Below are two workflows: one for real PS3 hardware (HEN/CFW) and one for the RPCS3 emulator.

However, this seemingly benevolent practice comes with significant compromises and ethical gray areas. The most immediate drawback is the installation process. Highly compressed files are, by nature, fragmented and densely packed. Extracting them to a usable state requires a powerful PC processor, a substantial amount of free RAM, and sometimes hours of "unpacking" time. On a low-end machine, the decompression can take longer than downloading the full game would have on a decent connection. Furthermore, compression often targets the game's audio and video assets. A cinematic masterpiece like Final Fantasy XIII can lose its emotional impact when its orchestral score is compressed into a tinny, low-bitrate audio stream, or when pre-rendered cutscenes become pixelated mosaics.

To understand why a 40GB game cannot be compressed to 1GB, one must understand what makes up a PS3 game disc.