Convert GDI to ISO

I'd argue that GDIShrink is less likely to introduce compatibility issues than RebuildGDI, but I wouldn't redo all of your library anyways. You should be totally fine for 99% of games with RebuildGDI, just replace those that have problems for GDIShrinked ones.

The main advantage of GDIShrink over RebuildGDI, for the 99% of games that work with both, is that GDIShrink doesn't need to extract the files from the dump, it can copy to the sdcard and shrink on the fly. This should save time. It also keeps the filesystem basically untouched compared with the original, which isn't necessary but is cleaner IMO and helps compatibility.

 

@-=FamilyGuy=-

Previously, I’ve found only one issue with my GDEMU, which occurs at a specific point in RE: Code Veronica. Whenever I hit this point, the sound cuts out (using an untouched TOSEC USA GDI), and this persists until I reboot the game from GDMenu (even a soft reboot back to title screen doesn’t help).

I’ve tried multiple SD cards (all which pass a Crazy Taxi stress test and work perfectly fine for other games), 32k vs 64k clusters, moving the files to another location on the SD (in case of a bad sector or non-aligned byte boundary or some other weirdness), nothing seemed to work. I did manage to get the correct audio once during testing, but couldn’t replicate after that.

So here’s the strange thing: After running the game through GDIShrink, it now works flawlessly, every time! Can you think of any possible explanation for this? I’ve been hesitant to file a GDEMU bug report for this while trying to narrow it down, but now I’m even more baffled.

 

Try a non-GDIShrinked image, but convert the data tracks to 2048bytes/sector and see if it fixes it. You'll have to edit the .gdi file to specify the new track names and change their mode from 2352 to 2048.

Logically I see no obvious reason why GDIShrink would fix such issue, unless there's an issue with the EDC/ECC.

 

@-=FamilyGuy=-
Sorry for resurrecting a 6 months old thread, but you asked for feedback on GDIShrink in this thread and I didn't know where else to put it.

Like another poster in the Unofficial GDEMU thread, I'm having issues with 3 track GDIs. They work in an emulator, but the GDEMU does not recognize them as games and they can't be loaded. Also Armada will boot up, show the intro FMV, load to about 10% and then just freeze the console.

Normal GDIs works as expected.

 

To be fair. 3 track gdis are normal, and so are 5.

What's the file name of the GDI?

"disc.gdi" or "Full Game Name (USA).GDI"

 

The "normal GDIs" line was referring to non-shrinked ones. Of course the names for them are "disc.gdi" when used in the GDEMU.

 

I mean originally when you got the GDI.

 

Ah, in that case they are "Full Name (Region).gdi". Hash checked against TOSEC DAT pack.

And as I said. They work fine when not shrunk.

 

Thanks for the report!

What @Mrneo240 is trying to says is that it'd really help to have the title of the games.

IIRC the other guy that had issues was shrinking the games before transferring them to sd-card card with @madsheep's program. I'd suggest transferring the untouched GDI to the sd-card card using @madsheep's program and then shrinking them afterwards. In order to erase the backup files after the shrinking (e.g. on the sd-card card) use the kwarg erase_bak=True.

Be mindful that there should only be a single GDI file in each subfolder (e.g. "/sd-card/01"). GDEmu can actually read long named GDI files and could select the original one over the shrinked *disc.gdi*. That could explain why only 3-tracks GDI are affected, as their structure changes to 4-tracks.


Good luck and please report back!


PS: It's not frowned upon to bump threads on here, even to necro-bump then, as long as your post is on-topic. This avoids needlessly duplicating threads.

 

When shrinking a game I put it in "C:\Python27\game\'Full Name (Region)'" some GDIs were called "Full Name (Region).gdi" and some were renamed to "disc.gdi" before shrinking. The shrunken files were extracted to "C:\Python27\shrink", so no .bak were created, and then moved to the SD card both with GDEMU_SD and manually.

Of the 8 games tested only 3 are recognized by GDEMU.

Armada (USA), 5 track. Loads, shows intro, locks on load screen.
Bangai-O (Europe), 37 track. Loads, but connected with VGA at the moment so won't get into the game.
Cannon Spike (United Kingdom), 3/4 track. Not recognized.
Capcom vs. SNK (USA), 3/4 track. Not recognized.
Capcom vs. SNK 2 - Millionaire Fighting 2001 (Japan), 3/4 track. Not recognized.
ChuChu Rocket! (Europe), 19 track, Loads and works fine.
Crazy Taxi (United Kingdom), 3/4 track. Not recognized.
Crazy Taxi 2 (Europe), 3/4 track. Not recognized.

The structure for all of them are disc.gdi followed by the tracks. No extra files unless I use GDEMU_SD to change the name.
I will try transferring the games with GDEMU_SD before shrinking, not that I understand what difference it will make. As far as I know all it does is change the .gdi name to disc.gdi and sort the numbered folders?

 

So I tried shrinking the files after putting them on the SD card with GDEMU_SD. The result was exactly the same.
If it makes a difference, the 3 track games, if not given a name in GDEMU_SD, show up as "UNSUPPORTED DISC / EMPTY FOLDER".

 

ill test tonight with

• Armada v1.000 (1999)(Metro3D)(NTSC)(US)[!]
  
• Cannon Spike v1.001 (2000)(Capcom)(NTSC)(US)[!]
  
• Crazy Taxi v1.004 (1999)(Sega)(NTSC)(US)[!][10S 51035]
  
• Crazy Taxi 2 v1.004 (2001)(Sega)(NTSC)(US)[!]

All From TOSEC-ISO

 

I've gotten all the 3 track games to work by adding "image_tests = 0" in the GDEMU.ini file on the SD card. However Armada still freezes during loading after the intro.

 

What's that image test thing about?

 

From https://gdemu.wordpress.com/

• image_tests = B

Where B is 0 (disabled) or 1 (enabled). If disabled, image integrity tests will be relaxed to allow oversized media. Note that correct operation is not guaranteed with such images. Default is enabled.

5.6.0

• Option to disable strict image integrity tests via INI file to allow oversized media for undub / translation projects

 

Yeah, that might consider shrunk images as invalid, because they are in a way; a lot of data is missing.

I'm interested in @Mrneo240 report on Armada though, I'll see if I can find a fix/workaround for it.

My plan is implementing a few workaround for games that don't work with the straightforward implementation so everything shrunk works on GDEmu, at the worst just do bin2iso on data tracks.

 

Big Test time:
armada: regular, gdishrink, and gdirebuild

• Regular: 100% fine
• Gdirebuild: froze at first loading
• Gdishrink: froze at first loading

cannon spike: rebuild, shrink

• Gdirebuild: 100% fine
• Shrink: 100% fine

 

It's interesting that Armada doesn't work with both GDIShrink and RebuildGDI, maybe it does some kind of checks for hidden data or structural integrity.

I'd bet my shirt that both CT will work in all cases, at least shrunk.

Thanks for this!

 

Highly agreed. I was bashing on it thoroughly on another project and it never seemed to mind. Crazy taxi is pretty resilient.

 

It seems like autocorrect did a number on that post. Or I'm getting old and don't understand street talk anymore.

You mind rephrasing?