Hacking What is: rom trimming?

[Abcdfv]

Yeah, I understand why the sizes are 2x multiples ^^
Thanks, now I also understand where that trimmable "extra" stuff comes from; apparently data on a game-card storage works a quite differantly than data stored on a flash drive (more differant than I had expected). So thanks for clearing that up ^^

Kinda silly people blame everything on trimming. Granted, from what I read trimming in general needs a bit of refinement or just a "steady hand", but blaming everything on trimming when it comes to rom problems would be like blaming a volcano with an evil spirit inside for all life's misfortunes (ok, perhaps a little too overdone here XD ).

Well, if that volcano erupts frequently...

The "steady hand" you describe would be more knowledge about every specific rom being trimmed, because the filler data is in different locations on each one. (Not entirely true, but true enough that trimming the same range in EVERY rom would break a large quantity of them.)

 

[gamesquest1]

I hear ya, but I just wish that the replies to those threads weren't always the automatic "the problem is you trimmed the rom and nothing more" as 100% compatibility with flashcarts isn't guaranteed every time a new rom comes out. I posted a "HELP ME PL0X" thread myself just a few days ago for Conception II and was only met with the "blame the trimming" mentality. Frankly, it pisses me off when everyone wants to harp on one detail as the end-all-be-all source of all rom problems when another rom released around the same time had an issue that was found to be present regardless of the rom being trimmed. Sometimes the problems lie with the loader or the rom itself. We need to stop demonizing trimming as it's not the only offender in problems people have with loading/running games.

I understand that it is a bit annoying having anything and everything blamed on trimmed roms, the actual errors caused are few and far between.....but that being said i have also seen people refusing to accept that trimming Pokemon will cause issues when it first came out,

There will always be people looking to help who don't know the in and outs of a situation, but saying I tried this and it was trimmed....the first and most obvious next step would be trying it untrimmed you shouldn't be offended with people offering help, more offended at yourself for not trying the obvious steps before asking for help.

 

[zhdarkstar]

I understand that it is a bit annoying having anything and everything blamed on trimmed roms, the actual errors caused are few and far between.....but that being said i have also seen people refusing to accept that trimming Pokemon will cause issues when it first came out,

There will always be people looking to help who don't know the in and outs of a situation, but saying I tried this and it was trimmed....the first and most obvious next step would be trying it untrimmed you shouldn't be offended with people offering help, more offended at yourself for not trying the obvious steps before asking for help.

Oh I hear ya loud and clear. The main reason I believed trimming had nothing to do with that situation was that the crashes were random and hard to replicate. The game would crash at Point A in one session and then work just fine at Point A in another session. That screamed microsd issue more than trimming issue.

But that's enough getting off-topic about my woes.

Well, if that volcano erupts frequently...

The "steady hand" you describe would be more knowledge about every specific rom being trimmed, because the filler data is in different locations on each one. (Not entirely true, but true enough that trimming the same range in EVERY rom would break a large quantity of them.)

I think the best place to start would be studying the games with download play functionality to achieve the same "safe" trimming we had at the end of the DS lifecycle. Once we have an idea of what can and can't be trimmed without breaking download play, adapting it to the rest of the library will be simpler. Unfortunately, we still have no idea what trimming does to online multiplayer as no current flashcart allows for it. Once we can go online with them, then we'll see rom trimming reach its apex for the Card1 games.

 

[Tattorack]

Wouldn't it be safer to give the trimming a 5 MB leaway of the the actual game as apposed to getting it spot-on the actual size?

 

[zhdarkstar]

Wouldn't it be safer to give the trimming a 5 MB leaway of the the actual game as apposed to getting it spot-on the actual size?

In theory, yes. In practice, you're going to want to shave off as much dead weight as possible. Thus, the dilemma is trying to find the "butter zone" where you get the maximum amount of trimming possible without any adverse effects on full functionality.

Come to think of it, I haven't even tested whether trimming broke the download play of the Mario Party Island Tour rom I have on my multiplayer game mSD. I'll go give that a shot and report back my findings.

 

[Tattorack]

In theory, yes. In practice, you're going to want to shave off as much dead weight as possible. Thus, the dilemma is trying to find the "butter zone" where you get the maximum amount of trimming possible without any adverse effects on full functionality.

Come to think of it, I haven't even tested whether trimming broke the download play of the Mario Party Island Tour rom I have on my multiplayer game mSD. I'll go give that a shot and report back my findings.

Hmm... I wouldn't mind only 5 MB of waste-space (if the the shaved off stuff is more, like 100 MB), but I'm not exactly a big complainer about anything to begin with

Intrested to know what you find
(btw; this thread broke my record for most views on any forum! XD )

 

[zhdarkstar]

Just tested MPIT's download play with a trimmed rom with both a vanilla 3ds and a gateway mode 3ds connected simultaneously. Worked perfectly without a hitch. Maybe we're closer to the peak of card1 rom trimming than I previously thought. However, we still will not know for sure until online multiplayer functionality is enabled.