[Feature Request]: natively support compressed memory cards about pcsx2 HOT 9 CLOSED

may i ask what you mean by compressed memory cards?

from pcsx2.

On windows you have NTFS compression which does this for you, but I guess linux/mac users don't have that pleasure.

from pcsx2.

Linux users can use BTRFS if they really need the space.

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We don't implement that though, right? I mean for ease of use like NTFS compression

from pcsx2.

BTRFS would be an alternative to the EXT4 filesystem (think FAT32 vs NTFS). So we would support it no problem, it would be abstracted away from us.

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@Mrlinkwii I mean instead of saving a memory card as Mcd001.ps2 and taking up 8MB you would save it as Mcd001.ps2.zip and take up ~300KB

If I had 100 games with one memory card each, I'd be using over 800MB when I could be using 30MB with compression. It's the same way that PCSX2 can read compressed chd format games, but just for reading and writing .ps2.zip memory cards

on some filesystems it does this sort of thing for you, true - but for example Batocera can run on exFat and that filesystem doesn't support compression. on macOS i'm not sure either, because it supports de-duplication if 2 files are exact copies, but i'm not sure about when they're just 90% copies (like memory cards)

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but for example Batocera can run on exFat

Not our job to care about piracy ridden redistributors.

macOS i'm not sure either

You could just use folder memcards. PCSX2 also doesn't really need per-game file memcards like DuckStation does, because the cards themselves are much larger.

I'm inclined to say this is a WONTFIX, because you can't randomly seek in a zip file, you have to decompress up until that point. Writes are more problematic, because you have to decompress the whole thing, update the sector that was written, then re-compress the whole file. Taking a second to save memcards might be fine for 8MB, but definitely not for 128MB.

So we'd have to devise some per-sector/block compression scheme, which would limit the ratio, since the window is much smaller. Then it wouldn't work with third-party tools, either.

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@stenzek Hey I ran across this on the internet, maybe it will be interesting to you

The ZIP file format includes a directory (index) at the end of the archive. This directory says where, within the archive each file is located and thus allows for quick, random access, without reading the entire archive.

it's the first answer from here https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7132514/how-to-unzip-a-piped-zip-file-from-wget-qo

another point about the folder memory cards is that when converted, they show "There is no data" when viewed in the PS2 bios which makes me feel maybe there could be data loss at some point even if they correctly load when playing a game

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No, the zip index lets you jump between different files within the archive, not seek to arbitrary points within a single file.

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