Updates from Dec 26th, 2003 (Not massively early in the AM from staying up all night)

• Added Pac-Man Wolrd 2, NFL Blitz Pro and Whiplash
  
• Up to 26.47 Gigabytes

And for you technically "advanced" (or adventurous) people that view this list... If you would like to keep some of the movies I say to delete, but would still like to free some space up, head over to this handy tutorial made by LinksAwakening which details how to downsample .xmv and .bik movies.

• Thanks to ylsf for the Starsky & Hutch deletions.
  
• Now up to 28.24 GB

And, as an additional update, I'm "making attempts" at creating .acl additions for dvd2xbox for getting rid of unneeded files. Not sure if it'll go public anytime soon, but as I had at one time thought... "the ***'s are going to be a pain to code around." I was right. They're being a pain in MY ass.

After many requests, I finally ripped just for you guys... T.H.U.G.

• Tony Hawk's Underground added.
  
• Up to 28.81 GB.

Ok, I've got a question. What, exactly, do the files dashupdate.xbe, downloader.xbe, and update.xbe do? There was talk of using these when you play LAN (or a tunneling LAN) game. I assume dashupdate is just as it sounds: a dashboard updating program, in which case you wouldn't want it to run. I would guess that downloader.xbe and update.xbe use the XBL service to update and download new content for the game, in which case using them in a LAN game wouldn't do any good, right?

So, are these files needed if playing a LAN game. And, if they are only for updating the game/dashboard, couldn't you use your retail game to do that, and then switch your mod back on and play using the updated content with your ripped version?

-Duck!

PS: Thanks for the great post and hard work!

QUOTE (DuckOfDeath @ Dec 30 2003, 03:52 PM)

Ok, I've got a question.  What, exactly, do the files dashupdate.xbe, downloader.xbe, and update.xbe do?  There was talk of using these when you play LAN (or a tunneling LAN) game.  I assume dashupdate is just as it sounds: a dashboard updating program, in which case you wouldn't want it to run.  I would guess that downloader.xbe and update.xbe use the XBL service to update and download new content for the game, in which case using them in a LAN game wouldn't do any good, right? So, are these files needed if playing a LAN game.  And, if they are only for updating the game/dashboard, couldn't you use your retail game to do that, and then switch your mod back on and play using the updated content with your ripped version? -Duck! PS: Thanks for the great post and hard work!

Duck!,

Your hyposthesis about everything seems correct. Just as a recap, I'll type random things out to ensure any future readers get a decent understanding.

The files dashupdate.xbe, update.xbe, and downloader.xbe are not used for anything except for XBLive. They are not used for system link games. They are not used in any of the tunneling programs, such as: X-Link, XBConnect, or that Gamespy thing. They do not wash your car. They do not do anything except for connect to XBLive and/or perform related services.

Dashupdate.xbe does exactly as it's name implies. If your MS dashboard is not beyond a certain version, it will be updated. This is a problem for people who use an alternate dashboard by naming the XBox executable xboxdash.xbe. If you leave the xboxdash.xbe alone, and your modded bios boots a different .xbe, such as evoxdash.xbe, then no problems should arise if your dash is updated or not.

Update.xbe is what is used to update the game when connecting to XBLive. This is that annoying thing that pops up when you are wanting to go play a game, but when you hit the XBLive tab, it says it's updating your game. It stuffs the files it downloads into the games save folder, and utilizes those files if they exist.

Downloader.xbe is the utility used to check if downloadable content is available. Anything it downloads is also stuffed into the games save directory.

Also of note, is "Stats.xbe" This is that program of those wannabe bastard children of XBLive games, like Burnout 2, or Cabela's Dangerous Hunts. This utilty lets you do such things as stare at a screen of other peoples scores while you cry and whine that you aren't #1. Well, at least that's what I did most of the time. I don't use XBLive anymore. (Damned non-lockable 300 Gig Maxtor drives.)

When dealing with a backup, these .xbe's are useless. Well, they do have ...one... use in your backup. That use, is to ban your XBox from XBLive when run. You can only play backups while using a modded bios. If that modded bios is loaded, and you use the backup, or the original to connect to XBLive, you will be banned.

If you boot with an original bios, you can download every bit of content from XBLive with no problems. You can then reboot your XBox with the modded bios, and play the backup with the downloaded content included, unless the content is intended for XBLive purposes only.

I mean, c'mon, there's a reason I think they can be deleted from the backups .

NFL Fever 2004:
Toss the CDX folder, dashupdat.xbe, and update.xbe
That's 225 MB right there...some of the vids could go too....
Hell, just delete the whole game and go play ESPN.

QUOTE (Knocks @ Dec 25 2003, 07:19 PM)

Wonderful Post!!  I am looking for a blank XMV (1 second, black screen).  Please PM me once you find it.

Actually making a 1-Second Blank Screen XMV Movie File is pretty simple if you have XMVTool (from the XDK)...

Just make a 1-Second Blank AVI file in any video program (AfterEffects, or Flash to name some), turn it into a WMV8 Stream, and use XMVTool to turn it into an XMV File...

If I had any webspace (that would be able to handle the bandwidth) I would even post blank BIK and XMV movie files (although Re-Linking and Down-Sampling are still my choices for game Backups)...

Well, here we go...

HERE is a ZIP File containing 1-Second long Blank-Screen XMV and BIK Movie Files...


I can't say how long that link will work (from people downloading from it) since it is a free site, but get it while you still can...

Man... I go to sleep for a few odd hours, and all this stuff pops up.

Anyways, updates:

• Added FIFA Soccer 2004 thanks to toyato89.
  
• And, thanks to Lord Helmet for NFL Fever 2004

LinksAwakening, thanks for the blank xmv file. You served this out just mere seconds before I realized I finally had a copy of the tools to create such a thing. ...Even if I'm replying near 3 hours after you posted that.

GameSizeEditorv1.7.zip doesnt work for me ? I click exe and nothing happens ? wierd..

Nice work though Rahszhul , should try and make a program that can auto delete files/replace movies for users , and download updated lists of files from somewhere.. just a thought .

THanks and Good Luck Hope u feeling better too

Two items of semi-interest... maybe...

One good.
One BAD!

The good: Updates! z33to is this list's new f'king hero. He's responsible for the following addtions.

• Deus Ex 2: Invisible War
  
• Freedom Fighters
  
• Legacy of Kain: Defiance
  
• Midtown Madness 3
  
• MechAssualt
  
• Otogi: Myth of Demons
  
• Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
  
• And, bumping the total deletions up to 32.92 GB

The bad... *sigh* Even though I had fixed my earlier problem with these forums, I knew that it would creep back up on me. As some will notice, I've had to take out most of the formating to get my post under what seems to be a 39,000 character limit for posts. For some strange reason, the forums report that just over 1 million characters is the limit, and this is about to make me cry.

The thing I'm thinking of doing, is to split the file deletions over the first two posts in this forum, and get rid of the movie file replacements bit. If I get into that more, I could make a seperate thread for it.

I'm also thinking about taking out the notes below each game, as I only cover about 5 types of deletions in this thread anyways. Only items that need a bit more attention, like Fuzion Frenzy's lock up problem with the demos. And, of course, the thanks bit will stay. I'm well too over appreciative of any help I've goten so far.

no problem helping, i had run across this thread and noticed i had some games that wernt there so i decided to see how much i could cut back. btw its z33to not x33to but it doesnt matter.

I have a suggestion on the game SX Superstar. If u have a NTSC system then u can go ahead and delete the following files

CODE

\movies\AKA_Attitude_PAL.xmv \movies\Att-PAL.xmv \movies\chm-pal.xmv \movies\cmx-pal.xmv and vice versa for the PAL System \movies\AKA_Attitude_NTSC.xmv \movies\Att-NTSC.xmv \movies\chm-ntsc.xmv \movies\cmx-ntsc.xmv

All in all saving a total of about 74 megs. Not that much but ever little bit counts! lol

BTW keep up the good work! U have saved me atleast a couple gigs of space!


Champ189WS

Damnit!

I typed it right once, z33to... then I got the sound of it in my head... "zeeto" Then typed x instead of z. Why? I'm stupid, I think.

Anyways, that idiocy is fixed.

Champ189WS, Thanks! I'll add SX Superstar to the list after I get back from rescuing a friend from the evil airport.

I'd just like to point out that if you try to remove Prince of Persia movies from the game, it throws a DDE. The only way to get around that would be to replace the movies with blanks. There might be a problem with that though, b/c the files for Prince of Persia are .int files.

toyato89, Thanks much for the help.

Updates:

• From toyato89 comes deletions for Medal of Honor: Frontline and updates for Return to Castle Wolfenstien.
  
• This brings us up to 34.04 GB

Yay!

dang i accidentaly deleted som prince of persia files.

i also noticed the follwing files can b deleted from Midtown Madness 3

CODE

\Data\Shared\Wmv\60\msgs.bik \Data\Shared\Wmv\60\dice.bik

these are just the pregame vids that no one ever watches. Totaling to aroung 13.3 megs

QUOTE (RjT @ Jan 2 2004, 04:27 PM)

GameSizeEditorv1.7.zip doesnt work for me ? I click exe and nothing happens ? wierd.. Nice work though Rahszhul , should try and make a program that can auto delete files/replace movies for users , and download updated lists of files from somewhere.. just a thought . THanks and Good Luck Hope u feeling better too

remove the other file named GameSizeEditor.exe.manifest

update on some files i deleted on Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance

Delete the following

CODE

\moviesxbox\intro.xmv \moviesxbox\logo.xmv

its just the pregame crap totaling 86 megs of data

Champ189WS

CORRECTION:
GTA3 Movies folder is 47.7 MB not 36MB

is there anything you can do for Shenmue II? like maybe take at least 300MB out of it? hehe

Ok, so... Again with the bad and the good.

The Good:
Updates:
- Thanks to Champ189WS for Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance's deletions, and additions to Midtown Madness 3.
- Added Night Caster 2: Equinox & Sodier of Fortune 2: Double Helix.
- Found extra files in Brute Force.
- Found extra material for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.
- Fixed slight oddity in Top Spin. Nothing vastly important.

More Good?:
I've decided that GamerBR's suggestion from quite a while ago might be really good. Esentially, under a specific game I'll be splitting XBLive deletions from demos, from pre-game garbage, among other groupable things. I beleive this will allow me to drop most of the notes solving half of my problems. Also, I can include the blank movie replacements along with this list a bit easier under what I'm thinking. I think this will help simplify things for some people out there.

The Bad:
It appears I've crossed that horrible barrier again with my post. As you may see, Yager, the very last game on my list, has a tiny bit of the info snipped off. This shouldn't have been a horrible thing, however for some reason, I cannot edit my post now. It appears where it broke it caused a flaw in some code under IPB. As of now, the list is not editable. I've made this issue clear in the Complaints/Suggestions forum, so hopefully I'll get some assistance.


Everythign Else:
AndrewC,
Are you sure you have the NTSC versoin of GTA3? Also, does it just appear like I just looked at one file's size, and did something stupid? Just wanting to make sure.

Donny,
If I recall, Shemue 2 had a few ports of old Sega games inside of it for Hang On, Space Harrier or some other games. I don't know personally where these games pop up in the Shenmue 2 so I can't test it as of right now, but I do remember one of those ports took up a lot of space.

welp, i checked out those folders...they contain files adding up to a little over 8MB...not quite help enough

I just looked at the folder "/xhar/" (Harrier). I seemed to remeber it being the huge offeneder. Well, if you look inside the folder "/xhar/sound/" you'll find 300+ MB of .wav files.

Similar with "/xab/" (After Burner), "/xboxhangon/" (Hang On), and "/xout/" (Outrun). I'm not sure if deleting those is wise or not, but they would free up around 818 MB.

I also noticed the folders "/burner/", "/hangon/", "/harrier/", & "/outrun/" which is what you were probably looking at. They are probably tied in with those folders above, so they can all possibly go.

If you will, I know little to less about this game and can't readily test for where you play these games at. Is it possible I can ask you to back up those files, delete them from the backup, and test the game out?

sorry for all the posts guys but i noticed some files that can deleted from solder of fortune 2: double helix.

you can delete the follwong

QUOTE

base\video\GGLogo2.xmv base\video\ACTIVSN.xmv

only 4.5 megs, but hey if u wanna get rid of the pre game crap those are the files to do it.

I had problems when deleting those files from SoF2. If any of the pre-game movies were deleted, it would skip straight to the main menu, but didn't allow the user control.

im not 100% sure if its NTSC, there were 2 files in my movies folder, one was gtatitles.bik, and i think intro.bik.

I cant remember if it was gtatitles or intro but one was 36MB the other was 11MB.

Anyone done DOA Volleyball yet, its a monstrous 4+ gigs at the mo, might try it later.

I would like to add BMX XXX and Matt Hoffman's Pro BMX to the list.

u can delete the follwoing safley from BMX XXX

QUOTE

\media\assets\movies\CompuEdge   <--- All files in directory \media\assets\movies\intro.xmv \media\assets\movies\zaxis.xmv

the compuedge dir is just movie files that go to the uneeded to demos of agressive inline, vexx, atv2, etc.

zaxis.xmv and intro.xmv are just pregame garbage

these files total to a whopping 118 MB for a small game that it is!

Delete the following from Matt Hoffman's Pro Bmx 2

QUOTE

\tracks\ui\activis.bik \tracks\ui\intro.bik

these are pregame movies totaling 130 MB

Hey how bout True Crimes Street Of LA? Can some see if they can trim that down?

Cheers Guys... Just managed to free up 11.3Gb!!

Have not tested it yet but on NFS Underground in movies the english movies are named 01_Day.mad then 02.. 03... and the other languages begin with an abbreviaion FR01_day.mad for french and GR01_day.mad for german and so on.
Have saved loads of space by deleting the other langauge movies. But it's too late to test it now, bed is beckoning me.
Think I will also swap the other movies with the smallest movie file there is and simply rename it so that it overwrites the larger one will see if it works.

Ok, sorry about the mass amount of inactivity from me. (Mass being what... 2-3 days?) Well, I found a way to fix my post from the problem I was having earlier. But, now I'm back to work after "recovering" from my surgery.

As of now, there are a few additions to be done, some can be seen above (or in previous pages), and some were sent to me via PM.

I won't be able to add them for right now. I'm working on moving the list into a slightly better format which might help a few people out. It will me at least. But, I want to get this done before I add the new deletions, but I promise by the end of the weekend (or sooner) to be done with that.

Armed & Dangerous

The Demo and cdxmedia Folders can both be deleted. In the root directory you can delete the cdx.xbe file and the usual live related files;
dashupdate.xbe
downloader.xbe
update.xbe

For a total savings of 978MB

ACK! i cant seem to find anything under XIII to delete to make it under 4.7 GB! (using M$ HD, But have a burner). help anyone?

Anybody else tried soul calilbur 2? i haven't fully tried everthing but Its interesting because its like they put a bunch of cutscenes or something all in one big file.
I'll let you know if i find out anything helpfull

QUOTE

ACK! i cant seem to find anything under XIII to delete to make it under 4.7 GB! (using M$ HD, But have a burner). help anyone?

I didn't thing XIII was that big. But I sent a PM to the listmaster if you will. You csn save 26 MB if you delete the Attract video. If forget where it is at the moment. It's not too hard to find though.

Jordo1138,
If I remember right, SC2 only has 3, 4, 5 ... some small number of files. If that big-ass file has to be unpacked, worked with, and repacked to find removable content, that escapes the scope of this list. But that info would still be awesome information for people a little more technically adventurous.

flattspott,
Listmaster?
...and the XIII file was "/Videos/Attract.xmv".
Thanks for the help so far!

street_kings,
I recently got ahold of XIII, so I'll give it a long unneccisary look. I really don't know how a cel shaded game can be that freaking huge.


-Update-
I've completed converting the XML to it's new format along with the updated deletions I've recieved from everybody along with a few of my own . Now I just need to re-work the horrible, horrible XSLT. This *might* be done as the weekend hits, which would be nice. Though don't count on it, I'm not that trustworthy!

- The Listbastard!

I tried to PM Rahszhul but i don't think it worked. So I'll post it here just incase.

CODE

X2: Wolverines Revenge 53mb \movies\attract.bik - demo of game when you don't press start for a while I think if you remove this and don't press start withing a reasonable time you'll get a DDE when it trys to load the demo if you try to delete the 3 intro videos you get a DDE \x\data\lang\English_PAL - extra language stuff \x\data\lang\French_PAL - extra language stuff \x\data\lang\German_PAL - extra language stuff \x\data\lang\Italian_PAL - extra language stuff \x\data\lang\Spanish_PAL - extra language stuff Vexx 258mb \data\videos\A_Inline.xmv - trailer \data\videos\ASB04.xmv - trailer \data\videos\ATV_2.xmv - trailer \data\videos\LOW_2.xmv - trailer \data\videos\Attr-x-n.xmv - demo of game when you don't press start for a while I think if you remove this and don't press start withing a reasonable time the demo will still come up, only with just the Vexx logo in the corner \data\videos\Open-n.xmv - if you delete this it removes the intro video but the text "Acclaim presents" is still there minus the video and normally it is also is a video background at the start screen but it will blank behind the Vexx logo.

does anyone know how to down sample the movie file on enter the matrix to put it under the 4.7 limit. i have been searching and found boo coos of junk on putting to hard drive and fixing long file names but no one really talks about backing up to dvd. i have heard that you need to down sample but no one talked of how. like what program can be used to do it. thanx in advance

HI,

Some great tips here for those games listed.

I am trying to remove stuff from DOA3 - the files total 4.24GB on my PC!

Problem is they are in .sdf format and i have no idea how to open them to see what's inside.

If anyone knows of a program to open these so i can reduce the size i'd be very grateful!!

w00t! (the only "l33t" word I care for!) So, I'm pretty much done with my list. Just need to decide if I'll use plain text to seperate the styles of deletions, or COLORS! Ok, that's annoying... *shrug*

--We interupt you from this update to bring you the following advertisements--

NEW! from WiSo, dvd2xbox 0.5.3!

The primary reason I decided to plug this program, is because of a few new features that were just added.
+ moved excludeDirs and excludeFiles to the ACL system as items ED and EF.
+ improved wildcard searching for RM/SM/HR. See ACLSyntax.txt for details.
+ ACL processing could now be started over the action menu any time you want.

So, esentially, after I finish up reworking the list I'll begin work on creating .acl entries for dvd2xbox for you people to lazily free up space! It's great, right?

wow. it would be awesome to have a program, that runs on the xbox, that would scan all the installed games and tell you what could be deleted, along with how much space it would free up. And it'd be nice if it had a way to check/uncheck the games you wanted to modify, and then just have a delete button that would let the program do it's magic.

I really hope to see a program that can do this!! if I could program on the xbox, I'd attempt doing it myself.

DONE!!!

Well, it's all colorized and ugly. Scream at me if you think it's too ugly and stupid. I might change it if people don't like it's current "form".

I added an "Example Title" to the begining of the list to act as a legend/key.

I feel all happy and shit. Made a .sig. Grabbed an avatar. Got 100+ posts. Helping people when I can. I swear I'm not normally like this. This scene is the greatest place I've ever been!

...And on to the .acl creation!

Does anyone have any of those blank 1-2 sec .xmv and .bik files or know where to find them. I am trying to find them to fix the dirty disc error for brute force and sof2 by relinking them. If anyone could be of help it would be greatly appreciated. I have serched with no avail.

Champ189WS

nevermind. Thanks Rahszhul. Worked like a charm.

Great job on the list! I just cleared out 9GB!!

didn't see Wreckless, so here's some things that can be deleted:

CODE

Wreckless Space Saved: 250MB /DSTEAL_FR.xbe /DSTEAL_GR.xbe /DSTEAL_JP.xbe /DSTEAL_JPDEMO.xbe /DSTEAL_UK.xbe /data/Sound/DemoFR/ /data/Sound/DemoGR/ /data/Sound/DemoJP/ /data/Sound/GameFR/ /data/Sound/GameGR/ /data/Sound/GameJP/

Excellent!

From the 15 games that I have on my hard drive this saved 8.73GB for me.