NKit/Glossary

Glossary

The NKit documentation uses the terms below. To prevent repeated explanation of words and terms in other articles they are listed and briefly explained once here.

They are listed in a related logical order rather than alphabetically.

General Terms

Nkit

Nintendo ToolKit – This set of apps based around the NKit.dll. Used to Convert and Recover GameCube and Wii images

NKit Format

NKit has its own format. Designed around preservation and always convertible back to the source iso data. It's the smallest format and playable in Dolphin

NKit.iso

NKit raw format. Playable in Dolphin. GameCube is playable on hardware. When externally compressed (7zip...) it's the smallest version

NKit.gcz

NKit compressed format. Playable in Dolphin only. The GCZ container is Dolphin's own seekable compressed format. This is the smallest playable format

Conversion

The process of converting source images to output formats

Passes

Conversion often requires multiple passes. E.g. Recover to Iso, Convert To NKit, Verify

Processing

General term for the conversion of an image or a pass

Image

A file, iso or game being converted

Forward Only

NKit can stream images from archives (zip, rar, 7z). These formats only allow reading of files from start to end. NKit is designed and built around this

Patch

When processing images in a forward only stream. Any data to be updated in the output is patched (updated) at the end

Checksums

Values that identify images to verify correctness and to match against dat files of known images. NKit can create CRC, MD5 and SHA1

CRC

Used throughout NKit to validate and verify images. CRC is useful as it can be calculated in sections and combined when applying patches. This saves having to reprocess an output image to get a match

Redump

Redump is a preservation project that holds Dat files of images and their checksums. Matching these images ensures they are not corrupt

Dat

A file of known images, sizes and checksums

Recovery

Creating a good known Dat image from any source image. This involves fully rebuilding the image and brute forcing items (header, region, partitions) to match a Dat CRC

Recovery Files

Files required by recovery processing. Without these files recovery is limited to very few scenarios. Basically unscrubbing

Convert

Convert an image to and from the NKit format preserving its exact data

Restore

Used to describe converting back from the NKit format

Match

A processed image that matches an entry in a dat

Valid

An image restored from NKit that matches the source image CRC

Bad Conversion

Some unlicensed, hacked or modified images are not correct and cannot be reprocessed. They may work correctly if the bad data is never referenced. NKit can still convert and restore these images. They are called Bad Conversions because they will not run in this state

Summary

A summary of each conversion is logged in to the Summary Log file. This should be checked when processing large batches

Brute Force

Recovering imaged to match a dat CRC can rely on combining many possibilities together until one matches something. NKit Recovery has the ability to deduce some header variants, region and update partitions

Preservation

Converting an image that can be veried to be restored back to the original iso data

Scrambled

Raw Wii images are known as scrambled. NKit does not support these. They must be unscrambled first

Unscrambled

Unscrambled images are supported. Some have an extra 32k of space. NKit will detect and remove this

RVT

There are 2 types of Wii RVT images RVT-R and RVT-H. NKit supports RVT-R as source images. They are required to be iso and 7MB larger than a normal image. RVT-H is the NKit Wii format with additional info in the disc header.

WBFS

WBFS is a disk and file format. NKit supports the file version. It is a block removal format. Tools that create it also often remove non -game partitions also. NKit is able to recover these with any missing recovery files

Iso.dec

A block removal format that only removed blocks containing valid junk data. This is also a preservation format. Not playable in Dolphin

Source

Used to refer to an input image in any format

Output

Used to refer to an output image in any format

Hang

Used to refer to a specific type of bug that has happened in NKit due to the nature of the multithreading and internal circular buffer. Any progress bars stop moving and the app becomes idle.

Disc Terms - WIP

Disc

An iso or image. For Wii or GameCube

Partition

 Update Data, Game, Channel, VC

Junk

NonJunk

Preservation Data

NKit format data used to preserve the

Scrubbed

Truncated

Compacted

Weird Data

Disc Header

 Disc ID Number region title