Due to the fact that NES Mini does not actually support games bigger than 30MBs here it is a very quick&dirty tutorial to rip out unwanted audio tracks from disc images.
NEW METHOD ! FASTER AD BETTER !!!
Thanks to this ABSOLUTELY GREAT tool by the FANTASTIC Nicolas "NightWolve" Livaditis now the process is really easier and byte-precise !
1 - download TurboRip from the link above;
2 - mount the image with every software you like (I use DaemonTools Lite, it is free) and remember the drive letter the disc is mounted to;
3 - execute TurboRip.exe;
4 - hit enter;
5 - select the drive letter you want to rip (you need to press a number from 1 to how many drives you have installed in your PC, real and virtual, they will be listed, do not worry !)
6 - wait and you will have iso+audio tracks splitted inside a subfolder with game name !
================
| OLD METHODS |
================
(use them as last chance)
NOTE
- If the game is a big iso which 7zipped is less than 30MBs it may not work when executed; try to run that game as 1st game executed at console power-up.
- If your image file has an .ecm extension you need this tool to extract it to .bin (syntax: unecm filname.ecm)
NEW METHOD ! FASTER AD BETTER !!!
Thanks to this ABSOLUTELY GREAT tool by the FANTASTIC Nicolas "NightWolve" Livaditis now the process is really easier and byte-precise !
1 - download TurboRip from the link above;
2 - mount the image with every software you like (I use DaemonTools Lite, it is free) and remember the drive letter the disc is mounted to;
3 - execute TurboRip.exe;
4 - hit enter;
5 - select the drive letter you want to rip (you need to press a number from 1 to how many drives you have installed in your PC, real and virtual, they will be listed, do not worry !)
6 - wait and you will have iso+audio tracks splitted inside a subfolder with game name !
================
| OLD METHODS |
================
(use them as last chance)
1 - Install MagicISO
You need the .iso file, so if you have a bin+cue: inside with MagicISO go to Tools -> Convert... -> choose your .cue file, select .iso format and give a filename to save the new .iso, we will call it GOOD.ISO (this conversion tool preserve the data structure of the image - if you just do File -> Save As ... the data structure won't remain correct - I tested it too and the game won't start)
2 - Now that you have your iso open it with MagicISO and go to File -> Save As ... and save it with your preferred name .iso, we will call it NON-ORIGINAL.ISO (this new iso will be different from the original image structure but it will be useful in the next steps)
3 - Now open the NON-ORIGINAL.ISO with an hex editor and go at the very end of the file and look for an hex string you are going to recognzie, possibily unique in the whole file to search it faster.
4 - MAKE A BACKUP OF YOUR GOOD.ISO
5 - Now open the GOOD.ISO with the same hex editor and look for the bytes hex string of step 3 trying to locate it exactly as it is inside the NON-ORIGINAL.ISO (it will not be at the very end inside good.iso).
6 - Remove ALL the bytes from the last byte (excluded) to the end of the file and save.
Example: if the very end byte sequence of NON-ORIGINAL.ISO is:
00112233445566778899AABBCCDDEEFF
00000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000
END OF NON-ORIGINAL.ISO FILE
you need to locate the exact same sequence inside GOOD.ISO, for example you will find:
00112233445566778899AABBCCDDEEFF
00000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000
18FABC3456A78976CFADBACE65345634
92143285A5CBCABFDED2317634716401
2736482976426402BCFDAFA216342365
................................................................
................................................................
................................................................
................................................................
VERY END OF GOOD.ISO
As you can see GOOD.ISO will not end with NON-ORIGINAL.ISO sequence because there are the audio tracks data after it; well you need to remove ALL the red bytes after the ending byte sequence (take from non-original.iso) until the end of the file and save it ! Thant's it ! You .ISO will now be drastically reduced.
ALTERNATIVE METHOD
If you are not lucky enough and cannot find the bytes ending sequence just do this:
A - right-click on the NON-ORIGINAL.ISO and check exact file size in bytes;
B - Now open windows calculator, set it into programmer mode, select "Dec" on the left and enter that size value; now click on "Hex" to see it converted to decimal:
this will be the Hex offset where the data track end of GOOD.ISO should be (just go some pages down and look for an "infinite" 00000000 sequences, this is 99% the end of the data track, cut it out until the end starting from the 00000000 you want).
Tested and working with Heart of the Alien and Lunar the Silve Star Story for Sega CD (respectively from 370MBs and 410MBs to just 9MBs each; you can also 7zip them and add with hakchi to save even more space, they works
).
Unfortunately many games won't be less than 30MBs after this procedure, you need to test each one.
You can also test the .ISO you obtained with the KegaFusion emulator (you need the SEGA CD bios to make it in a working state), if it works with it there are good chance it will work on NES Mini.
I am sure that someone will make a tool to automatically do all that stuff in few clicks
You need the .iso file, so if you have a bin+cue: inside with MagicISO go to Tools -> Convert... -> choose your .cue file, select .iso format and give a filename to save the new .iso, we will call it GOOD.ISO (this conversion tool preserve the data structure of the image - if you just do File -> Save As ... the data structure won't remain correct - I tested it too and the game won't start)
2 - Now that you have your iso open it with MagicISO and go to File -> Save As ... and save it with your preferred name .iso, we will call it NON-ORIGINAL.ISO (this new iso will be different from the original image structure but it will be useful in the next steps)
3 - Now open the NON-ORIGINAL.ISO with an hex editor and go at the very end of the file and look for an hex string you are going to recognzie, possibily unique in the whole file to search it faster.
4 - MAKE A BACKUP OF YOUR GOOD.ISO
5 - Now open the GOOD.ISO with the same hex editor and look for the bytes hex string of step 3 trying to locate it exactly as it is inside the NON-ORIGINAL.ISO (it will not be at the very end inside good.iso).
6 - Remove ALL the bytes from the last byte (excluded) to the end of the file and save.
Example: if the very end byte sequence of NON-ORIGINAL.ISO is:
00112233445566778899AABBCCDDEEFF
00000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000
END OF NON-ORIGINAL.ISO FILE
you need to locate the exact same sequence inside GOOD.ISO, for example you will find:
00112233445566778899AABBCCDDEEFF
00000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000
18FABC3456A78976CFADBACE65345634
92143285A5CBCABFDED2317634716401
2736482976426402BCFDAFA216342365
................................................................
................................................................
................................................................
................................................................
VERY END OF GOOD.ISO
As you can see GOOD.ISO will not end with NON-ORIGINAL.ISO sequence because there are the audio tracks data after it; well you need to remove ALL the red bytes after the ending byte sequence (take from non-original.iso) until the end of the file and save it ! Thant's it ! You .ISO will now be drastically reduced.
ALTERNATIVE METHOD
If you are not lucky enough and cannot find the bytes ending sequence just do this:
A - right-click on the NON-ORIGINAL.ISO and check exact file size in bytes;
B - Now open windows calculator, set it into programmer mode, select "Dec" on the left and enter that size value; now click on "Hex" to see it converted to decimal:
this will be the Hex offset where the data track end of GOOD.ISO should be (just go some pages down and look for an "infinite" 00000000 sequences, this is 99% the end of the data track, cut it out until the end starting from the 00000000 you want).
Tested and working with Heart of the Alien and Lunar the Silve Star Story for Sega CD (respectively from 370MBs and 410MBs to just 9MBs each; you can also 7zip them and add with hakchi to save even more space, they works
).Unfortunately many games won't be less than 30MBs after this procedure, you need to test each one.
You can also test the .ISO you obtained with the KegaFusion emulator (you need the SEGA CD bios to make it in a working state), if it works with it there are good chance it will work on NES Mini.
I am sure that someone will make a tool to automatically do all that stuff in few clicks
NOTE
- If the game is a big iso which 7zipped is less than 30MBs it may not work when executed; try to run that game as 1st game executed at console power-up.
- If your image file has an .ecm extension you need this tool to extract it to .bin (syntax: unecm filname.ecm)
Last edited by asper,
