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Ideal Great space-saving option for Gamecube games to be played on Nintendont.
→GameCube / Wii: added new rvz format
==Applicable to All Platforms==
===Audio-CD===
Sega-CD, PC-Engine, PlayStation, Sega Saturn... what do these all have in common? They all use a regular CD format! Game developers often stored music and other sounds using the Audio-CD format, but it was terribly inefficient when it comes to disc storage as it also had to store the actual game along with the sound files. To put it in perspective, a 700 MB CD containing nothing but Audio-CD data can hold at most around 80 minutes worth of sound data, meaning games that used a lot of sounds where were limited in size.
Since then developers no longer use Audio-CD format and instead prefer custom audio formats that come included in the "game data" part of the disc. By the time the PS1 generation came, the Audio-CD part was just used for messages like "Don't put this in a CD player!" and little else (exceptions exist, of course!)
* '''Can be reverted?''' Yes, using extractcd (included with MAME)
* '''Playable on Hardware?''' No.
* '''Playable on Emulators?''' Only MAME , DuckStation and DEmul. Some libretro cores for other emulators are starting to add support.
* '''Can process multi track bin files?''' Yes.
PBP is the official format used by Sony for the PS1 Classics on PSP and PS3. Audio tracks may be compressed in ATRAC3 or as raw PCM (unsupported on PS3's ps1_netemu, supported on PSP only by the earliest versions of POPS or the newest ones with the [http://wololo.net/talk/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=41330&start=60 cdda_enabler plugin])
===CHD===
* '''Archive-quality dump?''' Yes
* '''Gain:''' Immediate (better than PBP).
* '''Tools Used:''' chdman
* '''Can be reverted?''' Yes, using the same tool (chdman).
* '''Playable on Hardware?''' No.
* '''Playable on Emulators?''' libretro Beetle PSX, Avocado, DuckStation and PCSX ReARMed.
==PlayStation 2==
* '''Can be reverted?''' Yes, using PS3 ISO Rebuilder and an [http://jonnysp.bplaced.net/ IRD file] representing the original file locations. Generic inaccurate JB to ISO conversions possible with makeps3iso (preferred) or genps3iso.
* '''Playable on Hardware?''' Yes - on CFW/HEN
* '''Playable on Emulators?''' ?Yes - RPCS3
For a long time (before the availability of Cobra and Mamba) the only playable format for PS3 backups (relying on little more than "peek and poke" CFW-provided syscalls to mount the game's folder over the currently inserted disc) but also the least accurate one, with significant compatibility issues (varying on whether the backup is stored on an internal or external drive, whether an original game disc is currently inserted, various optional hacks such as "BDMirror" moving the files to the root of the external drive on demand, ...)
* Zelda Twilight Princess (GC): 1.4 GB (original) > 1.4 GB (GCZ) (game data already fills the disk)
* Megaman Collection (GC): 1.4 GB (original) > 1.1 GB (GCZ) (sound data is stored as uncompressed stream to fill disk)
===RVZ (Modern Dolphin format) - GC/Wii===
The Dolphin team developed a new compression format based on WIA called RVZ. Unlike all the previous formats, RVZ is lossless and can preserve the padding data on Wii discs as well as the necessary files needed by the Wii's IOS.
* '''Archive-quality dump?''' Yes.
* '''Gain:''' Immediate (ISO dump size lowers). Considerable, depending on the game.
* '''Tools Used:''' Dolphin 5.0-12188+ (right-click the game(s) in the games list and select "Compress ISO..." (or "Compressed selected ISOs..." if more than one is selected))
* '''Can be reverted?''' Yes.
* '''Playable on Hardware?''' No.
* '''Playable on Emulators?''' Only Dolphin.
===Scrubbing and Trimming - GC/Wii===
A scrubbed and sparse (gap-dropping) format. Unrelated to the PSP's CSO format.
===FST (extracted File System) - GC/Wii===
===NKit formats - GC/Wii===
* '''Archive-quality dump?''' Yes - by explicit design choice!
* '''Gain:''' Immediate or not depending on choice of - (Wii) only for GCZ- or ISO-based outputformat.
* '''Tools Used:''' NKit.
* '''Can be reverted?''' Yes!
* '''Playable on Emulators?''' Yes - Dolphin
Apart from its previously mentioned unscrubbing/untrimming features mentioned in the above formats' descriptions, NKit is able to convert any ISO (clean dump or otherwise) to and from an [https://wiki.gbatemp.net/wiki/NKit/NKitFormat intermediate format applying various reversible changes] that optimize the image for lossless compression, including full decryption and optionally splitting the often non-unique update partitions to separate files.
NKit-GCZ (as well as plain GCZ) is less space efficient than NKit-ISO compressed with a powerful general purpose archiver, however it is directly playable in Dolphin. NKit ISO is the ideal space-saving option for Gamecube games to be played on a Gamecube.
==Wii U==
* '''Can be reverted?''' No
* '''Playable on Hardware?''' Yes (after installation)
* '''Playable on Emulators?''' ?No
Consisting of a folder containing *.app, *.h3, title.cert, title.tik, and title.tmd files, this official Nintendo format is how tiles are stored on discs and some system titles are stored on the console and is very similar to how titles are stored on the CDN (on the CDN the files are named differently, .app files are encrypted with the title key and common keys and the tmd has a certificate chain on the end that is same for every tmd). This is equivalent to the files contained within a 3DS CIA file; however unlike a 3DS title, converting a disc title to digital does not require modifying the title itself, thus leaving the title's signatures valid.
Official Nintendo format for developers to install digital titles, later became the most popular format for installable homebrew and game backups owing to the relatively low marketshare of flashcards and emulators (and, for the former, strong impopularity) in favor of CFW.
Equivalent of the Wii's WAD (for digital titles only) and the DSi's TAD (again for digital titles only, and with basically no popular support due to the lack of any homebrew title installers supporting the format - not to be confused with an homonymous unofficial format nor with the files produced by the official export-DSiWare-to-SD feature)
===NCCHs (CXIs and CFAs, 3DS only)===
