Newbie Question Thread

[Masquerade]

For WAV audio, use MSC with Tak plugin. You can rebuild the BSA archives using BSAOpt.
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/247/

Please note if you recode the wavs to mp3 with lame, the game might not recognise them anymore.

[Ra7eN]

Originally Posted by Masquerade

For WAV audio, use MSC with Tak plugin. You can rebuild the BSA archives using BSAOpt.
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/247/

Please note if you recode the wavs to mp3 with lame, the game might not recognise them anymore.

Hi, thanks for the fast reply!
I have BSAOPT I'll have to take another look at it. I used to do this with other games that use wav and use lame to crush them down. so far no issues, except one game. I had a wav compressor at one time, however, my main issue was getting the files BACK INTO the bsa file LOL

Currently I did the usual precomp+srep basic and got 27GB skyrim to 11GB, but I am sure if I can at least get the wav files down to size, I should be able to get it under 10GB.

[murphy78]

Hi, I've been very curious about repacking games. I'm not interested in spreading my own repacks or anything like that. I am just obsessive about archiving the latest versions of my games when I download them and I want to take up very little space.

I've played with a couple tools like xtool and diskspan_GUI and they work a bit but I don't really grasp everything very well. I would like to know if it is generally a good idea to reflate, srep, and then compress the files. Could someone help me with some advice and maybe a small basic packer and unpacker script? I saw another person's example but it only had the arc/lolz combination. I admit I don't really know much about lolz. I've read a comment from someone saying that the tool was old and that people mostly stopped using it.

Thanks for any help people could give in advance.

[Masquerade]

Lolz is still in use, it's still the best compressor for game data. But, it's still old. Most tools that we use are ancient.

About inflate + srep + compress - this correct. Inflation, or precompression is the step where the compression already on the game is reversed (decompressed) so that you can apply a stronger algorithm (srep+lolz/lzma). You need to use the correct codec for the game since not every game uses the same compression algorithm. When you decompress your archive, those resources are recompressed identically.

[murphy78]

Does anyone have a compilation of commandline and ini file structure for xtool.exe, freearc 0.67's arc.exe ?

I looked around to the best of my ability but I'm having a hard time locating information. I can't find any command line information on xtool and what little information I can find on freearc doesn't seem to apply to the way people are using it with the ini files and the -m single argument passing method.

I have checked the chm file that comes with xtool and it seems to only discuss precomp. There are a lot more features that the exe uses and I imagine that there's gotta be more information somewhere.

I'm sorry if this all seems trivial to everyone. It's hard to write myself a script when I don't really have any example or documentation to go on.

Thanks again in advance.

[kj911]

Masquerade: The recompressed BSA archives, betterly compressibble or not?? Or better ways recompressing in store mode (supported?) and packing with any better methods? (ex: msc+srep+lolz)

[Masquerade]

Originally Posted by kj911

Masquerade: The recompressed BSA archives, betterly compressibble or not?? Or better ways recompressing in store mode (supported?) and packing with any better methods? (ex: msc+srep+lolz)

BSAopt is not suitable for repacking since every time you make an archive with it, the CRC is different.

I'm not up to scratch with BSA format, but I don't think the media files are compressed. Beyond that, I believe LZ4 compression is used.

[Ra7eN]

Originally Posted by Masquerade

BSAopt is not suitable for repacking since every time you make an archive with it, the CRC is different.

I'm not up to scratch with BSA format, but I don't think the media files are compressed. Beyond that, I believe LZ4 compression is used.

confirmed, they are not compressed. I forgot about the CRC. Does - skyrim(and/or bethesda) make use of that.

[KaktoR]

SkyrimSE using lz4f with level 10 if I remember correct. And if I am not mistaken you have to use lz4 library 1.8.0 or something like that to get a decent amount of streams.

[allgravy]

Howdy! Apologies for my grammer and thanks in advance for your help.

How would i add ztool to diskspan please...

[Ra7eN]

OK, I am from the old BBS days (Myth, Paradigm etc..) and have been fascinated by extreme compression. These days I learn it as a hobby. So wanted to thank you all for this site.

Sorry I have a noob question.

I know this is part of an arc bat file (I love working with batch), however what is this part

-mprecomp+srep+lzma:a1:mfbt4:d256m:fb128:mc1000:lc8

Because when I run it,
arc a -lc8 -ep1 -ed -r -w.\ game-1.bin -mprecomp+srep+lzma:a1:mfbt4:d256m:fb128:mc1000:lc8 "D:\GAMES\my_game_file\*"

gives me an error
recent one was general (de)compression error in precomp
other times it looks like it skips both precomp and srep and just finishes susccessfully.

How am I using this incorrectly?

Thanks!

[Masquerade]

^^

The -m parameter in FreeArc specifies the compression method to be used when making your archives.

Methods can be internal methods built into FreeArc or they can be defined in arc.ini as external compressors.

In your case, it looks like precomp and srep are external compressors whereas you are using FreeArc's internal lzma compressor.

Secondly, when you have methods with colons after their name, this is a way of defining parameters for that compressor at runtime.

For example, the oggre compressor by ProFrager, arc.ini would look like this:

[External compressor:oggre]
header = 0
packcmd = {compressor} {options} $$arcdatafile$$.tmp $$arcpackedfile$$.tmp

FreeArc has many internal constants, two of which I have shown above.

{compressor} instructs FA to look for oggre.exe. It simply fills the {compressor} with the name defined at the start of the entry.

{options} is where we pass our arguments at runtime. For example, if I used -moggre:s3, FA would translate the s3 to -s3 and use that parameter for oggre.exe.

[Ra7eN]

@Masquerade

thanks.. easy to follow.
I noticed when reading the "specific game" section they put up a series of commands. Using an example where in the command line is that inserted?

Is there a thread here that goes into more detail. I would like to explore this more in depth.

Thanks!

[Ra7eN]

hI
OK, One final Noob question

regarding the "specific game" section ??

What criteria is needed to determine which method to use.

Lets say for example I have a ton of wav files in a game, or lots of DDS files. What would I need to look for?

Thanks!

[Masquerade]

Originally Posted by Ra7eN

@Masquerade

thanks.. easy to follow.
I noticed when reading the "specific game" section they put up a series of commands. Using an example where in the command line is that inserted?

Is there a thread here that goes into more detail. I would like to explore this more in depth.

Thanks!

Please may you give an example of what you mean?

Originally Posted by Ra7eN

hI
OK, One final Noob question

regarding the "specific game" section ??

What criteria is needed to determine which method to use.

Lets say for example I have a ton of wav files in a game, or lots of DDS files. What would I need to look for?

Thanks!

for wavs, use msc with tak plugin. For DDS, use srep then lolz.