Smaller game files?

maggiemerc · Post by **maggiemerc** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 8:17 am

Sorry if that topic is very descriptive. I fail.

Anyways. So I had this copy of The Dig and got it into my head that I could figure out a way to play it on my PSP. So I went to work looking for a Mac emulator and stumbled over ScummVM and fell in love. (Now I'm trying to track down a copy of both Broken Sword games as they sound excellent.)

After many hours of The Dig not working I patched my eboot loader

and simply melted at the pretty site of The Dig loading and working perfectly and looking even better then it does on my laptop.

There is one small problem (more of an inconvience): I'm using the copy of The Dig cd (for the Mac) that I bought eons ago. I pulled the data file and it is over 600mb. Not bad when my computer has over 200gb, but downright enormous on my PSP's 1GB memory disk.

So my question (I'm very long-winded): is there a way to compress this data file? I've noticed there are compressed versions of Flight of the Amazon Queen and I'm curious to see if I can do something similar with The Dig (or if you know of a compressed version available).

I'd be doing all that sort of thing on Mac OS 10.4.4.

joostp · Post by **joostp** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 1:57 pm

Yes, it's possible to compress the speech, music and cutscenes in The Dig, but this is complicated a bit by the fact that you're using the Mac version of the game.
You'll need to use the 'extract_scumm_mac' utility to extract the game datafiles from the container format used on Mac.
This tool should be included in the ScummVM tools package.

Once you've extracted the data, you can use the 'compress_scumm_san' and 'compress_scumm_bun' tools (from the ScummVM tools package as well) to compress the BUN and SAN files.
There should be some minimal documentation for these utilities, else you can try searching the forums for more info.
Note that they are command-line utils, so make sure you run them from Terminal.app or similar.

maggiemerc · Post by **maggiemerc** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 6:32 pm

Neat.

Thanks for the quick response!

Now to make my first attempt.

Stephen · Post by **Stephen** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 9:05 pm

I've ordered the broken sword 1+2 DVD version (i.e. the one that comes with scummvm 7.something) from sold-out.co.uk... can't wait.

I had those games on my PC long ago but the discs have long since been lost :/

edit: the BS1+2 dvd costs £4.99 from sold out, +£2 for shipping to Ireland. Probably costs more to ship outside europe I guess.

maggiemerc · Post by **maggiemerc** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 8:11 am

Oh dear.

So I ordered the same DVD you did... (at least I thought I did). When I open it up it is a straight PC affair. Instead of games or discs I have broken sword 1... a series of three .exe files (looks like installers). Does this mean I have to track down a PC to extract the game?

clem · Post by **clem** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 8:39 am

Does this mean I have to track down a PC to extract the game?

maybe you could use wine under linux to run the installer and extract the files? (you'd still need a PC though)

Vinterstum · Post by **Vinterstum** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 11:13 am

Try Darwine, which is an OS X port of Wine. Seems to work just as well, if a little slower (as it doesn't run the executables natively like Wine does).

I have an original copy of BS1, and I could just copy the files straight from it. My BS2 is from Sold-Out games though, presumably the same version you're using, and i did have to install it first (annoying). Guessing the BS1 from Sold-Out uses the same system. At the time I was dual booting Xp and Linux though, so I can't guarantee that Darwine works. It's worth a shot though.

As to the tools: If you have the Developer Tools installed, compiling them and using them on OS X is no problem at all.

Bobbin · Post by **Bobbin** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 1:23 pm

I always wondered about performance impact that comes from compressing the files. So far I only had MI1 compressed with no trouble so it seems to me that compression is not an issue for the earlier games (MP3 decoding shouldn't take away that much power from the PSP). So, when does it become an issue? With The Dig already or only with the more demaning games like Broken Sword or COMI?

clem · Post by **clem** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 11:20 pm

I doubt current computers have any problems with 2D-gfx output while playing compressed audio in the background

I usually have 5+ programs running under windows while listening to music and I never get slowdowns.

Stephen · Post by **Stephen** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 11:48 am

MaggieMerc: The Sold-Out BS1+2 double dvd pack does have all of the game resources packaged inside an installer. If you can get access to a PC for a few minutes you could install the games on it and then grab the files from whatever directory you installed to. Then use the scummvm_tools to compress the game resources to fit on your memory stick. BS1 is about 1.1gb uncompressed. Using the scummvm tools, its down to 350MB

Bobbin · Post by **Bobbin** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 11:15 am

clem wrote:I doubt current computers have any problems with 2D-gfx output while playing compressed audio in the background

I usually have 5+ programs running under windows while listening to music and I never get slowdowns.

Well, my question was more related to the PSP version - I really don't think that any PC exceeding 500 MHz should have any problems with compressed files