Need help or guidance on the best way to decompress a large .bin file.

[danimalforlife]

BACKGROUND INFO

The file I am trying to decompress is a large 232MB file titled DATA.BIN file in Def Jam: Vendetta (2003) for the PS2. This was a wrestling game featured around rappers signed to the Def Jam label. This was developed by syn Sophia, Inc. (formerly AKI Corporation [when the game was developed] and The Man Breeze) and published by EA Sports BIG. the AKI Corporation also made Ultimate Muscle: Legends vs. New Generation, Galactic Wrestling: Featuring Ultimate Muscle, and Def Jam: Fight for NY around this time. 

 

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WHAT I AM TRYING TO DO

I believe the DATA.BIN file are where the character models, and most of the data, are saved. I am not sure where to start or what the best way to uncompress this file and could really use some guidance. In theory, this file should contain multiple sub-folders with the character models, galleries, icons, etc.

 

Here is the DATA.BIN file
 

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WHAT I'VE TRIED

I searched for the header/magic number, but it doesn't look like it's anything known. Header starts with 80 00 00 00 00 F2 01 00. When I searched via TrID, it gave the following:

 39.9% (.HPI/LIF) HP Logical Interchange Format disk image (2009/4/0)
 39.8% (.PC1) DEGAS low-res compressed bitmap (2000/1/0)
 19.9% (.OBJ) OMF - Relocatable Object Module Format (1001/2/0)
  0.4% (.DBF) Sybase iAnywhere database files (19/3/0)


I tried using quickbms with the ps2 file. I was able to get some uncompressed pictures in the .tm2 format. Other than that, it just separated everything into a lot of .dat files along with a few .wrs, .opy, .prm, .aud, .dat, .vap, and .prm files. I did use quickbms on a .pak file, but it just then created more .dat files. There were some .tm2 files it grabbed, but that was it. The folders are also filled with .dat files as well. So not sure if the QuickBMS script is useful.

Link to the export from running the Def Jam: Vendetta QuickBMS script

Afew screenshots from what the QuickBMS export looks like.

 

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MORE INFO
Here is what the extracted ISO looks like. The DATA.BIN file is located in the DATA folder and is the only file there. The CINEMA files end in .MPC and I am able to play those through VLC. The audio files I am able to play either through Audacity, RW4ArchiveTool, or the ASF Player (both play old EA Sports sound files). It's just the DATA files I can't seem to solve.

[danimalforlife]

Update as I think I may have made some progress.

 

I decided to try to split the file anytime a long run of 0's appeared as that is probably padding to separate the files or folders. I got about 388 separate files. What is interesting is there are about 120 files that were all +/-154KB. That's the same number of TIM2 files that Quick BMS was able to pull. When I look at them in a Byte Map, I noticed a weird pattern so I played with the column size and pixel size and sure enough.

 

 

In addition, I think I found where the model information is stored. When viewing some of the other files in a Bye Map, I noticed a run of file sizes that alternated between ~93KB immediately followed by a file size of ~470KB (these both vary a bit). With these, I noticed these seemed to look like faces. I realized that these are the texture maps. 

 

I'm thinking these ~470KB files are where the models and textures are stored. 

 

Now I just have to find a way to unpack them.

Edited Tuesday at 03:11 PM by danimalforlife
Adding additional information and screenshots rather than creating another comment.

[skstylez]

Oh man, I'm interested in this. I hack the N64 AKI Wrestling games, and wondered if there was anything for Def Jam Vendetta.

Where can I find this Byte Map tool?

Edited Tuesday at 07:12 PM by skstylez

[danimalforlife]

The program is called HexWalk. I couldn't get BinWalk on windows, but this is probably as close as it gets. The Byte Map is one of its tools. 

 

https://www.hexwalk.com/

[danimalforlife]

On 10/21/2025 at 1:22 PM, skstylez said:

I hack the N64 AKI Wrestling games

I was able to find this for the N64 games. Unfortunately, they said adding support for the PS1 and PS2 games are not possible with these tools.

https://github.com/AKI-Club