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Sim City 4 Devotion Tools => Tools - General Discussion => BSC NHP DatPacker => Topic started by: wouanagaine on March 05, 2008, 01:27:18 PM

Title: SC4DatPacker - A pictures guide
Post by: wouanagaine on March 05, 2008, 01:27:18 PM
SC4DatPacker
User guide

1. Where to find it
The old version (http://sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=26)
or
The new version (http://sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=1271)

2. What are the differences?
Why 2 versions ? Just because I found the old one was not fast enough.
Why both versions are still available ? In certains cases, like if you're using a Japanese version of Windows, the new version may have some problems or can't even run.

In the following, I'll use new version screenshots, but you can safely assume all features and buttons can be found in the old version as well.

3. First run
First, here is my plugins folder
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg171.imageshack.us%2Fimg171%2F6319%2Fscreenshot003rx4.jpg&hash=e5cd2e760b1dee194a40dff55b8a4a160b7be9dc)
SO, we'll run SC4DatPacker to pack all of this, and with some luck will get some nice loading time boost and will gain stability in SC4 - especially on the zoom bug.
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg136.imageshack.us%2Fimg136%2F1769%2Fscreenshot001zm8.jpg&hash=50fe7d58798ad9d219352d658798a3b3778914c8)

Clic on start and let SC4DatPacker take care of the hard work:
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg223.imageshack.us%2Fimg223%2F7159%2Fscreenshot005le1.jpg&hash=b42005c1e5cd2bf45e4aea17808844defe7d27e8)

When done, the "Close" button is active and you can quit
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg136.imageshack.us%2Fimg136%2F1872%2Fscreenshot006ai6.jpg&hash=2069865451aa2dcbe6235290f4f623af795a4330)
( just make sure you have check the errors and warnings and that they are ok - like .jpg files in your folders for example )

So let's get back to our plugins folder, there is now a 'Plugins_compressed' one
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg136.imageshack.us%2Fimg136%2F3011%2Fscreenshot007fi0.jpg&hash=974016c88ec28e70e0ef60cf0bd63357ee8541c1)
with the packed files matching the name of your folders
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg178.imageshack.us%2Fimg178%2F6607%2Fscreenshot008oz1.jpg&hash=6ff5d899b9ec4be237524d18eb86732c17977559)

So can we run and play SC4 now ?
Not yet, just another step, we need to move all plugins subfolders out of plugins
In my case, I created a Plugins_uncompressed at the same level as Plugins
So we'll move all Plugins subfolders in it with a cut&paste operation
cut:
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg181.imageshack.us%2Fimg181%2F3505%2Fscreenshot009gh9.jpg&hash=5206c5de720d528b10123a4b1920d58f3f5f14ea)
paste:
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg132.imageshack.us%2Fimg132%2F8159%2Fscreenshot010sq3.jpg&hash=ffa125846d6979e6ba7c4d1de0b68db7626255e8)
So now in Plugins we just have what we need to play
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg132.imageshack.us%2Fimg132%2F9822%2Fscreenshot011mr8.jpg&hash=2fd6340ca93c06b85c44cfe7d9d4e34dae2b64b6)
Let's play the game !

4. I want to add a new plugin !
Almost everyday, there is some great new custom content available, so how to deal with that if we downloaded a new file and we want to integrate it in the packed files ?
So simple, we'll put the subfolder where we want to install the new file back in our Plugins folder
For example, I want to install JRJ BreakWater1 in my Jeroni subfolder, I cut&paste it from plugins_uncompressed into plugins and I got:
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg209.imageshack.us%2Fimg209%2F7071%2Fscreenshot012ft3.jpg&hash=734831002a7c3bff2b5f0d7a51092ee8236b9c31)

Now I unzip JRJ BreakWater1 into Jeroni subfolder
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg528.imageshack.us%2Fimg528%2F7651%2Fscreenshot015zb8.jpg&hash=97632afdbe4fee689a1302f8a6320471cb850aa2)

Before running SC4DatPacker, we should delete jeroni.dat from plugins_compressed subfolder so SC4DatPacker will rebuild it with the new files
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg528.imageshack.us%2Fimg528%2F3015%2Fscreenshot016rd8.jpg&hash=4fa1c9881731d82ab7ef409f1a2920fda8ce1a1f)

We can start  SC4DatPacker and click start. It rebuilds Jeroni.dat
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg143.imageshack.us%2Fimg143%2F3599%2Fscreenshot018wm0.jpg&hash=ef767468b494a2f88b1c49f7fda27c321ecbfa18)
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg143.imageshack.us%2Fimg143%2F3483%2Fscreenshot019np4.jpg&hash=e2e6fc7a8b18a3e99413b9519d116dffab247fce)

Now, we just have to move Jeroni subfolder into plugins_uncompressed with cut&paste as in previous point and we'll have a good Plugins subfolder
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg132.imageshack.us%2Fimg132%2F9822%2Fscreenshot011mr8.jpg&hash=2fd6340ca93c06b85c44cfe7d9d4e34dae2b64b6)

5. I want to remove a file from one of my subfolder
Yeah, sometimes it happens
So we'll almost do the same as previously
Just cut&paste the containing subfolder from plugins_uncompressed into plugins
Remove the offending file - Maybe you should move it to a quarantine folder, never know  ;) ?
Delete the corresponding .dat file in plugins_compressed
Run SC4DatPacker in order to rebuild the files without the removed plugin
And move back the subfolder from plugins to plugins_uncompressed with a cut&paste

--- Side note ---
You can use star.torturer tutorial (http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=3764.0) about using the SC4 -UserDir option to save you from cut&paste