Playstation ECM filetype roms

dankcushions

https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Playstation-1#ecm-compression

hawkes_84

@dankcushions thanks fella! hope it's as easy as it makes out

hawkes_84

@dankcushions Hi, Im using the Pi directory method as opposed to downloading any programs and it doesnt seem to be doing anything. Whenever I type the command "ecm-uncompress game-file.bin.ecm" it gives back "no such file or directory. I should already have the ecm rom in the roms list shouldnt before doing this?

Oliebass

@hawkes_84 what you will need to do is as follows:

sudo apt install ecm #This will install the required package that you need to unpack the .ecm file
make sure you have the file you wish to unpack downloaded and available, e.g. game_rom.bin.ecm #This will be the game you wish to have the .bin for.
ecm-unpack /filepath/game_rom.bin.ecm /filepath/game_rom.bin #replace the /filepath with the correct file path that will lead to where you have saved your rom (e.g. /home/pi/Desktop), replace the game_rom.bin.ecm with the title of your ecm file (e.g.random_ecm_file.bin.ecm) and replace the game_rom.bin with the title of your .bin file to be treated (e.g. random_ecm_file.bin).

This should work overall, as long as you have downloaded the file, put in the correct path to the file and provided the correct name of the file as explained above. This issue has also been well addressed across several forum posts so should you get stuck, you may find these posts useful.

hawkes_84

@Oliebass damn that's convoluted! didn't think I'd to do anything with my desktop. Surely if I stick said games into my PSX rom folder it should be able to do it from there? never mind. I have a look for this in some previous post to see if it's a little clearer. Appreciate it though dude !

Oliebass

@hawkes_84 Sorry if it seems complicated. I didn't wish to assume what you did or did not know. Only reason I know the process is I have been doing it recently. If your rom is in the psx folder and you direct the command to unpack from there, it should be fine as the folder is just a directory. All you're telling the computer to do is 1. unpack the .ecm, 2. where the .ecm is and 3. what to call the .bin file.

just run the two commands and replace the info as needs be.

sudo apt install ecm #run as is
ecm-uncompress /filepath/file.bin.ecm /filepath/file.bin #Change info for your filepath and file.bin.ecm

Is that simpler?

hawkes_84

@Oliebass yeah it definitely seems more concise. I'll give it a go and report back dude. Once again I appreciate it!

hawkes_84

@Oliebass it didn't work. Had a feeling it wouldn't. I'm not sure what I'm typing in as my file-path is enough. It's in the psx rom folder so I'm just putting "psx". Does it need more such as RETROPIE or something?

Oliebass

@hawkes_84 To not get too much into it, you will have to put in the full file path from the root folder to the pcx file as this tells the computer where to look. Just saying psx will not be enough. It should look something like this:

/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/psx

Then if you add your file name to the mix it will look like so:

/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/psx/file.bin.ecm

Note that this path will be dependant on your system set up. A short way of getting the path, however, is by simply right-clicking on your .ecm file and selecting "Copy file path(s)" if you are doing this in Raspberry OS.

lazyeels

Amazing, worked like a charm, many thanks for this @Oliebass! In my instance, I installed ecm then ran the following:

ecm-uncompress ./Gundam\ Battle\ Assault\ 2.bin.ecm

I just went to the current directory and ran the command. You do need the backslashes if the title has spaces on a linux-based operating system, otherwise you just get the command help screen.

Clyde

I'll drop just another one-liner here that decompresses all .ecm files in the current directory, provided the ecm package is installed (see @Oliebass' posts above):

for i in *.ecm; do ecm-uncompress "${i}"; done

hawkes_84

@Clyde so in laymans terms this will change any ECM files already on the SD card and make them playable?

Clyde

@hawkes_84 It will just uncompress all ECM files in the current directory, i.e. automate the process that @Oliebass described above. This will make those games playable if the reason for their unplayability was the ECM format.

My line will just save time and effort when processing many ECM files in a row. It „walks“ through all ECM files in the current directory and runs ecm-uncompress on one after another.

Clyde

Addendum: You could (re-)compress the uncompressed .cue and .bin pairs (or multiples) to the CHD format with will often shrink them up to around 50% of their former size and put them into just one file you can drop into your roms/psx directory. In my experience, those CHDs will run in 80-90% of the cases.

This one-liner will do that with all cue files and their corresponding bin files in the current directory.

for i in *.cue; do chdman createcd -i "$i" -o "${i%%.*}.chd"; done

Important: This will cut off the filenames after the first dot for the output CHD filenames. Remove one % from "${i%%.*}.chd to cut only the last extension for compatibility with filenames with multiple dots.

Beware though that this will only work with single-disk games. For storing multiple disks in one container you'll need the PBP format, which is also supported by Retropie's PSX emulators.

That said, be sure to check https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Playstation-1/ to see which emulators support CHD if you want to go that road.