Games are missing from the DiskSpan GUI database which are in the index, any idea why? 388 entries vs 1300+

Edit: I guess the server saw how I copy-pasted an entire paragraph rather quickly suspicious and decided to discard it completely, lesson learned

Because I simply have no time to download, compress, test and add 1300+ games to database, that's it, and I am the only one who shares updates for DSG database.

Wow! I had no idea methods had to be manually tested!
That's a monumental task! Thanks for taking the time and making the database in the first place!

Oodle codecs/library: Is it possible to use the Oodle library to achieve even 0.5-1GB/s decompression speed on NVME/M.2 SSD-drives, using existing tools?? (ex: Oodle MT Compressor R1, Oodle MT 1.3, Oodle compressors library by Shelwien, any...)

VCL Style in Uninstaller
 

VCL STYLE IN UNINSTALLER - Solved

Hello there,

.. maybe someone can help me with this...

In the attached test script, the VCL style plugin is used for the uninstaller.
Everything works fine so far as long as it is installed in the C:\ drive.

But if I change the drive to D:\, the dll file is always left over during
uninstallation and is not deleted.

(All files should be moved into the tmp folder during uninstall
to let it clean up from InnoSetup itself. Tried this, too.)

Maybe someone has a better solution for this?!
:confused:

Best regards
Nordi

https://i.postimg.cc/5Xq4LD1F/VCL.png

this one functions here without any issues.


.

Hello BLACKFIRE69,

I'm so grateful to you, it works perfectly.
Thank you for that. :)

Kind regards
Nordi

Hi, I'm brand new to this forum and to repacking as a whole. I've gotten FreeArc setup with a few external compressors but am running into an issue with MSC. Whenever I try to extract what I've compressed with it, the progress goes up indefinitely.

packed with: arc a -mmsc+srep:m3f game.bin .\game\hl2\hl2_sound_*.vpk

arc.ini:

[External compressor:msc]
packcmd = msc.exe c -wav=1 -raw=1 -bmp=1 -ddsraw=1 -ddsdxt=1 -mp3=1 $$arcdatafile$$.tmp $$arcpackedfile$$.tmp

Does anyone have any idea as to what could be causing this?

The unpackers files located in total different folders than compressor files??

Ex: Compressors files located in "Pack" folder. Decompressor files located in "Unpack" folder.

Following files need from compressing: Arc.exe; MSC.exe; pack_TAK.exe; pack_FROG.exe; pack_BMF.exe (optional, freeze Win7!); another compressors, properly configured arc.ini files.

Following files need from decompressing: Arc.exe or unarc.exe; cls-msc.dll; another (de)compressors and properly configured arc.ini files. MSC not need arc.ini configuration from decompress. More tools required configured cls.ini file.

WAV files not compressing? Try add -tak=9 options. Safer way switch off BMP/DDSDXT/DDSRAW compression using BMF. (any=0)

FreeArc doesn't seem to like it when I put files into other folders, I just get a "The system cannot find the path specified." error. I did not know about cls-msc.dll and just tried to add it to the bin folder, but now when I try to archive with msc, it tells me "ERROR: user error (Unsupported compression method or error in parameters: cls-msc.dll)"

It looks like most of my problems are coming from something causing CRC errors. I just tried it on a folder of just basic wav files, and when extracting, all of them give a CRC error.

I just tried with lolz and that is also giving me CRC errors and infinitely looping as well now

compress with msc.exe
decompress with cls-msc.dll

I'm fairly certain I am doing that, but the progress still goes up indefinitely, even when I try to extract a single wav file. This also happens when using lolz, and srep works, but gets stuck at 99.9% and I have to forcefully close it.

I'm getting a CRC error on every file with lolz and msc, but I have no idea what could be causing this.

Does anyone have any thoughts on what I could try? I'm happy to send any configuration files I have if anyone needs it to help me with this.

I'm trying to compress an existing .bin file in a game, but I can't figure out how to do it. I saw people saying that .bin files are most likely compressed data, so I tried out Xtool. I turned on all of the Methods xtool supports, and it seems to be finding zlib and lzo data, but the majority of the output in verbose mode says "processing ... stream at ... has failed" with an occasional success. I was finally left with "Size: 6.65 GB >> 6.65 GB" Is there any better way I can get this data processed?

Please may you upload a sample file?

This was for Anonymous;Code which you helped me out with in the specific games thread :)

I'll let you know how it goes once I get back around to that one

Quick Questions.
1.How do i get my setup.dll merged into my game.exe when using DiskSpan Gui?

2. Is there a list of file extension/types and the method to use on them?

for example:
.wav,.rpf,.mp3 are audio files. Would MSC be best to compress them? What other methods are good on audio files etc?
.img,.png are image files. what method is good for these? mzlib?

3. What are the differences between the xtool options and what files would they be used for:
xtool 0.12 xzlib
xtool 2020 mzlib
xtool 2020 mreflate
xtool 2020 mpreflate
xCrilayla
xlz4
xlzo
xzstd

I'm assuming that xlz4,xlzo,xzstd are the best method exclusively for those file types.

I have everything working to repack my games and now I'm trying to learn about all the different file types and how best to compress them.
Is there anywhere I can read up on this kind of information to learn?
Any advice would be appreciated.

1. If you are using the ASIS installer, you can use DiskSpan to unpack the Setup.dll contents to the DECOMPRESSORS folder in the installer's main folder

2. https://fileforums.com/showthread.php?t=104866

3. As far as I can tell you only need to use the 2020 ones, someone might have to correct me on that though.

From my understanding.

Reflate: is decompression. It takes a compressed data stream and reconstructs the original uncompressed data before feeding it to another compression tool.

Preflate: is precompression. It takes uncompressed data and pre-processes it before feeding it to another compression tool.

Xtool 2020:mzlib is also precompression. It takes uncompressed data and pre-processes it before feeding it to another compression tool.

Reflate:
Input: Compressed data
Output: Uncompressed data (original data before compression)
Example is using reflate on .ftex file. mzlib does nothing to it as it's a compressed file, however reflate will uncompress it so you can recompress it with LOLZ/LZMA2 for a smaller file size.

Mzlib & Preflate:
Input: Uncompressed data
Output: Pre-compressed data (prepared for further compression)


Is that correct? If so, what is the actual difference from mzlib and preflate. Is just the algorithm they use?

All of them a precompressors. Actually they decompress compressed streams.

1. Game.exe? You mean installer Setup.exe? You have to use compatible installers which allow to merge setup.dll into installer file.

2. If you use diskspangui, yes. I have written something about it somewhere.
For mp3 I would use 7z with mp3 plugin (7z-dll in diskspangui somewhere). msc for wav/raw.
For png you can use xtool with png plugin + d1 option + reflate/preflate. I guess you can use precomp aswell.

3. Precompressors. In some cases you cannot predefine what method to use on a specific file type.
However in most cases you can just presume by used game engine. For example Unreal Engine 4+5 mostly uses zlib and oodle.

What I usually do in Diskspan is go through all of the main xtool methods one at a time and see if the size increases. Is that a good way to go about it?

No, use xtoolui.

You can use a hex editor to look for headers / magic numbers.

After giving up on configuring FreeArc itself, I switched to DiskSpan GUI for a little bit. Now that I have a better understanding of repacking, I want to go back to FreeArc, but am running into some issues.

1) It won't let me put the compressors into different folders
e.g. unpackcmd = "compressors\lolz_64.exe" {options} InFile OutFile
gives me an error, where not using subfolders works just fine

"The system cannot find the path specified."

2) cls-lolz refuses to unpack anything. I have all 4 necessary cls-* files, and am running an unpack.bat file as administrator, and nothing is working



3) When I have the cls files in the FreeArc bin folder, it tries to compress the files using the cls instead of the actual compressor. How can I stop this from happening?

arc.ini at defining external compressors:

[External compressor:lolz]
packcmd = "compressors\lolz_x64.exe" {options} InFile OutFile
datafile = InFile
packedfile = OutFile

lolz_x64.exe cannot be used to unpack data, only compress.

As for file not found, don't try and use a FreeArc installation for your repacking. Make a separate folder with arc.exe, arc.ini and your tools. Make sure arc.exe from your FreeArc installation isn't in the PATH variable because things get messy this way.

Please may you explain what error you face? You only really need:
cls-lolz.dll
cls-lolz_x64.exe
And the appropriate configuration in cls.ini.

You can't. FreeArc will always load and prefer cls plugins over external compressors configured in arc.ini. you will need to remove cls-lolz components and other cls based decompressors from your Arc compressor.

You don't need to use datafile = / packedfile = in arc.ini either, you can simply use $$arcdatafile$$.tmp $$arcpackedfile$$.tmp in the command (this could be why your archives won't unpack with lolz cls).

datafile/packedfile is reserved for awkward tools that require a specific in/out file extension to work and has no filename override.

I did everything you said and this is the error I am getting when extracting:

I am using the CLS.ini that is provided in the lolz 7z folder you linked to in your tools thread. Should I be making modifications to that to get it to work? Also, quick correction to your post earlier, I am not using unpackcmd, only packcmd.

After trying a few more things, it would seem that its the archives I make in FreeArc that are being corrupted, as unpacking one I created with DiskSpan GUI worked just fine.

I feel so stupid now. For anyone else running into these issues, first, keep header = 0 at the top of the external compressors definition, and also run in cmd and not the windows 11 terminal. That was all it took and I feel like an idiot for spending 3 days on this lol

Hello beautiful community :) I have a question about DiskSpan and I am on the latest version. I would like to know why when I go to arc compression and then I select FA-ULTRA custom compression, 50% of the time the compression remains at the beginning and the time only increases and without results after several hours and on other games it works ...I find that really strange. If anyone could enlighten me on this it would be really appreciated.

Most probably because of the use of rep dedup. However I don't recommend to use any of the predefined freearc templates except for fa-store and fa-min inside of diskspangui because settings will not be the same as if you use them by freearc directly.

Example
https://i.imgur.com/6VNXG6y.png
https://i.imgur.com/H7RbVbq.png

Both archives were made with freearc ultra template (left: freearc, right: diskspangui)

Freearc templates inside diskspangui will not be using predefined arc.ini settings from freearc installation folder and will not apply on different file types, hence the ratio difference.

Although not identical, the predefined modes FA-BEST_SP, FA-MAX_SP and FA-ULTRA_SP work with FreeArc's internal masks.
https://i.imgur.com/Hvk4fEg.png
https://i.imgur.com/FbujOlL.png
But to use these methods you can NOT choose DiskSpan mode (You can use it together with SPLIT mode or WITHOUT any split mode).
I don't know why these 3 methods don't give us the same results, taking into account that the final method formed on the command line is something like:
The other settings of the FA-??? presets use fixed methods.
See below the presets used (They can be changed in "DSG_Arc.ini" whenever you want).

best method to compress RIFF files
 

Hello
I would like to know how to process these king of fille
(RIFF/FSB5)
They take lot of space in the conversion.
I think they could be converted before and after compression
but I'm a beginner and I don't understand certain things...

best regards

^^
Extract all FSB5 banks from the bank/data with this quickbms script:
https://www.fileforums.com/showthrea...141#post502141

Then, extract those new FSB files with this script:
https://github.com/HearthSim/python-fsb5

For the audio extracted, concatenate the files by file type with bincat by Aluigi.

Bin files? Reextract the original FSB with fsbext and compress the extracted wav with msc
WAV files? Compress with msc.
Ogg? Compress with oggre.

So you can have up to 3 different files at this point.

Use oggvorbis2fsb5 to convert your decompressed ogg data into FMOD ogg audio. Concatenate your (up to) 3 files and make a patch to the original bank with hdiffz.

During unpacking/installation use oggvorbis2fsb5 again, concatenate and then apply the hdiffz patch you made earlier to restore the original bank.

Thanks !
it was exactly what I needed :)

VCL Style Test 1 - different title on each page
 

Hi there,

UPDATE : Solution found and attached !!!

I created an installer with different titles for each page.

I managed that it work without VCLstyles (or when I use ISSkin instead).

But with VCLstyles it only changes the titles when i press e.g. the cancel button.

https://i.postimg.cc/Rh94BHmz/Unbenannt.gif

>> My test script is attached

Thank you in advance...
Nordi


UPDATE : Solution found and attached !!! ( >> Procedure to hide + show WizardForm )
Solution 1 = managed with WinAPI function >> SendWindowsText
Solution 2 = managed with WizardForm.Caption
>> works without the styles too

SOLUTION3 => no flickering Wizard : https://fileforums.com/showpost.php?...&postcount=121

Library bug. Maybe you can try to refresh the WizardForm.Caption on each page change, but not sure.

Try

thx
 

@ KaktoR - thx for replay and tip ;)

@ Cesar82 - thx for quick solution, titles are correct now :) :)


> but now the buttons and text are not shown correctly... very strange behavior (using the WinAPI function)

Solution

https://i.postimg.cc/fyxpJrPy/1.gif
https://i.postimg.cc/T2CHHnXZ/2.gif

VCL Style Test - different title on each page - Solution
 

Hello,

first of all thank you for the help and tips.
I have found a solution to my problem.

I have attached my solution here and in the first post:
https://fileforums.com/showpost.php?...&postcount=116

Maybe it's just a simple workaround, but it's ok for me... :)
( >> Procedure to hide + show WizardForm )

Now all buttons + text are shown correctly too.

Best regards
Nordi

UPDATE : Solution found and attached !!!
Solution 1 = managed with WinAPI function > SendWindowsText
Solution 2 = managed with WizardForm.Caption
>> works without the styles too

SOLUTION3 => no flickering Wizard : https://fileforums.com/showpost.php?...&postcount=121