Optimizing my Disk Space

[uberpubert69]

I want to know how to utilize my space as much as possible. I have a 1.5TB external hard drive that I have all my games, emulators, and assets. The problems I have are with my CD based systems. The ISOs take up so much space! My systems that are CD based are:

3DO, NEC PC engine CD & Turbo Duo, Sega CD, Dreamcast, Saturn, PS1, PS2.

All of my other systems have all their ROMs zipped. The only reason why I haven't zipped my ISOs and used the gameex zip support setting is because of how long it would take to extract the ISOs. I don't find looking at a black screen for a minute or more particularly appealing, so unless theres something I don't know I'm screwed because i only have 10GB of space left...

How do you guys maximize the space you have?

[nullPointer]

For me the short answer is ... especially where it comes to disc based games (and CHDs) I pick and choose what will be included on my system. Depending on the play habits of you, your friends, and family you are probably looking at a handful of the best and most popular games for any given system. Sprinkle in a few unappreciated gems, sentimental favorites, and of course an assorted obbball here and there. Duplicate and or clone games released on multiple platforms? Pick your favorite release and or platform and jettison the rest. I have seen my system improve drastically using these techniques in terms of accessibility and playability.

The thing is, us video game nerds tend to squee with delight at the thought of an endless library of games and other assorted video game arcana. The average person you have over to your house (or kids) ... not so much. Those guys just want to play a game. They don't care about the unusual history of E.T. on the 2600, or that you've created a favorites list consisting of all Hideo Kojima games (including English translations!). They just want to play a game. If you present them with the best of the best they practically cannot pick a bad game to play. If you present them with 90% filler ... well they might lose interest pretty quickly.

It's tough though ... because as gamers and hobbyists, we can find something to love in just about any game. But thinning the collection down to a "solid gold hits" collection will not only save you tons of space in the long run, your system will outwardly benefit from it as well.

Purely my 2p.

[fRequEnCy]

For systems with bigger sized roms, I tend to 7-zip them instead and save on space that way. Works great since GameEx supports 7-zip.

[uberpubert69]

For me the short answer is ... especially where it comes to disc based games (and CHDs) I pick and choose what will be included on my system. Depending on the play habits of you, your friends, and family you are probably looking at a handful of the best and most popular games for any given system. Sprinkle in a few unappreciated gems, sentimental favorites, and of course an assorted obbball here and there. Duplicate and or clone games released on multiple platforms? Pick your favorite release and or platform and jettison the rest. I have seen my system improve drastically using these techniques in terms of accessibility and playability.

The thing is, us video game nerds tend to squee with delight at the thought of an endless library of games and other assorted video game arcana. The average person you have over to your house (or kids) ... not so much. Those guys just want to play a game. They don't care about the unusual history of E.T. on the 2600, or that you've created a favorites list consisting of all Hideo Kojima games (including English translations!). They just want to play a game. If you present them with the best of the best they practically cannot pick a bad game to play. If you present them with 90% filler ... well they might lose interest pretty quickly.

It's tough though ... because as gamers and hobbyists, we can find something to love in just about any game. But thinning the collection down to a "solid gold hits" collection will not only save you tons of space in the long run, your system will outwardly benefit from it as well.

Purely my 2p.

You're exactly right. Thing is, its so hard to just choose which games to keep and which to toss. I have no duplicates, (other than the same game on a different system) no prototypes, nada. And the thing is, its hard to know which version of a game to keep. For example Zombies Ate my Neighbors is ass on the Genesis but amazing on the Super NES. But I'm only really concerned with my ISOs and I don't have any dupes on those systems. All of my ROMs for all of my systems take up the same space as 2 PS2 ISOs (with the exception of my GBA,DS, and MAME ROMs). and I'm not even gonna mess with my MAME ROMs lol

[uberpubert69]

For systems with bigger sized roms, I tend to 7-zip them instead and save on space that way. Works great since GameEx supports 7-zip.

I never really understood the difference between RARs and ZIPs and 7-Zips. Is 7-Zip supposed to be a better compression method?

[Adultery]

I use 7-zip for all my cd images and love it. Compression size is close if not right on with rar and it's free.

[uberpubert69]

I use 7-zip for all my cd images and love it. Compression size is close if not right on with rar and it's free.

Yeah, you love it. But how long do you have to wait when playing your ISOs for them to decompress? Like I said I'm not really comfortable doing that. For things like PSP ISOs I can compress them into CSOs and they save me so much room! lol No decompressing required.

[Adultery]

I'm up and running in less than 2 minutes generally, and that's uncompressing and off the server... None of my games are in the cabinet. I don't mind the wait, and 2 minutes is a very generous estimate.

[uberpubert69]

I'm up and running in less than 2 minutes generally, and that's uncompressing and off the server... None of my games are in the cabinet. I don't mind the wait, and 2 minutes is a very generous estimate.

I just can't deal with that. Looks like I'm just going to have to keep my ISOs as they are and deal with not having any more space. I can deal with maybe 10 seconds tops. Do you think I could 7zip my Sega CD, and Turbo Grafx CD games and not have to deal with a long wait? They are way smaller in size than ps1/2 games.

[Adultery]

You really think <2 min for a full 750 MB ISO off a server is a long wait?

[uberpubert69]

You really think <2 min for a full 750 MB ISO off a server is a long wait?

idk about servers because I don't have one. But I just can have that. My friends come over frequently and when we pick a game, we (they) aren't gonna sit around staring at a black screen for 2 minutes until the game finally loads. I wish I could mind meld with you so you could understand how my friends are lol.

[Draco1962]

Give them crayons and color pages to hold their attention while they wait?

[uberpubert69]

Give them crayons and color pages to hold their attention while they wait?

Hardly helpful man come on lol help out a fellow Floridian.

[nullPointer]

I honestly think those are the sum total of your options. Reduce size by reducing the number of files, or reduce size by means of compression at which point you'll have a slight delay while loading. There are ways to mask the delay to some extent. For one thing you can display your control mapping while the image is uncompressed. Just use the Controls path option to link up an appropriate image of your controller mapping. You can also display a message while the disc is being uncompressed. Use the Help Text feature to leverage this as well. In this case I might suggest that the text reads, "You're going to have to sit and spin while this disc is uncompressed. If you don't like it, please use this time to go home and make your own emulation system. Thank you for your patience."

[uberpubert69]

I honestly think those are the sum total of your options. Reduce size by reducing the number of files, or reduce size by means of compression at which point you'll have a slight delay while loading. There are ways to mask the delay to some extent. For one thing you can display your control mapping while the image is uncompressed. Just use the Controls path option to link up an appropriate image of your controller mapping. You can also display a message while the disc is being uncompressed. Use the Help Text feature to leverage this as well. In this case I might suggest that the text reads, "You're going to have to sit and spin while this disc is uncompressed. If you don't like it, please use this time to go home and make your own emulation system. Thank you for your patience."

That would probably reach them haha. But I'm not entirely against the idea, like I asked before, systems like sega CD TG-CD 3DO and such are way smaller than a PS2 ISO. You think it would take considerably less time to decompress those ISOs?

[Adultery]

I mean it's simple math. If it takes me 1.30 for a full iso on your local machine with a cd rom that's at max capacity (although if I tested it if be willing to bet it's far less than that even using an x64 chipset, my cab is only an x86 with 4GB of RAM) youre taking considerably less for a smaller image.

Mind you not all iso's are maxed, and I have a modest machine so yours may be higher end than mine. If you want my advice, compress a few images and run a benchmark test on the decompression time.

And although I have an image for my controls, the foreground is a 'Please Wait' dialog box with the faux progress bar that GameEx uses when, say, loading databases on startup.

[uberpubert69]

I mean it's simple math. If it takes me 1.30 for a full iso on your local machine with a cd rom that's at max capacity (although if I tested it if be willing to bet it's far less than that even using an x64 chipset, my cab is only an x86 with 4GB of RAM) youre taking considerably less for a smaller image. Mind you not all iso's are maxed, and I have a modest machine so yours may be higher end than mine. If you want my advice, compress a few images and run a benchmark test on the decompression time. And although I have an image for my controls, the foreground is a 'Please Wait' dialog box with the faux progress bar that GameEx uses when, say, loading databases on startup.

I'm running a 4.2GHz x64 CPU with 8GB of DDR3. So mine is probably a tad better. Not sure about your graphics card though. But anyways, another question I forgot to ask, how would I set up the 7zip format for ISOs? set the filetype as .7zip? Do I add both the ISO/BIN/IMG and CUE/mdf in the 7zip? How will GameEx know to launch the cue or whatever if its compressed with more than 1 file?

[Adultery]

You use the filter based on the image inside.

Once you decompresses the archive you get a list of files that match that filter. So if I have multiple discs inside one archive, I can see all three.

[uberpubert69]

You use the filter based on the image inside. Once you decompresses the archive you get a list of files that match that filter. So if I have multiple discs inside one archive, I can see all three.

So, just to clarify. On the Filter I put .cue or whatever. Then on the advanced settings I enable the zip/7zip/GoodMerge/RAR setting and I'm good to go?

[Adultery]

Yup.

[uberpubert69]

Yup.

You also brought up a good point with the multiple ISOs. Can I enable Merge Sets to do Individual ISOs in each 7zip? Packing multiple ISOs within one 7zip would make the decompression take longer, no?

[Adultery]

You can as long as they are in the database and named correctly I think, but I don't know for sure... I just zip them all into one archive. But I don't mind waiting and it looks cleanest that way imho.

[Tempest]

One other solution that hasn't been mentioned. Buy a bigger hard drive.

Also, props to NullPointer for keeping the short version of his story so brief.

[Adultery]

Pfft, another hard drive...

Ain't nobody got time fo dat!

[uberpubert69]

One other solution that hasn't been mentioned. Buy a bigger hard drive.

Also, props to NullPointer for keeping the short version of his story so brief.

Well the title of the thread says Optimizing my Disk Space, not Buying More Disk Space. In any case, 7Zip seems to save me about half of what my ISOs are currently taking up. and it took only ~40 seconds to decompress a Sega Saturn ISO. Promising. Is there a way I can do some sort of multi/hyper threading to make the decompression rate faster?

EDIT: I am using ultra compression.