(04-02-2012, 12:51 PM)delroth Wrote:Quote:my question is how could the difference be so big if all those utilities use similar algorithm to get rid of the gibirish data that fills the disc?
They don't use a similar algorithm. Both Dolphin's compression and 7z are completely lossless while I guess gcmutility shrinks the disc by removing "unused" sectors and moving things around the FST. Additionally Dolphin's compression allows arbitrary seeks while 7z does not provide that (which is why 7z will often give better results).
If you don't get any issues with games shrinked by gcmutility, go ahead with it, but you should probably test the games after shrinking (and please, do not report bugs to the Dolphin devs if you're using such tools to reduce your games size).
thanks, it all make sense now. I tested few games so far after shrinking with gcmutility and they all play fine, although I would hate to find out later on that they break somewhere in the middle of the game. For sure, shrinking with gcmuti and then 7-zipping provides best results (14mb for animal crossing for example) but for now I will keep full iso dumps. If someone used extensively gcmuti please let me know of any games that have issues on dolphin, since after dumping all games my gamecube goes to the basement lol