N64 Compression
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The N64 accesses data from cartridges and disks through the Parallel interface (registers start at 0xA4600000|0x84600000). For example you can identify if a compression is used, what type it is, and locate the decompression routine by stopping the game every time something is loaded from ROM through the PI registers. Set a write breapoint on 0xA460000C, press "step" so the size is set and the interrupt is tripped, then set a read breakpoint on the first few words of data at the RDRAM address being shoved into it. It's fairly straight forward to see how the data is manipulated/treated if the game you're hacking has a compression type or not.
Compression Types
The following is a list of all the Nintendo 64 compression types that have been documented as of yet. You can thank Zoinkity's for the following list, and Midwaydec for his program that supports all these compression and archive types.
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| LZ | Midway LZSS derivative |
| WLM | Williams LZSS derivative |
| AVL | Traditional LZSS without a header, first noticed in Avalanche titles |
| AVL_0 | Avalanche in binary mode (00 fills rather than spaces) |
| LZSS | Traditional LZSS file |
| LZSS_0 | Traditional LZSS file in binary mode (00 fills rather than spaces) |
| LZSS_B | Traditional LZSS file with big-endian header |
| LZSS_0B | Traditional LZSS file, big-endian header, in binary mode (00 fills rather than spaces) |
| HUFF | Traditional Huffman compression |
| LHUF | Traditional Huffman compression in binary mode (00 fills rather than spaces) |
| ARI | Traditional LZSS-Arithmetic file |
| ARI_0 | Traditional LZSS-Arithmetic file in binary mode (00 fills rather than spaces) |
| ARI_B | Traditional LZSS-Arithmetic file with big-endian header |
| ARI_0B | Traditional LZSS-Arithmetic file, big-endian header, in binary mode (00 fills rather than spaces) |
| 02TG | Sydney 2000 compression |
| Asmic | Asmic LZSS compression |
| Aidyn | Aidyn Chronicles LZB variant (compression type 2) |
| BLTZ | NFL Blitz series RLE compression |
| SUB | MK Mythologies compression |
| CSR | RLE compression from Stunt Racer 64 |
| CR | Custom Robo and Custom Robo V2 compression format |
| CSR | Stunt Racer 64 RLE file |
| DLZ | Titus LZW file |
| EA | EA's LZ derivative |
| EAHD | Format internally used by OVLN and BIGF, bearing the header 10FB. |
| EB | Excitebike64 compressed file, autodetected format, always in a single part. |
| EB-raw | Excitebike64 compressed file, no header. |
| EDL | Eurocom Decompression Library; autodetects EDL0-EDL2 |
| EDL0 | Eurocom Decompression Library (Store) |
| EDL1 | Eurocom Decompression Library (LZ) |
| EDL2 | Eurocom Decompression Library (RLE) |
| FLA2 | Glover LZSS compression |
| GO | 1kb LZSS derivative, first identified in Densha de Go! |
| H2O | File wrapper for certain H2O titles |
| LE | LZE compression scheme |
| LZYF | LZ format used in the Treasure game Bangaioh |
| MADF | Compression format in EA's Madden games; direct output not supported |
| Mass | Mass Media headerless compression; requires passing decompressed size |
| MMHdr | Mass Media file with long, big-endian filesize preceeding data |
| MIL | Theoretical stream format of MIO, mostly for giggles |
| MIO | Older Nintendo sliding window compression format |
| Nagano | Interleavable LZW found in Konami Nisitenma-Ichigo titles |
| Night | Nightmare Creatures compressed files |
| NL_Old | Nintendo old filelist table games; ie. StarFox64 |
| NL_New | Nintendo later filelist table games; ie. Zelda Series |
| NTarc | Nushi Tsuri archived huffman files |
| ODT | O.D.T.'s compression format |
| OVLN | Structured format used by EA Games |
| PERS-SZP | Pokémon Stadium Compressed File Wrapper |
| Polaris | LZO1x implementation in Polaris SnoCross and H2O titles |
| RareLZB | LZB implementation for Blast Corps sound banks |
| RNC | Rob Northern Computing file format, also handling indexed and archive types |
| RNX | Custom multipart Rob Northern Computing files |
| Sno | 16bit LZ format in Snowboard Kids 2 |
| Sphere | Tetrisphere compressed files |
| Taz | Taz Express files |
| TBR | Titus bitwise RLE format, no header |
| TBR8 | Titus bitwise RLE format, with decompressed size and target rdram address in header |
| Tigger | Archive for multipart files in Tigger's Honey Hunt |
| TGR | Top Gear Rally multi-part zlib files |
| Twisted | Twisted Edge LZ file |
| vpk | HAL Laboratories bitwise lzss with huffman encoding |
| WAD | Compressed format in WAD-structured files (iD Software) |
| Yaz | Nintendo compressed stream format (LZSS variant) |
| Yay | Nintendo compressed file format |
Header Types
Many games use different variations on the gzip/zlib headers. These types act as wrappers to allow extraction.
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| GEZip | RareZip (.rz) file in GoldenEye |
| KIZip | RareZip (.rz) file in Killer Instinct Gold |
| PDZip | RareZip (.rz) file in Perfect Dark |
| BKZip | RareZip (.rz) file in Banjo Kazooie |
| BTZip | RareZip (.rz) file in Banjo Tooie |
| DKZip | RareZip (.rz) file in Donkey Kong 64 |
| BFDZip | RareZip (.rz) file in Conker's Bad Fur Day |
| F5ZLB | Factor5 zlib file |
| REzip | Resident Evil II zlib file |
| MALzip | Milo's Astro Lanes zlib file |
| WDC | World Driver Championship/Stunt Racer 64 Zlib implementation |
| ZLB | Dinosaur Planet zlib wrapper |
| Z | Headerless Z format (zlib); autodetects Z0-Z2 |
| Z0 | Z format 0 |
| Z1 | Z format 1 |
| Z2 | Z format 2 |
Archive Types
These may be extracted as either archives or individual files.
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| BIGF | Bigfile format used by EA Games |
| BOFS | GameTek BOFS Archive |
| BOLT | Mass Media BOLT files, probably specific to N64 (or at least this era) |
| Burp | Unloads content of Infogrames Burp archives |
| GZ | GZip files, alias by extension |
| GZIP | Gzip files |
| MAD | EA's Madden archive file, containing MADF and BIN files |
| PKMNARC | Pokémon Stadium archive |
| RNCA | Dedicated type for Rob Northern Computing archives |
| SRT | Super Robot Taisen 64 archives |
| TUT | Unpacks contents of Dezeamon 3D TUT_SRAM.SYS archive. |
| XG2 | XG2 Archive |
| ZIP | PKZip implementation in V-Rally |
| Excitebike | Uniquely has individual files that are assembled from multiple parts. |
| EB-Brs | Excitebike64 4-part compressed archive |
| EB-Big | Excitebike64 Big multipart file. |
| Soundbanks | May be extracted as either raw or midi files |
| S1raw | Soundbank (S1 type) Midi files |
| S1lz | Soundbank (S1 type) Midi files w/ Midway compression |
| S1lzs | Soundbank (S1 type) Midi files w/ LZSS compression |
| S1wlm | Soundbank (S1 type) Midi files w/ Williams compression |
| AKItext | Text banks in AKI Wrestling titles |
| GO | Extract unformatted Densha de Go! image data |
| GScodes | GameShark/Pro Action Replay codelist, formatted as text |
| IDX | Extract STR.SYS using IDX.SYS in Dezeamon 3D |
| PRESJPEG | Pokémon Stadium JPEG wrapper |
| TEX | TEX texture files in AKI Wrestling titles |
| TEXarc | TEX texture archives in AKI Wrestling titles |