Talk:Ripping Games

Extend Guide To Compress GCMs/ISOs?
Should the guide be extended (as an optional step) to compress GCMs/ISOs using GCMUtility? --Wildgoosespeeder (talk) 07:50, 28 April 2015 (CEST)
 * I recall the shrinking performed by that tool caused problems for a sub-set of titles, though I can't remember the details. Kolano (talk) 08:53, 28 April 2015 (CEST)
 * Noted as the first test I performed with GCMUtility caused Pokémon Colosseum Bonus Disc to hang when loading the Jirachi mode. Not sure if it is the fault of GCMUtility or Dolphin. Have to test it on my real Wii using DIOS-MIOS to be sure it is GCMUtility or Dolphin. --Wildgoosespeeder (talk) 00:37, 29 April 2015 (CEST)
 * I disagree using 3rd party tools, this can flood Dolphin forums with users that got random issues because they screwed their ISOs with 3rd party tools. However, if you guys really want to add an optional section for ISO compressing, I think it should use Dolphin built-in GCZ compressor only instead of GCMUtility or other 3rd party tool -- GCZ is reliable (never caused issues to any title as far as I know) and also works with Wii ISOs... - Jhonn (talk)
 * I just tested the Pokémon Colosseum Bonus Disc image compressed with GCMUtility through DIOS-MIOS on Wii. GCMUtility is faulty. Dolphin is emulating correctly. The Wii in GameCube mode froze the same way as Dolphin did. I see three methods to rip game discs to images so I don't see why we can't have more than just the Dolphin compress option available, if there will exist a guide to compress disc images. I guess it would need to have a warning if someone were to use the GCMUtility method that some GCMUtility-compressed disc images have issues vs. their uncompressed counterparts. So should a guide exist how to compress disc images, and if so, should Dolphin only method be mentioned? --Wildgoosespeeder (talk) 07:34, 29 April 2015 (CEST)
 * I don't really think it's appropriate to guide users to compression tools. Most compression techniques work by stripping data from ISOs. It usually will be ok, but often it isn't, and since the dumping process itself is already messy and error-prone, I don't really think it's appropriate to guide users to something that can compound those problems. The only way for us to know if something is dolphin or their dump is to eliminate the dump as a possible error, and that means their dump needs to be a valid uncompressed ISO. Even with disclaimers, just telling users how to do is is encouragement, and I think that's a bad idea. - MaJoR (talk) 08:13, 29 April 2015 (CEST)

Dump Real GameCube Memory Card Saves Guide?
I couldn't find a guide how to dump the saves from a real GameCube memory card. Would it be a good idea to create one? I just used GCMM and it can do a raw dump and save it in a file format that can be read by Dolphin! It can do individual GCI save extraction/restoration, batch GCI save extractions/restoration, and raw dump/restoration! The down side is that an SDHC card is needed because I remember this app not working on my 1GB SD card as I tried this app on my 32GB SDHC card. --Wildgoosespeeder (talk) 07:50, 28 April 2015 (CEST)
 * That's good idea, and we can possibly rename this article to accept both game ripping as well as saves. Lucario (talk) 12:07, 30 April 2015 (CEST)
 * I can agree that disc images and saves should be in the same article because the article in its current state looks like a stub. I disagree as well because this is a different subject and could cause issues that weren't tested yet. --Wildgoosespeeder (talk) 23:45, 30 April 2015 (CEST)
 * I'm on board with just renaming the page "Ripping Games" and having "Ripping Memory Card Saves" as a subsection. In general we're behind the ball on populating the various guides here, so it would be good if they could get some attention. Kolano (talk) 04:35, 1 May 2015 (CEST)
 * Honestly I prefer to break up the guides to be as specific as possible. For example, if Ripping Games includes all ripping, then it would have to swallow DSP LLE since it has ripping DSP roms in it, yet DSP LLE has lots of things that aren't related to dumping in it and it has the benefit of being easily linked to by pages. I would much prefer it if a new guide is made just for ripping SD cards since it is much easier to link and interconnect things on the wiki if they are separate, and because it will allow the ripping sd cards to go to places that are unrelated to ripping as required without going "off topic". - MaJoR (talk) 03:02, 3 May 2015 (CEST)
 * Further looking into the Wiki, the guides are not very well organized and aren't easily accessible. There is the Help:Contents section, but that's isn't anywhere on the homepage as far as I can tell. I think a Help:Guides section could be a good idea (put the link in the Help:Contents) and maybe overhaul the front page for better organization. Not sure where to start?, I see primary guides to setup first time usage of Dolphin and Wiki help. I think a middle bullet point would be great (for secondary extended usage), which would fit the future Virtual GameCube Memory Card Guide, non-existant Virtual Wii Internal Storage Guide (for data found in "%userprofile%\Documents\Dolphin Emulator\Wii\title" mainly), and Virtual SD Card Guide. Those guides could include a real data (save/channel) dumping section by using SaveGame Manager GX (for unmovable and uncopyable saves, like Super Smash Bros. Brawl) and the Wii's built-in save and channel manager, as I found out that the data created by both those methods for exporting that data can be used by Dolphin directly. --Wildgoosespeeder (talk) 02:43, 4 May 2015 (CEST)
 * I definitely like the idea of improving our access to guides! Important ones are already on the mainpage, but it can't show every guide (it's designed for typical problems most users will face, not technical elaborate things), so having a better way to get to help here on the wiki would be very beneficial! I'm not really sure of the best method for that though, which is kind of why it has stayed as it is... Btw, we could take and add a "more" button to the guides section on the mainsite that links to the wiki. ...frankly I don't know why we didn't do that before now, linking to Help:Contents. -shrug- As for where to put guides, I disagree with you there. Help:Contents has the Virtual SD Card Guide, the NAND Usage Guide and the Wii Network Guide, so it's not like it's just for casual users; it goes into some pretty deep things! It could be organized into "easy" and "advanced" guides, but the mainpage has the guides page already which is for "easy" guides for things most users will face. I think having the guides here on the wiki involve everything is the best course of action. I'm certainly open to better organization ideas though. - MaJoR (talk) 07:00, 4 May 2015 (CEST)
 * Classify easy (getting started section), medium (saves storage management; virtual <-> real), and advanced (features of Dolphin) guides, but as links to separate help pages. The Virtual SD Card Guide reveals lacking features that third party software needs to accommodate. I hope features get built into that instead of relying on third parties. --Wildgoosespeeder (talk) 07:50, 4 May 2015 (CEST)