Newbie Question Thread

[KaktoR]

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

[ozerune]

Originally Posted by KaktoR

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.

[ozerune]

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

[ozerune]

Originally Posted by ozerune

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.

[ozerune]

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?

[Masquerade]

Please may you upload a sample file?

[ozerune]

Originally Posted by Masquerade

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

[Tmills]

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.

[ozerune]

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.

[Tmills]

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?

[KaktoR]

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

[KaktoR]

Originally Posted by Tmills

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. 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.

[ozerune]

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?

[KaktoR]

No, use xtoolui.

[Masquerade]

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