Trimming the 'Fat' PSX Games(for converting into PSP)

I have been working and toying around with PSX/PS1 ISO's for a good while lately. In the pursuit of reducing their size. I choice to go the method of removing videos. Now I don't mean that I'm just taking the movies out, I'm replacing them with blank video files.

I've met with a good bit of success. Thus far I have successfuly replaced the videos, rebuilt the disc images and converted them into PBP files for my PSP in these games:

Tactics Ogre[NTSC-U]
Front Mission3[NTSC-U]

It is my belief that most Squaresoft games will work properly with these blank videos. Though I doubt that FF7 will, the intro train scene seems to blend the video and the begining of actual gameplay. Who knows for sure at this point.

I have run into one troublesome game and It is giving me hell. Vandal Hearts 1 boots and lets me start a new game, but it does freezes after it 'skips' a video.
Furthmore I've used a save from the full game to bypass the freeze, and so far everything seems to be working good.

Basicly the process goes like this:
Using IsoBuster or MagicISO(I use this one personaly) you can rip the ISO of your disc, then I'd extract it to some folder somewere.
Then you'd go ahead and replace the str files(exactly same filename.ext) with a blank str file(I'll include a download[Also I did not make these and do not claim to have made them, and the source I got them from has been lost to me.])
Then the fun part, you have to recompile the image. There are a few methods,

CDTools seems to work fairly well in most cases, also PSXISOMaker has worked somewhat. Though both are decent, I need to find a better program for building the images and setting their LBA.(Let me know if anyone knows of any ;) )
Then once its all put together I suggest testing it with a PSX emulator(epsxe for example) and if it works, then go ahead and run it through popstation on toss it onto your PSP.

Sorry if this 'guide' is a mess, I'm a bit tired from messing with these files all day long.


All games used in testing and manipulation are disc images of Legitimate games I have and personaly hold the original Discs of.
Also do not ask me for PSX ISO's, PSP ISO's, or any kind of game image, in ANY form. That is quite Illegal and I don't need that kind of crap. :D

Thanks for the file.
I've tried this before but have failed. looool

Guess I'll try again :P

Oh God What Is This??? No Iso Talk!

Ripped games work fine on the PSX emu.
But as C0R3F1GHT3R quite rightly said NO ISO talk.

Popstation compresses them down to aprox. 30-50% (Sometimes more) of their original size when you use level 9 compression. So there's no need to remove anything from the original game. Even 750mb Hogs can be turned into 300mb files and run with no slowdown or hanging.

Is the idea here to replace the videos with 0 byte files, or to actually find a way to replace the old videos with a valid video file in the proper codec? (If so, what codec(s) do these games use, anyway?)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SketchPCIS

Popstation compresses them down to aprox. 30-50% (Sometimes more) of their original size when you use level 9 compression. So there's no need to remove anything from the original game. Even 750mb Hogs can be turned into 300mb files and run with no slowdown or hanging.

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yeah some games will compress right down, but others wont, take final fantasy8 for example, its 699Mb and shrinks to 557Mb, but if we can remove these unwanted FMV's then think of how much space we could save.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PSPKOR

Ripped games work fine on the PSX emu.
But as C0R3F1GHT3R quite rightly said NO ISO talk.

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I take it that if we are talking about Popstation it's fine. We can have no PSP/DC ISO talk.

Good find, I'll be trying this out later on tonight and see how good it works.

I've never liked the idea of removing FMV's from the game, as they could (and usually do) contain plot elements, and are, quite frankly, part of the game! Ah well, i must be alone in this thinking :P

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SketchPCIS

I've never liked the idea of removing FMV's from the game, as they could (and usually do) contain plot elements, and are, quite frankly, part of the game! Ah well, i must be alone in this thinking :P

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What about the ending credits or "demos" found in some games that have nothing to do with the story.

Games like Resident Evil 1,2, and 3 can lose a lot of "fat" just by cutting out those stupid "puzzle solved" FMVs (like in 2, where the statue slides forward, dropping a key).