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See overview of formats [https://yuzu-emu.org/wiki/overview-of-switch-game-formats/ here].
→ZAR
Disc images (commonly known as ISOs, but ISO is actually a specific format) are faithful software recreations of game discs (when made correctly). However, with disc sizes ranging from 700 MB (CD), 900 MB (PSP single-layered UMD), 1 GB (DC GD), 1.4 46 GB (GC GCN Mini-DVD), 1.8 GB (PSP dual-layered UMD), 4.7 GB (single-layered DVD), 8.5 GB (dual-layered DVD), 25 GB (single-layered Blu-Ray), and 25 50 GB (dual-layered Blu-Ray), they can get pretty taxing for storage, especially when newer generations of consoles games are getting bigger in file sizes.
It wouldn't be so bad if not for the fact that the game data itself is often times only a fraction of the actual disc size - for instance, the ''Super Mario 25th Anniversary'' Wii disc itself is a 4.7GB, when really the actual game data is only a single SNES ROM (12 MB of useful data, to be precise) and nothing else. Naturally, one would want to trim this extra "fat" as much as possible, which is what this page aims to help to achieve. Most of the information here is based partially on this [https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comments/3g933n/guide_reduce_the_size_of_your_ps2_gc_wii_x360_ds/ guide].
:* BIN/ISO is the full disc data, including Audio-CD sound data and game data
:* CUE is the datasheet file
: '''Light Dump:''' ISO + MP3/FLAC/WAV + CUE
:* ISO is the disc data with only the game data
:* MP3/FLAC/WAV is the sound data from the Audio-CD, but these formats take much less disk space
:* CUE is the datasheet file
* '''Gain:''' Several hundreds of MBs to just a few dozens, depending on how much this specific game relies on the Audio-CD sound format
* '''Tools Used:''' Load the BIN+CUE using a virtual drive, then use a CD dumping tool
* '''Can be reverted?''' Yes, just burn the ISO+MP3/FLAC/WAV+CUE again using a CD burner tool (ImgBurner) either to a physical disk or as an ISO+BIN file. Lossy audio formats will result in data loss.
* '''Playable on Hardware?''' No, but can be reverted to be
* '''Playable on Emulators?''' Anything that supports loading from .cue files, or direct from the optical drive (if you use a virtual disc loader like CDEmu). Some aren't compatible with MP3, if that's the case, convert them to WAV with MP32WAV. You may need Sega Cue Maker.
===CHD Compression===
* '''Archive-quality dump?''' Yes No (with CHD version 5because of bugs and missing unimplemented directives<ref>http://problemkaputt.de/psxspx-cdrom-disk-images-chd-mame.htm#CHD_Notes</ref><ref>http://github.com/mamedev/mame/issues/10308</ref>)
* '''Gain:''' Immediate
* '''Tools Used:''' chdman (included with MAME)
* '''Can be reverted?''' Yes, using extractcd (included with MAME)
* '''Playable on Hardware?''' No.
* '''Playable on Emulators?''' MAME, DuckStation, PCSX2 (since March of 2021) , DEmul and DEmulNO$PSX. Some libretro cores for other emulators are starting to add support.
* '''Can process multi track bin files?''' Yes.
MAME uses the CHD format for disc images in general and includes tools to convert back and forth. Before MAME v145, CHD was in version 4 and it bumped to version 5 from MAME v146 and further. The CHD v5 CHDv5 uses 7zip's LZMA compression on the game data and lossless FLAC compression for the audio data to optimize compression even further than using BIN+CUE+MP3/WAV data separation alone. CHDv5 is truely losslesslossy until all the bugs are resolved.
'''Instructions'''
Place the chdman.exe executable and extractcd in the same directory as the dumps you want to compress (dumps must be in BIN+CUE format or GDI). Open Command Prompt or a terminal emulator and navigate to the directory where you placed the chdman.exe executable and input one of the following:* BIN/CUE-GDI to CHD: <code> for /R %i in (*.cue, *.gdi) do chdman createcd -i "%i" -o "%~ni.chd"</code> (Windows) for i in *.(cue|gdi); do chdman createcd -i "$i" -o "${i%.*}.chd"; done (Linux)* CHD to BIN/CUE: <code> for /R %i in (*.chd) do chdman extractcd -i "%i" -o "%~ni.cue"</code> (Windows) for i in *.chd; do chdman extractcd -i "$i" -o "${i%.*}.cue"; done (Linux)
Alternatively, if you only need to do one file you can use this: <code>chdman createcd -i "<FILENAME>.cue" -o "<FILENAME>.chd"</code>
If you have one of the European PSX games that features LibCrypt copy protection, then you will have a .sbi file in addition to the .bin/cue file. You will still need to have the .sbi file in the same directory as the game file (in this case, the newly created CHD file) in order to run.
Note that multi-track bin files will be combinedand chdman will not split the files back when extracting.
==PlayStation 1==
* '''Archive-quality dump?''' No
* '''Gain:''' Immediate (ISO size decreases a lot).
* '''Tools Used:''' [https://www.reddit.com/r/PSP/wiki/psx2psp PSX2PSP], Popstation MD GUI, [https://www.psx-placegithub.com/threadssahlberg/w-ipop-p-utilities-cdda-enabler-for-psx-eboots-on-ps3.23539/ CDDAfe POP-ENABLERfe] (optimized for PS3friendly) , ...
* '''Can be reverted?''' Yes. For homemade EBOOTs it can be done by using the same tool to generate the BIN+CUE files. For commercial releases from PSN you will have to use [https://github.com/xdotnano/PSXtract PSXtract]. There's data loss, but it's negligible in terms of functionality.
* '''Playable on Hardware?''' On PSP, not on PS1.
===CHD===
* '''Archive-quality dump?''' YesNo (because of bugs and unimplemented directives for TOC and CUE)
* '''Gain:''' Immediate (better than PBP).
* '''Tools Used:''' chdman
* '''Can be reverted?''' Yes, using the same tool (chdman).
* '''Playable on Hardware?''' No.
* '''Playable on Emulators?''' libretro Beetle PSX, Avocado, DuckStation, PCSX2 (since March of 2021, and also because PCSX2 now has PSOne emulation functionality as well, so two-in-one) and , PCSX ReARMedand NO$PSX.
==PlayStation 2==
* '''Tools Used:''' [https://github.com/unknownbrackets/maxcso#features maxcso], [https://github.com/ps2homebrew/Open-PS2-Loader/blob/master/pc/ziso.py ziso.py (requires python3 and pip install lz4)], [https://www.psx-place.com/resources/psxiso-compression-tool.1258/ PSXiSO (contains ziso CLI tool)]
* '''Can be reverted?''' Yes, using the same tool. No data loss.
* '''Playable on Hardware?''' YES Yes - Open PS2 Loader.* '''Playable on Emulators?''' NOYes - PCSX2 (since v1.7.5293)<ref>[https://github.com/PCSX2/pcsx2/pullreleases/tag/6594v1.7.5293 v1.7.5293]</ref>
===CHD===
* '''Can be reverted?''' Yes, using the same tool (chdman).
* '''Playable on Hardware?''' No.
* '''Playable on Emulators?''' Yes - PCSX2 (since v1.7.0-dev-1156)<ref>Added in 1150 but wasn't built. 1156 is the first release with CHD support. [https://web.archive.org/web/20210416020418/https://buildbot.orphis.net/pcsx2/index.php?m=fulllistAutomated Pcsx2 builds]</ref>).
==PlayStation 3==
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, ...)
===ISO support for RPCS3===
Currently [[Save_disk_space_for_ISOs#External_links|there is no direct ISO or any compressed file support for RPCS3]] (your only option is mount ISO image to boot the game with RPCS3).
*You can either use [https://github.com/RPCS3/rpcs3/issues/4021#issuecomment-1650682400 this tool], or [https://github.com/ptmorris1/RPCS3-ISOLauncher-Launchbox this one] for playing directly your ISO dumps with RPCS3.
*or use [https://www.mediafire.com/file/v5yslivyurr5luy/Make_sure_edit_path_locations_first.bat/file this simple batch script] ('''edit path locations first of course''') which mounts your ISO using powershell commands and launching it using RPCS3 CLI commands and ejecting it when you done with RPCS3
==PlayStation Portable==
Official format for digitally distributed PSP/minis (partially related to the one used for PS1 games), containing a compressed disc image and optionally a custom boot logo.
===CHD===
* '''Archive-quality dump?''' Yes
* '''Gain:''' Immediate (Less than PBP).
* '''Tools Used:''' chdman
* '''Can be reverted?''' Yes, using the same tool (chdman).
* '''Playable on Hardware?''' No.
* '''Playable on Emulators?''' Yes - PPSSPP.
==PlayStation Vita==
==Switch==
===NSZ===
* '''Archive-quality dump?''' Yes
* '''Playable on Hardware?''' No
* '''Playable on Emulators?''' No
It is possible to merge the game base, update and DLCs on a single NSP with the tool [https://github.com/julesontheroad/NSC_BUILDER NSC_Builder] and compress it to NSZ
==Game Boy Advance / Nintendo DS / Nintendo 3DS==
* '''Playable on Emulators?''' Yes - Xenia.
===ZAR===[https://github.com/xenia-canary/xenia-canary/pull/165 Support (WIP) for loading ZArchive filesThis Pull Request]===This PR adds support to [[xenia]] emulator for loading ZAR (ZArchive files) of a decrypted and extracted dump of XBOX 360 game. *The process is basically to dump your disc, extract files using your favorite tool, and create a ZAR file from it using ZArchive toolor [https://github.com/xenia-canary/xenia-canary/pull/299 xenia-canary->create Zar package option].*For digital titles (Xbox 360 Demos, Video DLC and XBLA games etc) you need to extract the contents from its containers using "[https://digiex.net/threads/wxpirs-extract-content-from-xbox-360-demos-video-dlc-and-arcade-game-containers.9464/ wxPirs]" and then create a ZAR file from it using the "[https://github.com/Exzap/ZArchive/releases ZArchive]" tool or xenia-canary->create Zar package option[https://github.com/xenia-canary/xenia-canary/pull/165#issuecomment-1641099753].
=Other Tricks=
===NTFS Compression===
You can enable filesystem-level compression (like "NTFS Compression" in Windows) for the directory containing your ISOs/ROMs. This has a very noticeable space gain and doesn't affect the emulator's functionality. It's surprisingly more effective than many people would like to give this credit.
* '''Archive-quality dump?''' Yes
Since this results, in most cases, in very noticeable detrimental effects in gameplay (if the game doesn't crash outright), this is nothing short of mutilating the game image. Sadly enough, some of these dumps make it to sharing sites.
Avoid resorting to destructive modifications since it can lead to random crashes and unexpected behavior, especially in games with lots of shared assets. [[http://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/File_Hashes File hashes|Verify your dumps]] to make sure you don't have these, and if you still want to reduce size, prefer using other methods or uses decompression on demand. One reason to use a destructively modified dump is for burning your own Dreamcast games as GD-ROMs were over a gigabyte in size and CD-Rs top out at 850MB.
* '''Archive-quality dump?''' No (Removes data)
=See also=
*[[List of filetypes]]
=External links=
*[https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/issues/5434 6013 CHD or ZArchive feature requests for citra]
*[https://github.com/RPCS3/rpcs3/issues/4021 CHD or ZArchive feature requests for RPCS3]
*[http://web.archive.org/web/20231127115239/https://github.com/yuzu-emu/yuzu/issues/10025#issuecomment-1493873239 CHD or ZArchive feature requests for yuzu and Ryujinx]*[https://github.com/xemu-project/xemu/issues/129 CHD or ZArchive feature requests for xemu]*[https://github.com/86Box/86Box/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+format+label%3Afeature+ Various image format feature requests for 86Box]*[https://github.com/joncampbell123/dosbox-x/issues/1822 CHD feature request for DOSBox-X]*[https://github.com/schellingb/dosbox-pure/issues/40 CHD feature request for DOSBox Pure]*[https://yuzu-emu.org/entry/yuzu-progress-report-aug-2023/#project-terra yuzu now supports sparse and compressed NCA games]. This means a long list of titles whose eShop releases couldn’t previously boot are now either running or perfectly playable, and their RomFS can be fully dumped.
=References=
[[Category:FAQs]]
