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Has anyone converted gdi to chd?


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I have Dreamcast .gdi games inside .rar files. I'd rather use .chd to keep the games small, but not have to unzip before playing.

Has anyone used a gdi to chd converter tool successfully? Is so, where did you get the tool and were you able to do this in mass (like using a script or batch file)?

Thanks.

 

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Thanks for the suggestion, but I don't want to use NTFS compression. I just want to shrink the games (remove padding) and have one file for the game, but not have to unzip the game before it launches. Surprised if nobody has converted to CHD?

Edited by ckp
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Nah, I'm well versed with NTFS compression. There can be a lot of problems with using NTFS that I'd rather avoid. There are a lot of known issues using NTFS compression.

I haven't tried a gdi to chd converter yet because I have barely found anything out there and what I have found doesn't seem to have much talk about it.

CHD seems ideal for what I want. Reduce game file size, while not impacting game performance, and no unzipping before playing. But there doesn't seem to be much evidence about the reliability of the somewhat hidden tools I've comes across.

So, I was hoping someone who has actually tried a specific tool might have had good success before I think about getting into it for DC. Or if someone had a bad experience, that would be helpful too. It seems, for some reason, I see much less on the internet about doing this type of thing to DC games, while I've come across a lot of good resources on tools to use for some other console games.

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On 14/2/2017 at 5:49 AM, ckp said:

I have Dreamcast .gdi games inside .rar files. I'd rather use .chd to keep the games small, but not have to unzip before playing.

Has anyone used a gdi to chd converter tool successfully? Is so, where did you get the tool and were you able to do this in mass (like using a script or batch file)?

Thanks.

 

I perform this process years ago with my entire collection, it works perfectly and I have never had problems with the chd that were created.

I used Dreamcast GDI to CHD.exe does not have mass converter but works really good.

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i haven't tried yet, but something like this command line or batch file might work for mass conversion:

for /r %%x in (*.gdi) do chdman -createcd "%%~nx" "%%x.chd"

Edit: I tried the command above and it works great, but the shrinking isn't anywhere near as close as my .rar format. These particular games shrink massively (over 1GB for many of them) with winrar. So, now I suppose, instead of doing this to all 347 games, I'll just hand pick the games I like most, since they don't shrink a lot.

Edited by ckp
fixed command so extension isn't .gdi.chd
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Testing one of the CHD's, I see Demul doesn't seem to like it or know what to do with .chd. Maybe it's just some settings in Demul.

Edit: yup, changing Demul from image to chd in the settings works. i guess it can't work with both file types.

Edited by ckp
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As I'm unzipping , it is looking like i have about 10% in .cdi format and 90% .gdi.

Can Demul work with both, without changing the gd-rom plugin every time you switch?

Or is there also a way to convert the .cdi to .chd also?

Or is there a Demul command line option to use in LB for the ones that are .cdi so Demul uses the image plugin for those?

Edited by ckp
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Actually there were only a few CDIs and they were awful games anyway so I won't even use those. But if you want to use both gdi and chd games for DC with DEmul, you would have to manually switch the Demul plugin every time you load the other type.

Almost done converting all my gdi to single chd. Tried a few in LB and they work great with no lag or unzip before loading.

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On 2/17/2017 at 11:57 PM, ckp said:

Actually there were only a few CDIs and they were awful games anyway so I won't even use those. But if you want to use both gdi and chd games for DC with DEmul, you would have to manually switch the Demul plugin every time you load the other type.

Almost done converting all my gdi to single chd. Tried a few in LB and they work great with no lag or unzip before loading.

hello! im new here, and i did convert all of my dreamcast games to CHD.. but cant get them to load in LB, using demul. i got naomi and atomisvawe to work but not the chd images... is there a way to add file extention *.chd`?

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1 minute ago, DOS76 said:

which gdr plugin are you using to use CHD you need to be using the chd plugin not the demul or image plugin. If you are already using that then I don't know @ckp reported being successful maybe he can help you trouble shoot

hello, im using gdrCHD, and it works flaw to load from demul

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