To use these files, you need to ensure you are using the latest version of the Dolphin Emulator.

dolphin-tool convert -i <input_path> -o <output_path> -f <format> [options]

Highly compressed games "work" by utilizing several data-reduction techniques: Removing Junk Data

No. Compressed files like GCZ and RVZ are designed exclusively for emulators. You cannot play them on original Nintendo hardware [9†L31].

Set the (Level 5 is the standard default; higher levels compress more but take longer to convert). Click Convert and wait for the progress bar to finish.

The Dolphin emulator natively supports highly compressed formats, meaning it can read shrunk files directly without requiring you to extract them back to their original size. Top Compressed Formats Supported by Dolphin

As of June 2026, the latest Dolphin developer builds offer the best handling of compressed files.