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SC4 Dat Packer

Started by wouanagaine, January 16, 2007, 05:51:52 AM

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wouanagaine

Does the the path SC4DP show you is correct ( ie the "c:\...." points to your MyDocuments\Simcity 4\Plugins ) ?

New Horizons Productions
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Divide wouanagaine by zero and you will in fact get one...one bad-ass that is - Alek King of SC4

MattyFo

yes it points to the correct place in my documents folder.

!!!!GO HABS GO!!!!

wouanagaine

Can you put the full path here or in PM if you prefer to keep it private and a path to the first subfolder of your plugins folder please ?

and if there is a SC4DatPacker.exe.log in your SC4Datpacker installation folder, please show us it content ( you can open it with notepad )


New Horizons Productions
Berethor ♦ beskhu3epnm ♦ blade2k5 ♦ dmscopio ♦ dedgren ♦ emilin ♦ Ennedi ♦ Heblem ♦ jplumbley
M4346 ♦ moganite ♦ Papab2000 ♦ Shadow Assassin ♦ Tarkus ♦ wouanagaine
Divide wouanagaine by zero and you will in fact get one...one bad-ass that is - Alek King of SC4

MattyFo

The path described in the error message is
"C:\Users\Matt Forest\Documents\SimCity 4\Plugins"

There is no SC4DatPacker.exe.log in my installation folder,  If I uninstal and then reinstall the program would that cause any problems with my already compressed Plugins folder?

- Matt

!!!!GO HABS GO!!!!

wouanagaine

#744
No problem if you reisntall it ( make sure you install this one : http://sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=26 )

What is your OS btw ?

Edit : Make sure you've installed SC4 correctly with the original installation disk and not from any other sources

New Horizons Productions
Berethor ♦ beskhu3epnm ♦ blade2k5 ♦ dmscopio ♦ dedgren ♦ emilin ♦ Ennedi ♦ Heblem ♦ jplumbley
M4346 ♦ moganite ♦ Papab2000 ♦ Shadow Assassin ♦ Tarkus ♦ wouanagaine
Divide wouanagaine by zero and you will in fact get one...one bad-ass that is - Alek King of SC4

skell

Wouanagaine,

I used the DatPacker for the first time yesterday and I have to congratulate you on such a remarkable tool.  It cut my loading times by at least half, if not 3/4.  At first, I ran into problems with the program giving me an error about running out of memory.  I decided that it was due to the huge Dependency subfolder that I have (close to 2 GB or however much is on the LEX DVD plus a anything after that I've grabbed).  I ended up moving the Dependencies out and then packing the rest of the files together and then moving the Dependencies back in. Given that the Dependencies are largely .dat files, I don't imagine this will cause any problems.

I do have a question about how the DatPacker works.  Let's say I download 5 new buildings on the LEX and each creates a separate subfolder.  I read on the board how some people will re-pack their entire set of plugins each time they get new content.  Is that necessary?  If were to run the DatPacker on my directory with the new plugins, which has a handful of loose essential files, Plugins_Compressed and Dependencies, and the 5 new folders, will DatPacker just insert the newly packed .dats into Plugins_Compressed or would it create a Plugins_Compressed(2) folder?  Or do you suggest for stability purposes to put the new 5 folders with my Spares and repack the whole thing again?  Hopefully that makes some sense. 

Thanks again.
No signature... I'm purely derivative.

wouanagaine

Hi Skell

Thanks for using SC4DP

For your question, SC4DP first checks that nothing is new in the already packed folder, by comparing the date of files in that folder and the corresponding packed file ( in Plugin_Compressed ) so it is safe to repack everything ( but Plugins_Compressed !!! ) as in normal case nothing changed and it will only pack the new 5 folders in your case

For effeciency however I recommend you put your new 5 folders in your "Spares" folder and repack it. This will not increase the number of packed files and so SC4 will keep loading fast

Take care
Wouanagaine

New Horizons Productions
Berethor ♦ beskhu3epnm ♦ blade2k5 ♦ dmscopio ♦ dedgren ♦ emilin ♦ Ennedi ♦ Heblem ♦ jplumbley
M4346 ♦ moganite ♦ Papab2000 ♦ Shadow Assassin ♦ Tarkus ♦ wouanagaine
Divide wouanagaine by zero and you will in fact get one...one bad-ass that is - Alek King of SC4

skell

Thanks for the input.

Now that I'm back up and running smoothly, hopefully I can get started again on a couple of good looking regions (I'm debating between a heavily planned out region for a big city and my usual more organically grown region).  If only I could guarantee that work wouldn't get in the way. 
No signature... I'm purely derivative.

rjinmd

I downloaded SC4DatPacker and read the readme file.  It advised to go to DLLdownloads.com to download 3 files.  I went to the site, but when I hit the free download link at the bottom of the page, it never gave me the download.  It appears that many people that visit the site have that problem and others do not. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.  Any suggestions?  Is there another site I could go to for those three downloads?

wouanagaine

if yuo can't download from dlldownloads try to google for the 3 dlls to find another download site

New Horizons Productions
Berethor ♦ beskhu3epnm ♦ blade2k5 ♦ dmscopio ♦ dedgren ♦ emilin ♦ Ennedi ♦ Heblem ♦ jplumbley
M4346 ♦ moganite ♦ Papab2000 ♦ Shadow Assassin ♦ Tarkus ♦ wouanagaine
Divide wouanagaine by zero and you will in fact get one...one bad-ass that is - Alek King of SC4

MattyFo

Before I do anything dumb and cost myself a whole lot of time I figure I should ask here first.  Here's my current situation.

I am switching Terrain Mods, luckily my old terrain mod was not compressed so it is removed. However,  the texture dependancies are compressed and I want to remove them because i don't like the way the beach textures.  The texture packs are in the TSC folder.  So If I were to delete the compressed TSC DAT file.  Then go into my "plugins disabled" folder, remove the texture packs, copy the "new" TSC file, place it in my active plugins file, recompress that TSC file, would all work fine?  I would hate to have to find, and reistall all my great TSC addons.

To sum up that long, confusing spiel I am basically asking how to remove a plugin that is compressed and hidden in one of the compressed files.

Thanks in advance,
-Matt

!!!!GO HABS GO!!!!

Lowkee33

QuoteI am switching Terrain Mods, luckily my old terrain mod was not compressed so it is removed. However,  the texture dependancies are compressed and I want to remove them because i don't like the way the beach textures.  The texture packs are in the TSC folder.  So If I were to delete the compressed TSC DAT file.  Then go into my "plugins disabled" folder, remove the texture packs, copy the "new" TSC file, place it in my active plugins file, recompress that TSC file, would all work fine?  I would hate to have to find, and reistall all my great TSC addons.

Should work, just don't datpack the beaches back in.  :P.  There also may be stray files in your Compressed file, but hopefully you have a good recollection of what you did.

Easier may be to do this in Reader.  The beach textures are instance 0x00000#39.  The # represents the five zooms, and you will find that digit to be a 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4.  Remove all five beach textures.  Many beach mods also have the lower and deep sea textures too, and those are 0x00000013, and 0x00000014 (with the respective zooms).

Cliffs are 0x00000#44, but water is different. Water is 0x0918730#, where the # are  the zooms (like a base texture).

markouellette

Love this! my start-up time is only about 20% of what it used to be.

Is there a way to unpack a DAT file?  I don't mean the one created by dat packer, but I have a few files downloaded as collections that have some buildings I don't like; and other collections that only have a few things I do like.  I'd like to be able to remove just the things I don't want rather than have to bulldoze them every time they grow.

Thanks.

z

Use Ilive's Reader for this, and just delete the exemplars of the buildings and lots that you don't want to grow.

legoman786

#754
I've got a question for everybody, which IMO will help everyone save time:

Has anyone made a cumulative list of what is recommend or suggested not to DatPack?

I've heard some people not to DatPack the NAM and the SPAM, but I wanted to get your opinions first.

EDIT: I just read through the whole thread, and I'm pretty convinced not to DatPack the NAM folder.

I, however, got this error in the process:

********************* ERROR *********************
in examplar 0x6534284AL 0xD3D5AF87L 0x1491265EL
located in C:\Users\<I HID MY NAME LULZ>\Documents\SimCity 4\Plugins\CAM\SFBT\Pre-Fabs\R$9_4x4_SFBT Pre-Fab Low Rise Double Block.SC4Lot

*************************************************


I had a million more about the Keaton Plaza, but I read through on what to do with them. ;)

And then... I get 114 superseded files. I'll take them out of my plugins folder, but if something goes wrong... It's your door I busting down, Wou. :P

legoman786

Hey wou,

What filesystem does the DatPacker follow? FAT/FAT32 or NTFS? It would be good to know how deep I can make the folder hierarchy.

JoeST

I would guess that it reads through the Windows 'Logical' VFS, in which case it doesnt care on how deep you go (though you might hit issues with inception). All it does is take each file it finds in a directory (recursively) and appends it to the outputted file, in the special format of sc4files (DBPF).
Copperminds and Cuddleswarms

legoman786

Weren't there cases for filenames being too long, or having too many directories? That's why I asked.



Also, using logical and virtual in the same sentence.  $%Grinno$%

SC4BOY

Quote from: legoman786 on May 17, 2011, 02:37:01 PM
Weren't there cases for filenames being

it  would take you only a few seconds to test this.. move it and see if it matters

FrankU

Quote from: markouellette on May 07, 2011, 12:01:32 PM
Love this! my start-up time is only about 20% of what it used to be.

Is there a way to unpack a DAT file?  I don't mean the one created by dat packer, but I have a few files downloaded as collections that have some buildings I don't like; and other collections that only have a few things I do like.  I'd like to be able to remove just the things I don't want rather than have to bulldoze them every time they grow.

Thanks.


I would copy the original file, rename it and then start deleting. Otherwise you will confuse the original and the edited file someday.