PS2 Shrink your ISOs with this one simple trick!

[Xethron]

I stumbled on this thread while messing around with SNESticle:
https://www.psx-place.com/threads/t...the-snesticle-emulator-for-ps2-via-opl.41372/
I thought I'd give a try for removing dummy files from PS2 games and it actually works great.

So what you want to do is open your ISO in whatever program; I used 7-zip cause it'll handle mounting and unmounting automatically. Then look for files named like "padding", "dummy", "junk" or a series of files with the same size like ZZZ01, ZZZ02, and ZZZ03 that are all 512 MB.

Also check if the total size of visible files is less than the size in windows explorer. For example Burnout 2 shows a size of 4.2 GB in explorer but only has 3.1 GB of visible files in the iso. This might mean that there's hidden padding. Be wary though as there may be other hidden files that are needed; for example the Undubbed Growlanser 3 only shows a handful of files and if you make a new iso with just those it won't work. A good way to check is if the size of visible files is less than a compressed version of the iso (zip, 7z, chd, zso, whatever), you might be good if it's only a little less but be suspicious anyway.

Extract / copy the game files out to a new folder, leaving the padding files behind. Open BurnAware and follow the steps from the linked post to make a new iso using only the files from your game, you don't need to add any.

Here's the list of games I found that had enough padding to be worth it, I haven't tested all of them but I did test the suspicious ones.

Armored Core 2 (USA)
ATV Offroad Fury 2 (USA) (v2.00)
Black (USA)
Bully (USA)
Burnout (USA)
Burnout 2 - Point of Impact (USA)
Burnout Dominator (USA)
Burnout Revenge (USA)
Cabela's Alaskan Adventures (USA)
Cabela's Dangerous Hunts (USA)
Call of Duty - Finest Hour (USA)
Dark Cloud 2 (USA)
Dead or Alive 2 - Hardcore (USA)
Destroy All Humans! (USA)
Destroy All Humans! 2 (USA)
Devil Kings (USA)
Eternal Poison (USA)
Eternal Ring (USA)
Evergrace (USA)
Full Spectrum Warrior (USA)
Grand Theft Auto III (USA)
Growlanser II - The Sense of Justice (USA+Undub)
Haunting Ground (USA)
Heavenly Guardian (USA)
Ibara (Japan)
Incredible Hulk, The - Ultimate Destruction (USA)
King's Field - The Ancient City (USA)
Mercenaries - Playground of Destruction (USA)
MLB SlugFest 2003 (USA)
Mobile Suit Gundam - Federation vs. Zeon (USA)
Mortal Kombat - Deadly Alliance (USA)
Mushihimesama (Japan)
Nightmare of Druaga, The - Fushigino Dungeon (USA)
Puyo Pop Fever (Europe) (En,Fr,De,Es,It)
Rumble Roses (USA+Undub)
Samurai Warriors (USA)
Shadow Tower Abyss (Japan+En)
Sonic Mega Collection Plus (USA)
Soulcalibur II (USA)
Soulcalibur III (USA)
Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy (USA)
Spider-Man 2 (USA)
Star Wars - Battlefront (USA)
Star Wars - The Force Unleashed (USA) (En,Fr)
Thunder Force VI (Japan) (En,Ja)
TY the Tasmanian Tiger (USA) (En,Fr,De,Es)
Vampire - Darkstalkers Collection (Japan)
WWE SmackDown! vs. Raw (USA)
X-Men Legends (USA)​

Edit:
I can't seem to find the edit post button after a post is approved so I'll put it in a reply for now. Devil May Cry should be removed from the list, it looks fine and the size is right but the rebuilt iso doesn't run.