Newbie Question Thread

[Masquerade]

^^
Disable PATH limit:
https://www.howtogeek.com/266621/how...60-characters/

[brispuss]

I have several games where the assets are contained within compressed and encrypted *.pak files.

What I am wanting to do is to minimize (compress) these *.pak files to save space as some of these assets take up a huge amount of disc space.

I have tried xtool, srep, lolz, precomp and a few other final step compressors but have found the *.pak files don't compress well at all (not surprising as they are already compressed).

However, I understand from reading some posts on the internet that it may still be possible to compress these *.pak files using specialized/other tools(?)

How can I compress these *.pak files?

Sample asset *.pak file - here.

[KaktoR]

What game?

[brispuss]

Originally Posted by KaktoR

What game?

Whispered Secrets - Cruise of Misfortune Collectors Edition

[wareck]

hello guys
i'm looking for a way to recombine two files.
i have a big .pak file that contains all the game data.
i've duplicated it and processed each part.

one part contains the data compressible by lolz and the other compressible by another compressor.
after decompression i'd like to recombine these two files to make one.

I'm trying to figure out how to do this, with SFK, RAW or equivalent, but I'm drying out...

[wareck]

I've found a solution, maybe not the most beautiful, but it works.
I use xtool (7.9) to generate a database, extract stream from file2 and inject in file1

it works, it's fast, the only problem is to need to have 3x the space on drive (file1, file2, extracted stream) before recombine.

[Masquerade]

Is the data in the big pak compressed beforr you use lolz?

It could be much easier to just extract all raw data and concatenate the data into two blocks.

Compress each block as required, then during unpacking stage, concatenate the two blocks and xdelta patch it to the original pak.

[wareck]

Hello yes I think about this but it's 30gb files
the xdelta file is big and patch is low speed

the pak is aes crypted.

What i've done:
take original pak and uncrypt it
extract "compressible" parts who lolz can have a raisonnable gain
extract low compression parts , compressed later with razor
extract small fast compression files (like txt, json, xml)
then pack each chunk block
(I've got a better compression ratio than compress extracted files)
during install => rebuild the big pak
recrypt pak
small hdiffz patch to recover a good crc

[audy]

Is there a precompressor compatible with the following algorithms?
(https://en64.shoutwiki.com/wiki/n64_compression).
The vast majority of the pack that I thought compress use Yay and Yaz (maybe 50%) (and Gzip/Zlib to a lesser extent)

[Masquerade]

^^
Yaz0 can be handled with wszst - however don't expect lossless 1:1 recompression when compared to original streams. It is a proprietary algorithm and all available implementations come from research and reverse engineering.

Best you can do is recompress the entire game and hope it works, I recommend using a very much older version of wszst as newer version cause incompatibilities when the executable file belonging to the game tries to load the data.

You also need to be aware of the Yaz0 data structure - especially the rotational byte which can cause load errors if you fail to reimplement the byte in the compressed data.

I won't endorse this discussion further since it does not relate to PC games and the company that developed the Yaz0 algorithm is well known to hunt down anyone who doesn't play by their rules. You know where to find me if you want to discuss such Yaz0 more privately.

[Dunnowho69]

Hello,
What is the fastest oodle core and how do i determine which one to use ? And to use with xtool I just have to put it next to the xtool.exe right ?

[xylitol]

Does anyone here know where to start with repacking visual novels made with the KiriKiri VN engine? Do you need to unpack and decrypt the xp3 files and compress from there? Guidance would be appreciated.

[doghunter]

So i am fine with compressing the games/converting them using the cd/dvd tools .
For the earth of me everytime i put the common redist folder(the one with direct X and Ms cc) after the conversion finishes it never copies the common redist folder over.

It is mostly point 2a in the instructions part of the cd/dvd conversions e.g. stray souls.
It is that part i cannot seem to figure out,having tried it a good few times now.

Anyone out there if they could help me and tell me if i am doing or even not doing something the correct way would be very grateful.

[wareck]

Hello
i've got a simple question :
I want's to use arc.exe in command line to store file and split archive (for multithread work)

example :
.\Arc.exe a -ed -ep1 --dirs -r -y -m0 pack *.zip

In this case I'll have a pack.arc
I would like to have several file like pack.1 pack.2
I try several thing but not work...

[shazzla]

Maybe cls-diskspan can help you. Freearc doesnt have native archive splitting feature.
Is this what you want?