PSP compressed ISOs (cisos)

[topper]

I've ripped a few of my games to .iso for convenience, and compressed them with ciso (on Linux). However, when transferred to the PSP, some of them don't appear in the list of games (e.g. Exit). Transferring the .iso works as I would expect.

Is it simply the case that .cso breaks for some games, or is there anything I can look at or tweak?

[gordon]

Can't think of anything off-hand; maybe you could try using one of the other iso-->cso programs, such as Yacc or PSP ISO Compressor. I've used the latter and have never had any trouble with cso files. Don't know if they work with Linux, though.

You *are* putting them in the ISO folder on the PSP, aren't you? (Sorry, had to ask.)

[Phar]

What program you using to compress it to a ciso in linux? I usually use cisoplus, using the following command in a terminal ./cisoplus -com -l9 game.iso game.cso

Obviously substituting the "game.iso" for whatever it's called and changing the number after the -l command to whatever compression level you want. I've got Exit and that definately works in ciso format.

[NekoFever]

I can't help you as far as doing it within Linux goes, but I can tell you that all games will work compressed assuming it's all done correctly, and I've had a CSO of Exit on my Memory Stick without a problem. Some games run badly when compressed, but that's another issue.

I don't think this is the issue because IIRC this protection won't stop the game showing up in the XMB, but some games, and Exit is one of them, have what's called LBA protection, which will throw a fit if the layout of the files on the disc/ISO have changed, causing problems if you're using a program that slims it down by removing the firmware update files and stuff. There are ways around it while still allowing you to compress things, but I only know how it's done with UMDGen in Windows.

[VR46]

Not that I'm interested in doing it, purely out of curiosity as I didn't even know it could be done, how much of a flie size saving does compressing a ISO make? is it really worth it with memory cards being so cheap nowadays?

[Phar]

Depends on the game, but some you can reduce the size by 300mb or over.

[topper]

What program you using to compress it to a ciso in linux? I usually use cisoplus, using the following command in a terminal ./cisoplus -com -l9 game.iso game.cso

We have a winner! I was using the original ciso. Tried it with cisoplus, worked first time. Thanks a lot.

[NekoFever]

Not that I'm interested in doing it, purely out of curiosity as I didn't even know it could be done, how much of a flie size saving does compressing a ISO make? is it really worth it with memory cards being so cheap nowadays?

Yeah, it depends entirely on the game. Ones with a lot of video and audio don't tend to compress by much, whereas ones with a lot of 3D data, padding files, and other stuff that compresses well will drop by a lot.

Generally if you use UMDGen's optimise feature to strip out the junk files and firmware updates and then compress it you can count on saving at least 50MB, and I've had some drop to half the size. If I remember correctly one of the GTA games goes from ~1.6GB to about 500MB, although I wouldn't necessarily do it with those because they lag a bit when compressed.

If you have a big enough Memory Stick (8GB+, or maybe 4GB if you just want a couple of games) you can get away with stripping out all the useless files and then leaving it as an uncompressed ISO. You won't waste space on junk files but you'll be certain of not getting any performance impact.

And of course if you only want one game on there and have plenty of space you can just leave it as is.

[Phar]

We have a winner! I was using the original ciso. Tried it with cisoplus, worked first time. Thanks a lot.

No worries mate, glad you got it sorted.

If I remember correctly one of the GTA games goes from ~1.6GB to about 500MB, although I wouldn't necessarily do it with those because they lag a bit when compressed.

The GTA's are definately one of the games as you say that don't benefit from reducing the size, Katamari's another, I can reduce that a fair bit but then it doesn't play any music, Outrun's another not worth compressing thanks to lag.

[NekoFever]

God of War as well. It runs atrociously if you even think about compressing it.

It's pretty much anything that requires constant streaming of data from the disc, whether that's music or level data. Having to uncompress the data just adds another step that means the game isn't getting it as quickly as it wants it.