Drastic Compression for PS1 games on PSP

[Vega]

Some informative information on playing PS1 games on your PSP has come to light. 1gig memory stick users should read on.

The following method should help to make PS1games run without all the extra padding originally placed on the disc. If you're wondering what that means, it's this: Imagine playing a 500MB game using only 50 MB of space.

You'll need something called CDGenPS2. If you follow the steps, you should be able to get a game to play with a drastically smaller file size. Its Still in the test Stages, but has proven to work on a number of games.

PS1 and PS2 games use a very strict architecture for how the binary files of the games are organized on a discs. When a disc copying program copies these discs, it's known that they will leave the padding of empty bits (0xFF) for the remainder of the XXXMB media.

For example, Tetris Plus for the PS1 has a total file size on the disc of 43.0 MB and the image from CloneCD is 566MB. However, if you try to remove the padding from a disc, it will no longer work with emulators, including POPS. A utility for those who load games from their PS2 hard drives to lessen the size of the images, known as CDGENPS2 (Much like UMD-GEN), has the ability to remove this padding and keep the structure of the disc intact. Using this utility with some software that can extract an ISO to its contents can bring the 566MB Tetris Plus image down to about 50MB (POPS compresses it to about 400MB).

How to do it:

1. Extract the ISO contents to a folder on your hard drive.
2. Open that folder and select ALL of the extracted contents from the root of the disc.
3. Open CDGENPS2.
4. Drag the contents of the folder into the CDGENPS2 window (the giant white space that says ISO near the top)
5. (Optional) Go to file-> Edit Volume and change the name of the volume so that it matches the original title of the game (for archival reasons only).
6. Click the IMG button on the left-hand side of the screen and save the Bin/ISO/IMG to whatever directory you want , and use POPS to convert to PSP EBOOT and test it.


Play around with CDGenPS2 and post up your results. You can download it right here (Windows users only). This software is Freeware.

Again, this is only in testing stages and some games may not work, but it cant harm to try ;)

[cal360]

This sounds realy good i'm going to go and try this now and hopefully this with help fit more of my PS1 games on my memory stick

[Vega]

yea once Im done with the downgrading of my GFs Brothers PSP, Im gonna do alot of testing with it tonight with my own PSP.

[Mister Klownes]

Wow...can't wait until this gets refined. (I'm assuming, of course that this is the kind of thing that makes a big enough stir to get itself refined.)

[Uchiha Sasuke]

This is really awesome news if it works as well as hoped. Just imagine putting your WHOLE PS1 collection on one memory stick and still have room leftover for your PSP games :P

[cal360]

yea once Im done with the downgrading of my GFs Brothers PSP, Im gonna do alot of testing with it tonight with my own PSP.

Don't worry the downgrade only takes 5 minutes so you'll be able to test away and hopefully get some smaller games on your memory card

[Vega]

yea, it would be awesome to hold every disc of FF IX on a single 1gig card... without lag. I'll post up my results when I get a chance :)

Anyone tested a game yet ?

[Wrrryyy]

After I make a new image in CDGenPS2, there doesn't seem to be a single bit of compression or anything removed. The ISO is just as big as before and doesn't compress any differently to PBP.

[pt9087]

This is good, shame i dont use ps1 games on my psp

[nyrtrublue]

what version of cdgenps2 are you guys using because i can only find the older versions

sry i didnt see the d/l

[Wrrryyy]

This isn't doing much for most of the games I'm trying it on. You have to find the dummy files yourself in the program, it doesn't delete them automatically for you.

[Uchiha Sasuke]

hm is my computer poo or what? how long does it take to compress an image? it starts for me then freezes up.

[Uchiha Sasuke]

This isn't doing much for most of the games I'm trying it on. You have to find the dummy files yourself in the program, it doesn't delete them automatically for you.

ah i see. that takes effort...i dont like effort ;P ill keep an eye on this and see if it evolves...

[Vega]

bad news guys, alot of the tests around the homebrew scene elsewhere is looking pretty dull . .

Tried it out with Crash Team Racing.

Followed the instruction.

No compression.

Didnt load.


I just did FF7 CD1

With CDGenPS2 PSXPSP game was 403MB
Without CDGenPS2 game was 529MB

Both are final PSXPSP games using 9 compression.

However, the CDGenPS2 game did not work. I either did something wrong or not all games work.


A Suikoden 2 ISO of 513 MB with lvl 9 popstation compression = 347MB
A Suikoden 2 ISO after this procedure = 436MB with a lvl 9 popstation compression to a 265MB eboot. However, the game doesn't want to load.


I started off with Final Fantasy Tactics... Here is what I did step by step.

1. Ripped the BIN file from my previous eboot.
2. Converted it to ISO
3. Compressed it using CDGENPS2
4. Using POPSTATION made an eboot compressed at level nine.

File Sizes:

Original: 529 Mb

Compressed: 200Mb!

The only problem is that after the Gameboot the game won't load. Anyone else having this problem?


got Capcom Vs Snk Pro down to 114megs with this plus popstation compression...but it wont load. what gives?

(also, later when I retried converting the files into bin instead of iso, I got 78 megs....but still no loading!!)


doesnt take a genius to work out that this isn't a very successful method. damn.

still, the more I read around, the more I see people using different methods and different results. seems slightly confusing. I'll post back in a minute.

[cal360]

ok I just tried this and managed to get one of my PSX games from 600mb to 60mb

[S34MU5]

what one?

[student1]

Just tested with castlevania and capcom vs snk... no go results at all pbp are even bigger now...

one question though, when you rip to harddrive and copy incdgenps2 is there anything else besides saving and editing the name, dont you actually have to remove the padding once you r in manually or otherwise?

[BlackJack23]

Well obviously the PS1 emulator on the PSP has vastly different architecture to that on the PS2. The PS2 after all is what this compression was made for. Its like opening a rar file with winzip.

[ICE]

ok heres a question if someone compresses a game to like 50mb and then emails me said game with keys could i then use said game and keys to run popstation? if so could someone do that?

[student1]

Lol yes and no... one email box doesn t allow 50 megs transfers and second the games that compres that low dont work right now ;p

[Tetris999]

This Doesnt work i tried with makin my image iso bin nope doesnt work

[RomComZom]

I tried to compress Mtv Music Generator and there was no change. Tried Treasures of the Deep and took off about 45-50 mb's. Also tried Tenchu part 1 and there was no change.

[getarhed1]

whats the best method/program to convert a ps1 bin file to an iso file?

[ICE]

my prob is i got DIAL-UP!! so i cant dl the hotshots thing because it would take like 2 weeks. although it would be nice if someone could pm me a link to it so i could get someone else to dl it for me.. hehehe :D j/k.. or am i...?

[carrotman97]

my prob is i got DIAL-UP!! so i cant dl the hotshots thing because it would take like 2 weeks. although it would be nice if someone could pm me a link to it so i could get someone else to dl it for me.. hehehe :D j/k.. or am i...?

*cough* inbox *cough*:D :rolleyes:

[nyrtrublue]

I cant get it to work...maybe im a noob maybe it doesnt work

[zelion]

Heres a little more info I posted earlier about reducing the size :P
http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=48714

[prinnyhero]

Ok sow ive got the contents of the CD into cdgenps2 but now what? do i just make an image? cuz ive done that and its come out the same size... have i missed something?

[student1]

Nope i dont think you have, does the same thing for me... as of now it seems like bogus news... maybe i m wrong but if i am the steps of doing it are totally wrong. Anyway this software only wites mode 2 isos, it doesn t seem to remove any padding whatsoever... mostly used to edit or change iso content and write it back in mode 2...

[cdrdj]

Ok sow ive got the contents of the CD into cdgenps2 but now what? do i just make an image? cuz ive done that and its come out the same size... have i missed something?

Did you change the conversion from .bin to .iso? Supposedly .Bin files don't work out to well.

I've been following this since yesterday ( posted on pspu last nigth) and apparently, none of the games work. So this method succesfully converts and in most cases, reduces the size dramatically, but as you've read from quotes that Vega has posted about what people are saying, not much success on playing the games yet.

[burrito]

I did this and it made the ISO larger by about 50mb.
What did I do wrong?

[cdrdj]

I did this and it made the ISO larger by about 50mb.
What did I do wrong?

Probably nothing. This method isn't really a playable method. Over at Pspu, theyve got 100 comments on this method but no playable trimmed games. So pretty much, the poster either missed out a step or this really is just in testing stages without any success. Most likely the latter.

[Vega]

guys, the success rate is somewhat low. for the moment you would maybe be best leaving this for now.
Apparently, someone did get R-Type down to around 80mb and it worked, but i stress the word "apparently".
I would have read abit more into this before posting it up. its a hit and miss method. hopefully i can snuff out some full detailed steps on how people got R-Type to work. for now, best sticking to popstation compression only.

[PSmonkey]

I'll look into this tonight. Its posible there is data files one will need to remove since it's common for developers to put fake files to pad the image.

Yet for games like say FF7-9, this tool will do nothing (as their disc only contains a large data file).

[Vega]

God dammit ! PSMonkey! How have you been man? Havent heard from you in abit.

Yea I also read that big games (RPGs etc) wont make much difference via this method.

It does need some looking into, im gonna mess around with it too a litle later.

[gr42178]

Sounds good if it will work, I will keep my eye on this one.

[MasterChafed]

yeah, this method isn't really fool proof at all. lol. I tried MGS disc one and it made it 12 mb larger. so. maybe in the near future eh?

[Psumoni]

Tekken3 did not compress any using this program. I didn't bother running it through popstation afterwards.

[Veskgar]

Well, if not anything else, the idea behind this is pretty cool. A lot of games compress really well with popstation as it is but I know every little bit counts when you are using a 512MB or 1GB stick.

Perhaps something like this can be implemented into a nice program made specifically for PS1 games on PSP someday.

Lets not forget that it was only a couple weeks ago that we got the ability to play our PS1 games. In time, more good things will emerge I'm sure. Everything is still really new.

[Psumoni]

I replaced all the MUSIC?.STR files with blank STR files, and ran the resulting .bin from CDgen at compression lvl 9 file size went down from 457 Mb (Level 9) to 170 Mb.

PSP gives black screen.

[carlitx]

ok i got everything working heres how i did it:

1. i mounted the origonal image on daemon tools than i copied all the files in the root of the image onto a folder on my comp

2. i opened this program and draged and droped all the files where it says to put tham.

3. i created a new smaller image.

4 i compressed it at lv9 and made an even smaller eboot.

5. i copied the eboot to MSROOT\PSP\GAME\PS1 game folder.

6. than i tyred loading it and heres my problem:

it loads but it hangs in a black screen anybody else get this? i tried with street fighter ex 2 and ff7.

[Vega]

Maybe it should be tested it without level 9 compression with Popstation. try 1, and if it works, move up another compression level each time

[EvilDooinz]

I got the same results as carlitx for resident evil and spyro 2. Ived tryed bin's/iso's no luck. I'm also having problems coping some of the file out of the iso like the VOICE and MOVIE data.

[carlitx]

what compression level did u use vega cause im not in the mood for an hour of testing at the moment

[Vega]

Im yet to test this, im currently upgrading my GF's brother's PSP and ramming as much homebrew into it as possible (2gig stick) but once Im done Im gonna test this out for an hour or two. I'll get back to ya.

[Gene]

it seems to me that if someone does happen to get a game to load it is just a fluke.

I have tried many games, and still no sign of a load.

Here's what i have tried

All nstc and all my rips
varies from ISO and BIN
1.Digimon World~120mb
2.Digimon World 2~123mb
3.Digimon world 3~214mb
4.Tekken 2~121mb
5.Jade Cacoon~176mb
6.Harvest Moon: Back to Nature~91mb/Iso~51mb
7.Crash Bandicoot~110mb
8.Final Fantasy 8~430mb
9.Twisted Metal 3~190mb

I think i'll stop trying. This process makes your games drastically smaller at times but so far it is useless because it renders your game unusable. I am not geting anything to work, so I will wait until the problems are worked out to test anymore.

[wolfrainxd]

does converting ps2 games work?

[Squidman]

lol, i can compress it, but i cant' test it, haha!, it shrunk MGS1 [Disc 1] by 200MB, not much considering it's stil over 500MB, but hell, it IS very nice



does converting ps2 games work?

no....no it won't, the emulator is specifically designed for PS1, and can't handle PS2...but go nuts and waste time to do it ne ways, lol

[prinnyhero]

wow its a shame none of this is working, it would be sweet to have all three digimon games on the memory stick :D

[carlitx]

haha well scince it is just a first release id say that it will improve alot over a little while with ppl constently wanting smaller ps1 games

[tophead420]

hmm when this tool becomes better and will load games (hopefully makin ff7 and ff8 playable on my 512mb stick) ill give it a try untill then im ok cuz i have like 12 games on my mem stick now w/o this tool i have tombrader which was 600 mb before converting and compressed and now its 22mb and i have many games that are like that lol and i love it toooo lmao

[Lodis]

my prob is i got DIAL-UP!! so i cant dl the hotshots thing because it would take like 2 weeks. although it would be nice if someone could pm me a link to it so i could get someone else to dl it for me.. hehehe :D j/k.. or am i...?


You don't need Hotshots, just use a program called popsconv, it is only 310KBS.
http://forums.maxconsole.net/showthread.php?t=43016&highlight=popsconv

[Mr. Shizzy]

I converted Destruction Derby Raw with this. took off about 400mb; but the game wouldn't load...

[the_eternal_dark]

You don't need Hotshots, just use a program called popsconv, it is only 310KBS.
http://forums.maxconsole.net/showthread.php?t=43016&highlight=popsconv

^ Wasn't that the one that was taken off here not too long ago because it had some of the Hotshots Golf 2 files embedded within it?

I can't check it, I'm still at work, but it does sound awfully familiar.

As for this massive compression, wasn't there also a program similar to this way back when that would allow you to go in and manually remove any files from the image?

[Vega]

You don't need Hotshots, just use a program called popsconv, it is only 310KBS.
http://forums.maxconsole.net/showthread.php?t=43016&highlight=popsconv

its probably illegal . im pretty sure it would contain some of the hot shots eboot

[the_eternal_dark]

its probably illegal . im pretty sure it would contain some of the hot shots eboot

I can check it later. I'm still stuck at work..

[carlitx]

this better get better cause over at pspupdates it got a looong tutorial on how to get it to load and im just too frickin lazy to do it....

[modcase]

The real problem so to speak was that the LBA wasn't specified earlier (http://pspupdates.qj.net/index.php?&pg=49&aid=79103&page=2#commentstart), check that link and if you scroll down to the end of the comments Garrett [the one who made this tutorial] posts the fix for those who are getting the black screen issue.

Note: Verify the LBA information in CDGENPS2 is the same as in the file you are rebuilding! (this is a rather normal requirement, just wasn't mentioned at first.)

[froggie22]

Is there a program that compresses iso psp games? i want to put my games on my mem stick rather than carry around my UMDs all the time coz i will end up losing them knowing me

[Emeriastone]

Yeah, sorry I should have posted earlier.

I tried this when it came out over at QJ.net and I think its just sheer luck that some games work with this and the majority of others don't work.

I tried 3 games both in bin and iso format and none of them worked. I didn't stress out about it.

So I believe we were led on, so don't worry about it.
DAX compression is pretty swell enough for me.

Oh, yeah and my LBA information is correct so it's not that.

[Wrrryyy]

Yeah, this whole thing is pretty bunk. Over at QJ, another guy mentions a method using PSMPlay and PSXLoader saying that he ripped Silent Hill to about 50 mb and the music still worked.. well, that would be the exception, because all that method is doing is stripping the games of their STR and XA audio files. Most PS games that have these use them for the game's music, so, sure, you could strip SotN down to 50 mb, but there will be zero music, which would ****ing suck.

Stick to PSX2PSP compression. Messing around with all of this just isn't worth it.

[Emeriastone]

Yeah, this whole thing is pretty bunk. Over at QJ, another guy mentions a method using PSMPlay and PSXLoader saying that he ripped Silent Hill to about 50 mb and the music still worked.. well, that would be the exception, because all that method is doing is stripping the games of their STR and XA audio files. Most PS games that have these use them for the game's music, so, sure, you could strip SotN down to 50 mb, but there will be zero music, which would ****ing suck.

Stick to PSX2PSP compression. Messing around with all of this just isn't worth it.

Yeah, CSOTN would BLOW without music. It has a tight soundtrack. I agree.

Stick to what works. I would be nice for 50 mb games but unfortunately its just a vivid wet dream atm.

[Vega]

more info has surfaced -
It seems the LBA arrangement will have a big impact on whether or not the game you're tweaking will actually run.

For the sake of clarity, we're going to post two additional comments made by Garrett and Devilgun that should fix most of your problems. If not, then there may be something else getting in the way of getting your games to work properly.

Garrett's comment:


You can do so with ISOBuster by exporting a Tree File, and then using CDGENPS2's advanced menu to import it (this is a new discovery to me too, as none of my LBA's were changed thru drag + drop).





Also, you can fix them manually by comparing the LBA section from whatever ISO utility you are using with the LBA in CDGENPS2. Starting from the top, compare the LBA and change it accordingly by: right-clicking the file, and clicking propeties. Check the FIX LBA box type in the correct LBA value.


Devilgun's comment happens to explain the manual fix by having many exclamation points. We took notice of that, and Garrett did too, as he confirms Devilgun's comment. Here's his step-by-step guide, though you'll need MagicISO for it:

Open the iso/bin with MagicISO
Now you can see the data AND the !!!LBA!!! Information
Copy the Data to a new Folder on Harddisk or just drag and drop it to CDGENPS2
!!!!!NOW!!!!! LOOK AT THE LBA Information in CDGENPS2. IT has to be the SAME for each File as in MagicISO - So order the files, so that the LBA is exactly the same.
Make the IMG
Compress it with pops.
Play it!

[Kloe]

Have you Vega or anyone else tried this new method and confirmed it working? I'd like to try it but it's going to take me awhile to get magicISO so I won't be able to test it anytime soon.

[Vega]

not yet, im kinda busy, was going to start last night but ended up busy. gonna try this out after my dinner (yum yum)

[Kloe]

i'm having trouble making the cd image from cdgenPS2. I drag and drop the files from Magic ISO into cdgenPS2.
Then I changed the LBA in cdgenPS2 to what is displayed in MagicISO.
In cdgenPS2 I then go to "create cd" and save as a bin or iso (tried both) and the image files come out to be around 700kb... so when I try to compress with popstation the files come out to be about 1-2mb, which I know is not right. >< is there a step im missing in here?

[Emeriastone]

more info has surfaced -
It seems the LBA arrangement will have a big impact on whether or not the game you're tweaking will actually run.

For the sake of clarity, we're going to post two additional comments made by Garrett and Devilgun that should fix most of your problems. If not, then there may be something else getting in the way of getting your games to work properly.

Garrett's comment:


You can do so with ISOBuster by exporting a Tree File, and then using CDGENPS2's advanced menu to import it (this is a new discovery to me too, as none of my LBA's were changed thru drag + drop).





Also, you can fix them manually by comparing the LBA section from whatever ISO utility you are using with the LBA in CDGENPS2. Starting from the top, compare the LBA and change it accordingly by: right-clicking the file, and clicking propeties. Check the FIX LBA box type in the correct LBA value.


Devilgun's comment happens to explain the manual fix by having many exclamation points. We took notice of that, and Garrett did too, as he confirms Devilgun's comment. Here's his step-by-step guide, though you'll need MagicISO for it:

Open the iso/bin with MagicISO
Now you can see the data AND the !!!LBA!!! Information
Copy the Data to a new Folder on Harddisk or just drag and drop it to CDGENPS2
!!!!!NOW!!!!! LOOK AT THE LBA Information in CDGENPS2. IT has to be the SAME for each File as in MagicISO - So order the files, so that the LBA is exactly the same.
Make the IMG
Compress it with pops.
Play it!


I had been messing with this from the very beginning and I still have the same problems. Even tweaking last night still solved nothing, my LBA has been correct the entire time. There must be something else to the problem.

[felonyr301]

i have try everything and can't get gran turismo 2 to shrink. Even with this it still the same compressed size. Im hoping it gets fixed or something because I only have a 512 mb stick(468 mb useable.)

[Andy6000]

Yeah this is definitely quite iffy... For Castlevania I got this fun thing where I just couldn't set the LBAs correctly (after I entered the information it would just put a W next to the number it kept [which was always a duplicate of some folder]) and it wouldn't let me save the iso to even test it because there were duplicates.

Then I moved onto Final Fantasy Tactics, which produced the same variety of ultra-problem, though for that one I actually imported the LBAs from IsoBuster (which I didn't do for Castlevania, super glad I'm not employed in data entry, that was boring AND fun at the same time).

Then I finally got the LBAs set correctly for Parasite Eve, which compressed the iso down about 60MB, and the eboot from 330MB to 83MB after compression. And then of course a cool black screen. So you know, I tested whether or not it was just incompatible with popstation's compression by using compression level 0 which gave a 422MB eboot (as compared to the original .iso's 473MB), but alas, still black screen misery.

Oh and in case it matters, I'm on 3.03 OE-A (haven't really felt the need to update to OE-B, though I might just to test if there's a difference)

Interesting prospect, and definitely one to follow up on for our friends lacking a large memory stick, the only functions needed are the whole obvious 'good success rate' thing, and automatic importing of LBA values rather than having to go to the trouble of manually inputting them or dealing with importing them from IsoBuster. Wee!

[tunglashor]

Yeah this is definitely quite iffy... For Castlevania I got this fun thing where I just couldn't set the LBAs correctly (after I entered the information it would just put a W next to the number it kept [which was always a duplicate of some folder]) and it wouldn't let me save the iso to even test it because there were duplicates.

Out of interest, I think the problem here was you hadn't set the LBA for the folders correctly, that's why there were clashes.

Anyway, I know nobody seems to have gotten this working with popstation, but has anyone tried the shrunken ISOs with other PS1 emulators? Interestingly I managed to shrink MK Trilogy down to about 45megs and it worked fine with epsxe, just not with popstation.

[carlitx]

i have no idea wat lba is so im shoot but anyone have any info on an easier version of this? cause it would be very helpfull

[thesekids]

yo after u make shrink the iso, where does it end up?

cuz i cant find my shrinked iso

[jurkevicz]

so, pretty much nobody got this to work? I haven't had any luck also.

[gr42178]

so, pretty much nobody got this to work? I haven't had any luck also.

I think this one is bogus. I dont think anyone got this to work. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[carlitx]

ya this is crap if i do say so my self maby the makers should update and make it more user friendly

[Lawfer14]

Because i downloaded a Diablo Eboot.pbp File of diablo Does it work?

[Soper]

I personally found this to work well, not as well as a 450mb drop in size, but I've trimmed ~200mb of each game.

[EvilDooinz]

use PSXur-v2 (http://www.psp-hacks.com/file/1031) works great got Tekken 3 down 33 mb no music or movies but who cares...

[jurkevicz]

well, personaly I like having music.

[gibsonist]

I think that anyone who claims to have gotten this to have worked is lying. First of all, none of the people who supposedly have gotten this to work have posted actual step-by-step directions detailing the specific game or process they used to make this work. Second of all, I have tried this countless times using the directions specified, and received multiple "reduced" yet non-playable eboots. This method is either bogus, or someone needs to step up and produce some clear-cut non-refutable directions and/or evidence that this method actually works.