European vs US Roms and file size

fr3kazoid · Dec 6, 2006

I was under the impression that there was no region restrictions with the DS. Wouldn't 2 roms, 1 from Europe and one from USA be the same size?

I have also come across 2 USA Roms that have been different file sizes. Why would they be different?

legendofphil · Dec 6, 2006

There are usually many languages in European games, which increases the file size.

fr3kazoid · Dec 6, 2006

Ah.. I didn't think of that.

kristianity77 · Dec 6, 2006

What i dont get is, and perhaps someone can clear this up for me, is why DS roms are so big in the first place!!!! I mean lets looks at some SNES RPGs, Chrono Trigger, Brilliant detailed Soundtrack, great Graphics, long quest, weighs in at 3 meg. Seiken Densetsu 3, MASSIVE in every way possible, great graphics, 60+ different soundracks, again, i think it weighs in at 4 meg. 4 meg! If chrono trigger was ported over to the GBA, you could guarentee it to be a whopping 32 meg download, why??

Similar again, Metroid Fusion on GBA, small, graphics and sound are good, its an 8 meg download for gba. Super metroid on snes, bigger and better in every way, 2 meg? What gives?

FAST6191 · Dec 6, 2006

3d graphics, sound (the DS uses a lot of (IMA-AD)PCM sound which by nature is massive) and FMV are usually the thing responsible for file sizes of DS roms. Also space was a lot tighter during the SNES era so compression was used more readily (most DS roms merely compress the 3d component) as various techniques like tiles reused with different palettes also were far more commonly used.

For the record though not all gba games are huge: the recent FF titles ported to the GBA are only 64Mbit

kristianity77 · Dec 6, 2006

yes thats what i mean, final fantasy is 64mbit, but thats still 8 meg, still over 4 times the size of the original SNES carts. But if its a compression thing then i understand now

butaro · Dec 24, 2006

hah after reading both of your posts, chrono trigger snes + fmv from psx one would probably be an easy feat to port. i doubt it thought since its been done but still...