Information about ZTool
 

As Razor12911 left, leaving a great compression tool for us without any information about using it, I decided to write this thread on behalf of Razor12911.

ZTool is not a single precompressor, it's a combination of a set of precompressors improved by Razor12911. ZTool includes:

1. pzlib (works for all deflated data)
2. plz4 (works for all Frostbite 3 games released before FIFA 17)
3. plzo (works for Anvil Engine (AC, Ghost Recon Wildlands, possibly Prince of Persia, basically all games with .forge extension))
4. pzstd (only works for Mass Effect Andromeda only, FIFA 17 support not added.)

ZTool supports:

* All deflated games including id Tech 6 Engine
* IW Engine 7.0 (Call of Duty Infinite Warfare, Call of Duty Modern Warfare Remastered)
* Anvil Engine (Entire Assassin's Creed series, Prince of Persia, Rainbow Six Siege, Ghost Recon Wildlands, possibly AC Origins when it's out)
* Frostbite 3 Engine (NFS Rivals, NFS 2015, NFS Edge, BF4, BF Hardline, BF1, Mirror's Edge Catalyst, Mass Effect Andromeda...) except FIFA 17

plzo in ZTool should work for these games:

Scimitar

Assassin's Creed (2007)
Prince of Persia (2008)
Shaun White Snowboarding (2008)

Anvil

Assassin's Creed II (2009)
Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands (2010)
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (2010)
Assassin's Creed: Revelations (2011)


AnvilNext

Assassin's Creed III (2012)
Assassin's Creed III: Liberation (2012)
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (2013)
Assassin's Creed Rogue (2014)

AnvilNext 2.0

Assassin's Creed Unity (2014)
Assassin's Creed Syndicate (2015)
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege (2015)
Steep (2016)
For Honor (2017)
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands (2017)
Assassin's Creed Origins (2017)

The arc.ini for using ZTool

Requirements in ZTool is below:

pzlib requires:
Microsoft Visual C++ 2013 Redist
plz4 requires:
Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 Redist
plzo needs:
Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redist

Changelog

1.0 Original Thread
1.1 Added requirements
Thanks to Razor12911 for the information I provided here and also for the tool :)

Thanks for sharing the info
 

Please tell me an example arc.ini

I am getting error
"Write error (disk full?) In compression algorithm ztool"

Please share also screen shots if possible.

here ya go,

Thanks
 

Thanks a lot.
I tried this way " ztool e:plz4 - - <stdin> <stdout> on a file from farcry primal but it is not inflating it while ds4lz4.exe is showing its inflation ratio as 601%

maybe the files are encrypted or plz4 is not set to detect fcp's streams...

Afaik Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (2013) is not supported.

May be, I haven't tested myself

Here's an example of bat and arc.ini for using ZTool

Can any body make a arc.ini for plz4 of ztool.

The arc.ini I gave here is working for everything(pzlib/plz4/plzo/pzstd) You just need to change the bat and write the method you want to use.

For example, I used pzlib+srep+lzma in thehe bat. You can change it to plz4+srep+lzma

Thanks
 

Did i not need to adjust settings for say plz4 say level, threads etc.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare Remastered

It does not compress almost anything

How to open ztool help?

Write it like this

Try this

ztool h:xxxx

xxx means pzlib,plz4,plzo,pzstd

One more question
 

Why ztool doesnt show progress.

How to set password for the archive?

http://facebook.github.io/zstd/

The only game that currently uses the Zstd stream is Mass Effect: Andromeda

Nope. FIFA 17 is also using zstd.

Hai hi
 

I tried to use ztool on farcry primal and lords of the fallen but it seems to not work on them.

Use GFS to know which method of ZTool should be used

What about the progress? is it visible?

Indirectly shown by fa, because ZTool works with stdio

Request
 

I request everybody to post the list of games supported by ztool.
Thanks in advance.

Doesn't work on AC2, ACB+ACR not tested, but should be same because of same engine.

Hi everybody

Here is arc.ini for plz4 use with ztool


[External Compressor: ztool]
header = 0
packcmd = ZTool e plz4:l9:t#:b#k:ct#:st#:cm#m:c#m <stdin> <stdout>
unpackcmd = ZTool d plz4:t8 <stdin> <stdout>


# being values to be replaced (ct8:st50:cm128m ....)

I personnaly use: ZTool e plz4:l9:t2 <stdin> <stdout>

for help open command prompt and type :ztool h:plz4
and you'll have a short description of available compress/decompress switches


By the way, I would like to give endless respect to master in the person of Razor, and thx him a thousand times for all he brought to us with such a genuin work.
I am really sorry for what happened to you, Dedsec and the whole reality team, this is unfair and deeply unrespectfull but this is how life is. I can ensure you that I will and so will my team, always give you credits for using this and other tools of yours...this is the least we can do.

If it can help in any way :

I have been tested Plz4 on COD IW and it doesn't work well on imagefiles.pak : I mean it does the deflate job by finding lz4 headers (26 GB --> 42GB -l9 recompression) and it can compress ok but then it always fails at decomp with a crc error after total decomp of file (file is installed and size is ok but crc is wrong : (

It worked only on 5 files out of 29 ( 600 MB out of 26 GB : ( ....

I have tried with another lz4lib.dll (1.7.5 885KB update from lz4 package on github works ok), I have tried all possible settings and even tried with splitted files to check if it was a matter of file size being to big! I have tried with xz, lzma, even lz4 ...

nada, it doesn't want to decomp without a crc error at the end of file unpacking

PLZ4 works ok with assets.pak files 4.8 GB -> 1.4 GB ...

PLZ4 works ok with .FF (fastfile) eventhough it does not like to be mixed with other extensions (.FF only at compression : no problem at decomp / .FF+assets.pak at compression : crc error at decomp) ...5.8 GB --> 2.7 Gb

I could only get plz4 working ok on assets.pak and .ff files by compressing them separately.

Hope it will help you Razor updating your tool, eventhough we won't ever see this update ... I will always support and respect the great man you are ...even if you are still using depli language ...lol :)

I had crc errors with pzlib3.
Then modified arc.ini/compression setting from stdin/out to tempfile and voila!
No more CRC errors !

Maybe this is the source of errors. Give it a shot...
And let me know the result,okay?
Thanks !

Already tried $$arcdatafile$$.tmp $$arcpackedfile$$.tmp instead of <stdin> <stdout> and still same crc error at decomp only (plz4 codec)

I tried with 1.7.5 version of lz4lib.dll and still same error ...I believe problem comes from ztool exe itself ....but I am no expert , just my opinion : )

And for those who are still wondering .... Inno script handles it perfectly and I have proper progress bar showing with wpi 3.1 Razor's script : )

It's better to use ZTool more cautiously
There are bugs in multithreaded like ZTool
Also, ZTool is much weaker than PZlib in deflate streams.

Compressed BF4 with Ztool-plz4 from 68GB to 33.7GB. Plz4:l1:t6+srep+lzma

Decompressor is unfinished? It works but stuck at end without closing correctly and need to force close in task manager. I only tested BF4 with plz4 for now.


Anyway thanks Razor for this great tool. The best developer for repacking tools.

Use
plz4+srep+lzma

[External compressor:pzlib,plz4,plzo,pzstd]
header = 0
packcmd = ZTool\ZTool e:{compressor}:t25p{:option} - - <stdin> <stdout>
unpackcmd = ZTool\ZTool d:{compressor}{:option}:t90p:f:cm256mb - - <stdin> <stdout>

No deal. All files are decompressed fine and works but at end Ztool.exe keep pending and dont close by itself if i dont kill process with task manager. There is something strange.

Maybe i should run it as Admin? I'll try.

It's a bug of ZTool. I also saw it in Reality Repack's Installer that, after finishing installation Installer closes but ZTool keeps running.
To solve this problem you must write a Taskkill code for ZTool on clicking cancel button.

ZTool is not weaker than pZLib but stronger. Some parameters of ZTool is different from pZLib.
For example: The "- x" parameter is used for max settings in pZLib but to use the max settings in ZTool the parameter is different.

pZlib in ZTool is much optimized than original pZlib

That's the thing for which I'm talking about. :)

How to use that parameter

How to use that parameter