Homebrew wbfs VS iso format

[MegaGenesis]

Everyone knows a ISO files is a 1:1 image of the original disc, but i keep seeing these Wii games on .wbfs format. What are the cons and pros of this format? I'm asking this because Dolphin Team said these images have lens files on them to be smaller. Is it like a Repack?

 

[EmulateLife]

I believe wbfs games they just rip out all unnecessary files from the iso, thus they're smaller.

For some reason they made all Wii isos be the same full size of a dvd 4.3 gb, so they added in garbage usually to make it 4.3 gb because it wasn't necessary. WBFS just rips those files out.

There's really no benefit to go with ISOs just save your hdd space and go with wbfs if you can.

 

[PityOnU]

Wii disc images tended to come with multiple 'partitions' on them. For example, a single disc may have a partition for update information, a partition for the game, and in some cases (I think SSBB) partitions for game demos contained within the game. Nintendo had developers fill any space remaining on the disc after all of these partitions with algorithmicly generated 'garbage data,' just so each disc would be the same size once finalized and mastered.

As you have stated, a Wii .iso file (not actually an iso file) is just a 1:1 binary dump of the entire game disc, so it ends up being ~4.3GB in size for every game. A .wbfs file, on the other hand, is just the files contained within a single partition on the game disc - usually the aptly named "GAME" partition. The garbage data, extra game demos, and updates are generally left out, as in many cases they are unneeded.

As is always the case with backups and ROMs, the full, 1:1 and uncompressed dump will give you the least issues in all cases. The more compressed .wbfs format is fine outside of a few handfuls of corner cases, however.

 

[Ryccardo]

WBFS is indeed "trimmed" (it's not exactly the classic definition of trimming seen on most other consoles, but functionally equivalent - "non-meaningful data is omitted from the file")
An alternative is scrubbing, as seen on most disc backups you didn't make - replacing the non-meaningful data with a constant, which doesn't directly save space but makes the disc image more compressable (without breaking signatures)

On top of those (or even without them), you can edit the disc to remove update partitions, installers, Brawl VC demos, or for that matter any file from the game - the confusion only comes from the fact most USB loaders can do those things simultaneously

 

[burrowsf2005]

Everyone knows a ISO files is a 1:1 image of the original disc, but i keep seeing these Wii games on .wbfs format. What are the cons and pros of this format? I'm asking this because Dolphin Team said these images have lens files on them to be smaller. Is it like a Repack?

i personally keep all my wii games in wbfs and have had no problems since moving from iso

 

[Cyan]

if you ever need a full clean 1:1 image (why would you? archival and historical preservation maybe), there are 2 tools to re-generate the garbage from a wbfs file. 1. Ultimate Unscrubber (by Osupka), 2. SWiiT (by nanook)
it appears that what we thought was garbage is actually a specific algorythm and can therefore be recreated. it has no purpose except fill the disc entirely.

the only problem if you ever want to re-generate a 1:1 image is the update partition, you'll have to provide a dump matching the partition content used on that game. There were a tool in early 2006-2008 (WUM) which was used to extract&replace updates in binary format.
but, 1:1 are still wrong if in ".iso" format. a real 1:1 disc image is unreadable, unburnable because it's scrambled. what most users know as "1:1 clean ISO" is actually an unscrambled version of it.

except for Smash bros, all other game in wbfs format are full and not missing any data. only the "garbage" is removed, and generally the update partition too.
you can see in WiiBackupManager if your wbfs contains the Update, Game, Other based on the displayed letters (UGO).
You have the option to keep/remove them when converting or dumping a disc to wbfs. in USBLoaderGX, the default is "remove update" (and keep Game+Other)