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:

---

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.

---

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:

---

Originally Posted by PSPKOR

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

---

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:

---

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

---

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).

Instead of making another thread on the same topic I figured I would post this here.

Ok so I was messing around trying to reduce the size of my games to fit on a 512 mb memory stick by ripping movies out, and I think I have come up with a working method. I will warn you, however, that it can be a tedious process.

What you will need:
1. IsoBuster or UltraIso for ripping individual files
2. CDgen for recreating a working image (in the attachment)
3. ccs2cti.exe for converting the file generated by cdgen into a usable cti file (in the attachment)
4. buildcd.exe for making a image that you must convert to an iso (in the attachment)
5. Revenge of Stripiso for converting the image generated by buildcd.exe into an iso. (in the attachment)
6. Cdrwin for properly extracting the music
7. A blank str file in 2336 mode (important! any movies or music file on a psx game must be in 2336 bytes per block or your iso may freeze when encountering the movie or music ingame) (in the attachment)
8. A license file, it should come in cdtools.zip (in the attachment)

First extract all of the psx cd's contents to a folder on you computer using IsoBuster or UltraIso except for the movie files (.str) and audio files (have xa somewhere in the filename). Make sure to preserve the directory structure.

Note: Because I don't know where you can get a blank audio file for psx games you must do this next part, and it is the most tedious part.

Taken from The PlayStation hacking doc Version 2

Quote:

---

PROPER XA FILE EXTRACTION:

Okay, this is going to be annoying to explain. PSX2HD used to do this for you,
but since that doesn't work anymore, there's only one other way that I know of
that will do it right-- RAW sector extraction using CDRWIN. This is a
painstaking process that is done manually and takes a lot more time to do.

So, you're going to need the sector range to extract this stuff. How do you get
it? This is where IsoBuster is going to come in handy. With your CD open in
IsoBuster, check out the files. There's a column that says LBA. That is the
first sector for the file. To learn what the final sector is, look for the file
with the next highest starting sector. Subtract one from that number and you get
the final sector to the file you want to extract. Example:

NAME | LBA
----------|------
FILE1.XA | 3423
FILE2.XA | 35709
FILE3.DAT | 63935

FILE1.XA's first sector is 3423. FILE2.XA's first sector 35709. Subtract 1, and
FILE1.XA's final sector is 35708. Likewise, since FILE3.DAT begins at 63935,
FILE2.XA's final sector will be 63934.

So, write the file name and its sector range down. Repeat that until you cover
all XA files on the disc.

Directories on the discs tend to be orderly, so you if you sort the file view
in IsoBuster by LBA, the next file should be the true up of the one you noted.

If an XA file happens to be the last one in a directory, look around on the disc
for a file (or folder! Don't forget to check the folder LBAs too) that succeeds
it. If the XA file turns out to be the last file on the disc, go over to the
tree on the left, right click the Track, and select properties. Size (Blocks)
will give you the final sector of the disc. Use that exact number as the final
sector number.

With the filenames and sector ranges recorded, it's time to extract with CDRWIN.
Once in CDRWIN, go to the extract menu (the upper middle button). Do this:

1) Set Extract Mode to "Select Sectors".
2) In the Sector Selection part, set the Datatype to "Data Mode2 Mixed(2336)"
3) Under the Start Box, input the first sector for the file, and the final
sector in the end box.
4) Put the name of the file in the "Image Filename" box.

Press the START button at the bottom of the menu. It'll start extracting the
sectors into a file. You can check the file with PSMPlay
(located at http://www.zophar.net/utilities/psxutil.html). If it plays in that,
then the file is definitely good.

Repeat as necessary for all the XA files. Note: These files should be around 15%
larger than they appear on the disc. THIS IS NORMAL, so don't worry about it.

---

Now take the blank str file (remember it's the 2336 one) and rename it to the exact name of the str file you are replacing it with. Do this for all str files.

Now launch CDgen and click on the directory button.
Add the files extracted from your game by pressing the insert key on your keyboard and navigating to the folder containg the files from the psx game.

This next part is crucial, once all of the files have been inserted, highlight all of the str and audio files and click on the File Type button on the bottom and change it to Subheader files (XA audio, STR with Audio).

This next part I am not sure is necessary but I do it anyways. Click on the Volume Button and click on additional information and in the field for System Area file type the name of the license file (if it cannot be found put the file in the folder containing your psx game files).

As for the rest of the information enter what you like or leave it blank as it is not important.

Now save this as a .ccs file, you can now exit cdgen.

In a command prompt navigate to the folder containing buildcd.exe, ccs2cti.exe, stripiso.exe, and the .ccs file you just saved. Now type ccs2cti "Name of your file here".ccs "Name of new file".cti.

Once that is finished type buildcd -i"anynamehere" "name of your file".cti It should then run and build the image. If it gives you some warning about the structure of the image don't worry that is normal.

Once it is finished hit escape and type stripiso s 2352 "name of the file buildcd generated here" "name of your new iso".iso here. (i don't know if the s is necessary, but I do it just in case).

Finally convert this iso using popstation and if all went well it should work. If not go back and check your steps or test in ePSXe to see if it works there. I made a working ripped Lunar iso using this method where it wouldn't even boot with any other method.
I hope this helps someone who is willing to spend this much time to rip their games. I know it is long and tedious, but no other method has really worked for me. If it doesn't work for you I apologize in advance for wasting your time.

If any of the files contained in the following attachment are illegal please feel free to remove them, although I don't think they are.

Cool thanks for the heads up. Maybe someone will eventually make a program to auto rip them....