Mods - Not sure if this is the place for this thread, so feel free to move it as needed. I recently read that the dummy files in the Bloody Roar 4 for PS2 were in fact a zip file containing Renderware SDK. I'm sure I read about one or two similar cases (maybe a dummy file containing some source code) in other games/platforms, though can't remember the details. I tried doing some searches, but my google-fu is failing me. Is there a list of such "fails" somewhere? Or maybe we can use this thread to create such list?
The most famous one was that the dummy file on Konami's _Beatmania Best Hits_ was the complete source code for the Beatmania 5th mix append disc.
Don't know of any such list - so why not start one? The Windows XP setup disc has (an encrypted version of) Microsoft Bob in a padding file. Unfortunately(?) you can't get to it, because the encryption key was random keyboard mashing.
Well look like you're just like me I find the renderwate in the dummy files and I want to use it with the Ps2 sdk so I can make some games And I was looking for the same thing and I find this I hope it will help you http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?p=1627328
Never really found much in dummy files (because usually I assume they're just there for space occupancy) but if I had to make an assumption, a lot of dreamcast games could potentially have some stuff in there.
The layer fill .bin files on the Saints Row 1 disc seem to be actual binary data but I haven't looked into it much
It's not crazy uncommon for game dummy files to contain actual data (usually random video or repeat files). I think I did this once or twice in a ps1 title. I think eventually devs stop being so dumb and just created zeroed out files instead.
Can't remember which was which but Giants Citizen Kabuto and Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force both have large padding files with text in them. One is "FUCKFUCKFUCK" over and over for 300mb. The other has a file that says something like "YOUSHOULDNTBESEEINGTHIS".
3DO discs use the string IAMADUCK to signify unused (uninitialized?) sectors on the disc, and apparently the phrase was used because the CP-V system on the Xerox Sigma 6 also used that phrase in a disk error table.