Newbie Question Thread

[Masquerade]

To all new members, welcome to FileForums!

This thread is for newbies to ask questions regarding learning how to compress their own games. The idea behind this thread is to have an informal pool of knowledge where new members can ask questions and more experienced people can answer without polluting the forum with single question topics.

Anything goes, just please be respectful and follow the Forum Rules.

If you have a question about compressing a specific game, please ask here.

[adrianskiloses]

1. What are usually the steps for a repacker to start working on repacking a game? (Assuming all gamefiles are not already packed or encrypted and are "open")
2. What is an easy Inno Setup "template" can you suggest for beginners (and has enough documentation to get started easily) and tutorials for making new ones?
3. Is AutoIt scripts a suitable replacement for batch files?
4. How do I adopt my repacking setup to be suitable and convenient for making xdelta patches?

Thank you.

[Masquerade]

^^
1. If there's no compression or encryption to look for, then jump straight to compressing your archive. Tools like XTool ([1], [2]) can act as precompressors for certain algorithms so you don't have to manually decompress the data when you find a compressed game. XTool handles it whilst making your archive.

2. Try this. All the info you need is there and it is equipped with the required libraries to unpack FreeArc archives.

3. Never used it, batch files are just easier and don't trigger AntiVirus.

4. Making patches is a bit outside the scope of our forum since this is for compressing game backups. However, there are two AIO utilities I recommend to make patches - Anadius' tool and ISXPM. Anadius' tool is easier to use but offers only XDelta whereas ISXPM offers more customisation and choice of patch engine (XDelta, HDiffZ or JDiff).

[adrianskiloses]

Thank you for the reply.
In a previous post you have recommended DiskSpan_GUI for compression, and unfortunately not enough documentation is provided on how to split into several bin files, and how to seperate decompression method for that particular bin files. It is a useful tool, but not much information for now.
I was essentially looking for templates that work with DiskSpan_GUI, but SIS is excellent and simple.

As for precomp, is it necessary to first go through one type of files on the game, running a command/script to compress all of them, then run another command, for example, for the soundtracks, etc? And after being done with all that, what would be the best compression (for .bin files) post-precomping?

Is it preferable to put the decomp scripts and utilities on the bin files, and after extraction, run the scripts to decompress the assets, or some other way is preferred?

I also do not understand the compression method command thingy, an example is this:

srep+LOLZ_NORMAL/$mscpack=msc/$jpgpack=xtool:mbrunsli/$oggrepack=oggre/$mp3pack=mpz/$ddspack=srep+LOLZ_NORMAL/$deflatepack=xt_zlib+srep+LOLZ_NORMAL/$storepack=FA-MIN/$textpack=srep+LZMA

Thank you again.

[KaktoR]

Originally Posted by adrianskiloses

Thank you for the reply.
In a previous post you have recommended DiskSpan_GUI for compression, and unfortunately not enough documentation is provided on how to split into several bin files, and how to seperate decompression method for that particular bin files. It is a useful tool, but not much information for now.
I was essentially looking for templates that work with DiskSpan_GUI, but SIS is excellent and simple.

I wrote a quick guide here: https://fileforums.com/showpost.php?...6&postcount=13
In the next days I will write even more informations about how to properly set-up all the settings.

[adrianskiloses]

Originally Posted by KaktoR

I wrote a quick guide here: https://fileforums.com/showpost.php?...6&postcount=13
In the next days I will write even more informations about how to properly set-up all the settings.

Thank you very much for writing the guide and also for choosing a game that I was working on as well!

Just a smol issue (literally ) some of the screenshots are too small to be able to zoom-in in browser and see clearly, so a little fix pls

But other than that, it is very informational.

[KaktoR]

I have added direct links to imgur.com above the images. They are in the original measurements there.

[adrianskiloses]

Alright, now that the files are compressed, its now time to create the actual setup.exe program. How does one go about that? I noticed that DiskSpan_GUI makes a Setup.dll
which I assume holds all of the decomp program for installing (?) .
However, I might be wrong, so how DO you use the Setup.dll file?
Thanks.

[KaktoR]

Setup.dll is a freearc archive actually. It contains all files needed to unpack the compressed files.

You can use one of the supported installers.
https://www.fileforums.com/showpost....87&postcount=3

However you can also use DiskSpan_GUI.exe for installing. Just copy DiskSpan_GUI.exe to the same folder where Setup.dll is and run it.

[adrianskiloses]

Originally Posted by KaktoR

You can use one of the supported installers.
https://www.fileforums.com/showpost....87&postcount=3

However you can also use DiskSpan_GUI.exe for installing. Just copy DiskSpan_GUI.exe to the same folder where Setup.dll is and run it.

I see. It is quite useful; however I would like to use the supported installers, which, I don't know what to use and how to use them with Setup.dll, etc.

A few pointers would be appreciated

Thank you!

[KaktoR]

For all the installers, you have just to make the settings you want, like setting the game name, size and so on, then compile the script. After that you got a setup.exe file which you copy to the same folder where setup.dll and the compressed archives are located and then run setup.exe and install. Simple

[adrianskiloses]

Another question:
What if I convert all the mp3 files in a game to ogg beforehand, and then attach a ogg to mp3 converter and a batch script to revert them back to mp3? Will it improve compression ratio, even a little bit depending on how many mp3 files are there?

[KaktoR]

Why would you do this anyways? You have some tools to compress mp3 files. Another thing is, that in most cases you wouldn't be able to convert the ogg files back to mp3 with the correct hashsum, which means you have to create some diff files to patch the converted files back to original.

[Ra7eN]

I have several games that rely on wav files. what would be the best way to go about this. precomp that I know of cannot handle wav files.

thanks!!

Example, I like RIPPING. Skyrim has gigs of wav files that i can lame down to about 10%-25%, but I need to get them back into the bsa. How would I do this?

[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.