Hacking Trimming Roms...

[Homertherat]

I hope this is the right place to ask this, people seem angry when it's not in the best place.

I searched and didn't really find anything that answered my questions, so yeah.

I was wondering what it is and if it's safe to do. Does it remove any game files or effect the gameplay in any way?

If it's safe to do, what's a good program to use to do it?

That's all.

 

[xJonny]

By normal, dumped roms contain blank data to make the filesizes up to whole units of flashcard storage. Trimming them removes this blank data. Sometimes doing this around the wifi area of a game can damage it, but good trimmers don't do this.

If you use a good trimmer, it should make your roms take less space with no side effects.. Good ones include NDSTokyoTrim and TinyTrimmer

 

[Homertherat]

By normal, dumped roms contain blank data to make the filesizes up to whole units of flashcard storage. Trimming them removes this blank data. Sometimes doing this around the wifi area of a game can damage it, but good trimmers don't do this.

If you use a good trimmer, it should make your roms take less space with no side effects.. Good ones include NDSTokyoTrim and TinyTrimmer

All right. Thanks for your reply.

 

[apb407]

Yeah or you could use rominatar which is a managing tool which trims and makes the roms look clean it is on the front page gbatemp just scroll down

 

[Homertherat]

Yeah or you could use rominatar which is a managing tool which trims and makes the roms look clean it is on the front page gbatemp just scroll down

I saw that one when I searched. Most people say it's a good one.

It trims them clean, right? I still want to be able to do the download thing and play wifi too.

 

[Bri]

There is an option in Rominator to preserve download play data. You can also tell Rominator not to trim a ROM if you find that you have a problem with over-trimming (I've never had that problem, but I don't use download play that often).

-Bri

 

[IOwnAndPwnU]

I find it best to not trim at all. Then you have no problems whatsoever.

 

[gratefulbuddy]

I find it best to not trim at all. Then you have no problems whatsoever.

IMO: wasting space=problem.
Why not just keep a backup copy of the ROM? If there is a problem (uSD corruption, bad trim, etc.), you still have the original.

 

[IOwnAndPwnU]

I guess it depends on:
-if you play Download Play
-if you play Wi-Fi
-the size of your MicroSD

If you have a large MicroSD, there is kinda no point in trimming roms unless you play gazillions of games at the same/movies/music.

I play Download Play, Wi-Fi and have a 4GB MicroSDHC so I'm okay.

Question: How much does the trimmer actually remove (without removing Wi-Fi/Download Play data)?

 

[Diablo1123]

I keep ROMs untrimmed on my computer and use rominator to copy them to my microsd which auto trims them

 

[xJonny]

I guess it depends on:
-if you play Download Play
-if you play Wi-Fi
-the size of your MicroSD

If you have a large MicroSD, there is kinda no point in trimming roms unless you play gazillions of games at the same/movies/music.

I play Download Play, Wi-Fi and have a 4GB MicroSDHC so I'm okay.

Question: How much does the trimmer actually remove (without removing Wi-Fi/Download Play data)?

Varies from game to game, if a 2048mbit game only uses 1026mbits, you'll have the rest cut (1022mbits (close to 128 megabytes).
(if I'm right in thinking 2048 is the next step up from 1024 - although they'd probably try to squash it in 1024 anyway)

Also, you seem to be forgetting that good trimmers don't mess up download-play or wi-fi games.

 

[Destructobot]

I don't think I've ever not trimmed a DS rom, and I haven't run into a single problem because of it (except when the flashcart companies started fixing DL play and I had to re-trim them with updated trimmers). No DL play problems, no crashing or not loading, nothing. Just make sure you have a good trimmer and trim away. I personally recommend NDSTokyoTrim.

As for how much data is trimmed, in my experience it ranges from almost nothing up to nearly half of the rom size. 59MB was the most I've ever seen trimmed off of a rom (it was a 128MB rom). on average you get about a 15% space savings trimming all your roms (I do anyway).

 

[IOwnAndPwnU]

How about for Mario Kart DS and Pokemon Diamond ?

 

[xJonny]

Mario Kart DS EU trimmed to 24.4MB from 32MB

 

[IOwnAndPwnU]

8MB doesn't seem alot to me considering I have half a Gig left. Besides, too much work to trim roms. If you have a 1GB then it makes perfect sense.

 

[gratefulbuddy]

Besides, too much work to trim roms.

Sounds like you have never used a trimmer. Trimming roms with a decent trimmer should be extremely easy. If its causing you to work too much, you are doing something wrong.

 

[Ferrariman]

NDStokyo trim only takes 7 seconds in total to trim 40 roms. If you think that is too much work, you need to get a job.

 

[Destructobot]

8MB doesn't seem alot to me considering I have half a Gig left.

You miss the point. If you have 3 gigs of roms on your card and you trim them all, you'll save around 400MB on average. And gratefulbuddy & ferrariman are correct about how much work it is. Drag, drop, click, done.

 

[Diablo1123]

If I remember correctly I had a game trimmed was a few megabytes over 64. Meaning that's about 64 MB right there as the next size is 128 MB

 

[Dark Reality]

I use the trimmer that came on my R4's CD-ROM, and it works alright. I don't play on WFC or with other DS users locally, so I don't really care about all that, as long as the game works, is all that matters to me.

However, this trimmer has two weaknesses. The first is total BS - it always defaults its location to My Documents. There's no way I can see to have it start from my games directory - or at least from the last location. The second is a minor inconvenience; it adds "_trim" to the filename. I don't want it to change the filename at all but rather to place it in the subdirectory \Trimmed.

If there were a trimmer that would always start in the games folder (a folder I specify) or at least remember the last folder it accessed the time before AND let me change the path/name of the output file, I would use it instead. Otherwise, the R4's bundled trimmer is good for me.