Reducing Puzzle Quest WBFS File Size - Fixed!

[xunga]

I've decided to try the Wii version of Puzzle Quest, and I've noticed that when converting it to WBFS, the file ends up being 4 GB. This is because the developers used fixed-size empty files instead of typical junk files to fill the DVD, which Wiibackup Manager cannot remove, resulting in an abnormally large WBFS image for such a small game.

https://gbatemp.net/threads/puzzle-quest-challenge-of-the-warlords-cost-4gb.263122/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Roms/comments/jpgw6s/looking_to_trim_or_get_trimmed_copy_of_wii_game/

I've seen that this issue was brought up in another thread years ago, but no one has provided a solution until now. So, I’m going to share what I did to have the game in a WBFS file of 300 MB instead of 4.4 GB.

I am using the PAL version RQWPG9 of the game, which weighs a bit more than the NTSC USA version since it's multilingual.

Here are the steps to follow:

• Open WiiScrubber and load the ISO of Puzzle Quest. Notice that the disc data size is 4230 MB.
• In Partition 1 - DATA, we see files named 0file0, 0file1, 0file2, and 0file3, each weighing 1 GB, which were used to fill the physical DVD. A clumsy solution that we are going to fix.
• On our PC, create empty text files named the same: 0file0, 0file1, 0file2, and 0file3. Leave them as they are and remove the .txt extension from each name. For example, create 0file0.txt and rename it to just 0file0, and do the same for all. I’ll attach the empty files in this message.
• In WiiScrubber, select the corresponding file and replace it with the empty file we created. Do this for each one. Now we see that the disc data size has been reduced to 410 MB.
• In WiiScrubber, click Trim to save a reduced ISO. You will see that the result is an ISO of 3.4 GB. Don’t worry, there’s one more step.
• Now, open that ISO (trim) in WiiBackupManager and convert it to WBFS format.
• The result is a file RQWPG9.wbfs of 295.7 MB.

As I mentioned, the NTSC version weighs a bit less because it only has the English language. In any case, it's 4 GB of savings, which is appreciated on the hard drive.

The reduced WBFS file works flawlessly on both Dolphin and a real console with USB Loader GX.

It's hard to believe that no one has posted anything about this game providing the solution because it’s quite simple.

I hope you find this useful.

 

[spinoman]

hi, could you please share the crc checksum of the fixed RQWPG9.wbfs file?
thanks, spinoman.

 

[lightwo]

I was going to say, "but removing the junk data would result in all data being near the center of the disc!", but then I realised this is for a HDD copy. Oops

And did you verify whether the junk data is really empty, and not another Tiger Woods situation?

 

[xunga]

hi, could you please share the crc checksum of the fixed RQWPG9.wbfs file?
thanks, spinoman.

Here is the data Dolphin gave me when verifying the final WBFS:

CR32: 2c8ba196
MD5: 39e9ee777b74bfa0cc6c3fc93286771a
SHA-1: fd78df36c242cd5618c036ac0092bb73646d3bea

From what I could see, those files were only used to fill space.

The game works correctly for me, both when starting a new game and saving, and when recognizing a very advanced, almost finished game that my sister had been playing on the original disc years ago. After playing around for a while, everything seems to be working fine.