in, either two boxes, that each fit 16 cards, or one box that holds 32.

Now obviously the 25 cards will fit in the package just fine, but what about all that extra space? The other packs could get damaged by smacking against each other. So you fill up the remaining space of the package with tissue paper and packing peanuts to make up the difference.

Your friend gets the package, opens it, takes out the packs of cards, and throws away the tissue paper and packing peanuts because it's extraneous. That's your null data. It's required in many cases, because they need to fill the disc/cartridge, but from a usage standpoint, generally you do not need it.

There are exceptions, sometimes the null data is used as a verification, and depending on the interpreter/emulator, it might NEED that null data to verify. But these are exceptions, not rules.

Hope that helps

 

[brausm08]

from what i've read, it kinda depends what program you use. ...something about messing up the audio streaming if it isn't done properly. ...saw that using Crediar's DiscEX 0.8 tool is one of the better ones.

i've used DiscEX on my NGC iso's, but it doesn't really save that much. i have 29 game discs (some are dual disc games). uncompressed, they consume 39.3GB. compressed, they consume 34.1GB. ...almost 3 GB are saved on Luigi's Mansion, MegaMan X Collection, and MKDD alone...the other ones hardly compress at all....

 

[Fishaman P]

Scrubbing them just removes null data. So a scrubbed game isn't official from a "scene" perspective, but it works the same way as a regular dump.

An analogy would be you have to ship a package to a friend, 25 packs of playing cards. You have two different packages that you could send them in, either two boxes, that each fit 16 cards, or one box that holds 32.

Now obviously the 25 cards will fit in the package just fine, but what about all that extra space? The other packs could get damaged by smacking against each other. So you fill up the remaining space of the package with tissue paper and packing peanuts to make up the difference.

Your friend gets the package, opens it, takes out the packs of cards, and throws away the tissue paper and packing peanuts because it's extraneous. That's your null data. It's required in many cases, because they need to fill the disc/cartridge, but from a usage standpoint, generally you do not need it.

There are exceptions, sometimes the null data is used as a verification, and depending on the interpreter/emulator, it might NEED that null data to verify. But these are exceptions, not rules.

Hope that helps

He said shrinking, not scrubbing.

 

[jefffisher]

@brausm08: most wii games are much more compressable than gamecube games.

@TC: there's not really a downside other than the format changing.

 

[brausm08]

@brausm08: most wii games are much more compressable than gamecube games.

i realize that...but it's completely beside the point...OP specifically asked about shrinking NGC games...

 

[Wiimm]

About scrubbing: http://wit.wiimm.de/info/scrubbing.html#intro

 

[SanGor]

shrinking GC games CAN break games, metroid for example will break if you shrink it since it loads the main.dol from the disc FS but reads the offset from the normal main.dol-offset offset.
There are some other games too that do such hackery but only from nintendo iirc.

Just test the shrinked ISO before deleting the original.

 

[Patryc]

Can anyone please explain how I can shrink gamecube games with DiscEx or point me to a tutorial for it? Is there a GUI for it? Many thanks if you can help.

 

[PolloDiablo]

someone knows if the .GCM gamecube isos works with WODE???

 

[chaosdarkneo]

Can anyone please explain how I can shrink gamecube games with DiscEx or point me to a tutorial for it? Is there a GUI for it? Many thanks if you can help.

Shrinking is not done via DiscEX. DiscEX is to make games readable by SNEEK/UNEEK (+DI)

someone knows if the .GCM gamecube isos works with WODE???

.GCM is the same as a .ISO.

You can rename the .gcm to a .iso and the game will work fine.

 

[PolloDiablo]

You can rename the .gcm to a .iso and the game will work fine.

ok thanks!!

 

[Patryc]

Can anyone please explain how I can shrink gamecube games with DiscEx or point me to a tutorial for it? Is there a GUI for it? Many thanks if you can help.

Shrinking is not done via DiscEX. DiscEX is to make games readable by SNEEK/UNEEK (+DI)

someone knows if the .GCM gamecube isos works with WODE???

.GCM is the same as a .ISO.

You can rename the .gcm to a .iso and the game will work fine.

Correct me if I am wrong but i believe there are options in discex to shrink games as well as make games compatable in sneek

 

[JoostinOnline]

Usage:
DiscEX.exe [-v|-c] [-a] game.iso
v: verifies the data while extracting (Wii)
c: compresses the data and auto aligns all files correctly (GC)
a: aligns all files by 32K (GC)

 

[Patryc]

Usage:
DiscEX.exe [-v|-c] [-a] game.iso
v: verifies the data while extracting (Wii)
c: compresses the data and auto aligns all files correctly (GC)
a: aligns all files by 32K (GC)

Thank you Joostin that's what I was looking for. Do you know of a little tutorial for Discex?

 

[JoostinOnline]

Sorry, I don't. I just loaded DiscEX.exe from command prompt for instructions.

Btw, you should take a look at ShowMiiWads-Mod. This won't help with GC games or compressing, but if you are going to use DiscEX, I'm sure you will find a game manager helpful.

 

[Patryc]

Sorry, I don't. I just loaded DiscEX.exe from command prompt for instructions.

Btw, you should take a look at ShowMiiWads-Mod. This won't help with GC games or compressing, but if you are going to use DiscEX, I'm sure you will find a game manager helpful.

Thanks for your help (already have showmiiwads-mod)