How to tell it's a rip?

[LastPucho]

Hello there. I got a question regarding ripped games (by ripped i mean images that are small in size because there are fmv's or soundtracks that were manually removed) that i was hoping some of you could anserw.

Certainly, i don't like ripped games and wouldn't like to add them to my collection (or to anyone's!).

For example, today i got Battle Hunter for PSX (of course, not from here, but from ed2k network). The .rar file was only 32 mb or so. And uncompressed, it was only like 85 mb. The game itself is quite simple, sprite based, nothing elaborated/spectacular that i think would require like 500 mb. But maybe it's a rip, because it had no introductory FMV. Anyone got this game? Is it that small?

Also i'm getting from the same source Carnage Heart for PSX; the .rar file is only 85 mb... looks suspiciuos, right?

I know some games do get very good compression ratios (like Celebrity Deathmatch -from 210 mb to 30 mb- or Alone in the Dark: One eyed Jack's Revenge -from 680 mb to just 180 mb-, just to mention 2)... but still i'm not convinced.

Any clues about Battle Hunter and Carnage Heart being so small?

Thanks in advance; bye.

[Winged 2.0]

You normally cant tell whether or not its a rip. Some games have high compression ratios and some games are just rips. You would be safest downloading from various Bittorrent sites and YouSendIt. Then at least you can be sure that someone took the time to upload a legit version of the game and don't have to worry as much.

[SegNin]

(Winged 2.0: your sig made me laugh : )

Battle Hunter and Carnage Heart [Disc1of2] are not rips.

Some of the signs that a PSX game could be a rip:
1) ISO is small in size (Some games are small even though they are full.)
2) ISO is large, but compresses down to a very small size. (Some exceptions to this, like Vagrant Story: full game goes from 700+ MB to about 80MB.)
3) Empty/unused sectors found in the middle of the first track of the PSX ISO when you scan the ISO with CDMage (Empty/unused sectors are only supposed to be found at the end, not beginning or middle of the first track)
4) Files in the ISO have been replaced by junk data files (all 0's, or a repeating series of data--example:22 55 22 55 22 55...)
This is commonly done with STR and XA files (movie and sound/music files)
5) Empty folders in ISO
6) No background music even when mounted to Daemon Tools with Analog Audio enabled.
7) Missing FMV's
7) You find another copy of the same game that is larger than the copy you suspect of being a rip.

I'll use my copy of Block Kuzushi 2 as an example:
I downloaded it from EmuPortugal, and the ISO is small, only 14 mb, there are a few files in the STR folder that may have been replaced by a repeating series of data, and finally, there's no background music, even when I play it with Daemon Tools.

So, I believe that this 14 mb copy that's floating around the 'Net that everyone (who has this game) seems to have, is a rip, but I'm not 100% sure of that.

Another example is the copy of Real Robots - Final Attack [J] that was put up as a torrent recently--that was definitely a rip. Just compare it to the one that was uploaded to YSI--that one is the full game

(I really wish people who make rips would label them clearly as rips so that people would know that they are rips.)

Btw, you can use any type of hex editor/viewer to see the data in each file, to determine if it's valid data or junk data (such as all 0's or a repeating series) If you find a file (other than a dummy file) that seems to be nothing but junk data, then check the game for the other signs it's a rip.

CDMage, ISOBuster, Clony XXL all have built-in hex viewers that you can use to do this, but I prefer using CDMage's.

[Str8Ba11a]

Well...segnin kinda said everything i could say and more...I really just go by the size for the most part. Anything 80mb and below is usually a rip. With some exceptions of course. Also from my experience, files in YSI or the EP tracker are usually full versions unless otherwise marked.

[SegNin]

No, anything 80 mb or less is not usually a rip.
There are alot of PSX games in the Simple 1500 series that are under 80 MB, and they're full. Just about all of them in fact.
There are also quite a few ports of arcade games and "Classic" video game compilations that are under 80 MB.

And there are some games which don't have alot of or even any .XA or .STR files (cd audio and PSX video)
But they may have short FMV's and background music anyway--the music and video files could be in a different format.

So you can't go by size alone.

Also, I've seen a few rips get uploaded to both YSI and the tracker, so that's no guarantee either.

[Str8Ba11a]

Hmmm...thank you for correcting me in spreading totally false and wrong information I think the reason the size works for me is that i generally only get popular psx games. And those usually have the fmvs and such that make the size difference a point of reference.

[LastPucho]

Wow, Segnin, thanks a lot, that was very interesting info. I'll check it out for sure. And thanks.

(It's always good to learn something new )

And guys, of course, the releases of this community are pretty good! I found those games in ed2k. Some psx games are good releases, a few are not. Not to talk about the popular "porn movie renamed as a psx game/misc file" issue...

Anyway, i'll post my discoveries tomorrow. I'm kind of sleepy. And thanks again for the info. Bye.

[LastPucho]

Well, remmenber about that Battle Hunter thing? The good news for me is that it's not a rip (wohoo!) and the bad news is that the game just sucks (joke, not true, it's a fine little game)

Hehe, anyway, wanted to "bump" this thread, because i think Segnim's info was pretty good and, well, maybe you could post it in that stickie of tutorials? Or maybe Zorlon could just add a direct link to your single post; it's pretty interesting.

(Or maybe it's already an stickie and i haven't noticed? Don't know where my head is these days... )

[ChimpoUA]

Modz: Sticky this!

[Zorlon]

I don't see why this should be a sticky thread at all there is no way of telling if something is ripped or not without knowing what the full contents of the disc should be and even then you can't realy tell untill you play the game because all files may be shown as being there and full size but they may also just contain lots of 0's like Segin said so it can be compressed to a rather small size and still fool any LBA checks.

Clever rips tend to just cut FMV that does not contain plot movies and can be played start to end without you even knowing if anything was taken out or not.

The best are downsampled games that you can't tell at all (some are obvious though specially if you have played the full sampled version)

Note:- Empty unused sectors in the middle of a CD Image with sound is usual, these are the sectors between tracks of different types, these do not make a game a rip and should be there (it's a post and pre gap thing)

Unofficial multi game CD's tend to be full of ripped games but even those can be full version games just on one disc

Basicly you can't tell if a game is a rip or not that easy

I have even seen CD Images with other data on it that has nothing to do with the game or any of the official companies, same goes for the archive that the CD Images are stored in, this makes it hard to tell from just the size of a CD Image or Archive

[Xena]

I wish there was more rips on the main site. It really helps me save on disk space and no crappy game music like most games.

[ChimpoUA]

Oh well, then let's all bump it ! BTW Xena, where do you get all your avatars/sigs?

[Xena]

BTW Xena, where do you get all your avatars/sigs?

Thats like 100% off-topic.
I normaly make them.
This one is The Wild Seven, a japanese terrorist group.

[ChimpoUA]

bump

:joke: Sorry for the offtopic Xena

[SegNin]

I don't see why this should be a sticky thread at all there is no way of telling if something is ripped or not without knowing what the full contents of the disc should be and even then you can't realy tell untill you play the game because all files may be shown as being there and full size but they may also just contain lots of 0's like Segin said so it can be compressed to a rather small size and still fool any LBA checks.

But it can't fool you if you use a hex viewer to see if any of the files contain nothing but all 0's or a repeating series of junk data.

Clever rips tend to just cut FMV that does not contain plot movies and can be played start to end without you even knowing if anything was taken out or not.

Maybe, but most PSX rips aren't that clever. And even then, if any FMV's are removed, it would make the ISO smaller, and often CDMage will find errors in the sectors where the removed FMV's were in. However, if the FMV's are replaced by all 0's or repeating junk data, while the size of the ISO won't have changed, a hex viewer would still show you that the FMV's have been replaced with nothing but all 0's or repeating junk data.

The best are downsampled games that you can't tell at all (some are obvious though specially if you have played the full sampled version)

Doesn't this apply mainly to DreamCast ISO's which have been made to fit onto a 700 MB CD when burned? I don't see why anyone would bother to create a downsampled PSX ISO--the reason why people create PSX rips is so that when the rips are zipped or rared, the compressed zips or rars are much smaller than they would be if the ISO's had not been ripped. Most rips when compressed are only a few MB's rared or zipped (usually less than 20 MB, but ocassionally they can be larger) And for most games, a downsampled PSX ISO would not be much smaller compressed than one that has not been downsampled. It's the removal of the FMV's, the CD audio tracks, and other data files, or the replacement of those files with junk data that allows the ISO's to be compressed to such small sizes.

Note:- Empty unused sectors in the middle of a CD Image with sound is usual, these are the sectors between tracks of different types, these do not make a game a rip and should be there (it's a post and pre gap thing)

You're right. I made a mistake here. Instead of saying that empty/unused sectors are only supposed to be found at the end of the ISO, I should have said they're only supposed to be found at the end of the first track of a PSX ISO (the data track). I forgot that CDMage only scans the data tracks for errors, not the CD audio tracks, because those tracks don't contain any EDC or ECC checksums, so it can't detect any errors in those tracks. I've gone back and fixed that mistake, and made a few other revisions too.

Unofficial multi game CD's tend to be full of ripped games but even those can be full version games just on one disc

Again you're right. But ripped games on a multi-disc will also have the same tell-tale signs that they are rips as official games that have been ripped do.

Basicly you can't tell if a game is a rip or not that easy

With PSX games it's usually very obvious. Because 9 times out of 10, either the .STR files (movie), .XA files (sound/music) and/or CD audio tracks have been removed or they've been replaced with junk data.

I have even seen CD Images with other data on it that has nothing to do with the game or any of the official companies

I have too. But when you scan the ISO with CDMage (or mount the ISO to a virtual drive) you can view it's contents, and if you see a flash game, or a zip file named CelebPics, or something like that, well, obviously nothing like that is supposed to be in a PSX ISO.

same goes for the archive that the CD Images are stored in, this makes it hard to tell from just the size of a CD Image or Archive

True. But when you extract or open the archive, if you find anything other than CD image files (bin/cue or ccd/img/sub or mds/mdf or iso or nrg or cdi--those are the most common CD image file formats) then all you have to do is delete the extra files.