SC4 Dat Packer

[JoeST]

These ones:



don't know what the bottom one is for, maybe because the side one is making the allocated area size too small.

Joe

[wouanagaine]

ah ok, I see, well those scroll bars are inactive because the listbox is disabled ( you can't select an item in the listbox )
the bottom one is here, because you certainly have a long folder name.

[JoeST]

uh, i just explained all my files are no longer that NDEX_Tragicomicus1

so that definitely inst the reason for the horizontal scroll bar

Joe

[Eladamril]

Guys, I need some help, I just downloaded the DAT packer and when starting up the program the main window just shows BSC (is this default?). It doesnt matter when I browse other selfmade subfolders like NDEX....they just simply wont show up in the main window. Also...When I hit the button process the bar just completes without hitting any files at all (analyzer) 

Solution?

ps I use windows Vista 32, but i suppose this wont pose a problem? 

[wouanagaine]

Have you read the readme ?

You don't have to browse anything, leave the destination folder as 'My documents/Simcity 4/plugins/plugins_compressed', it will just show you the list of subfolders you have in your plugins folder
Just hit start

And there is no problem with vista32 per se, I've made it on vista32

[City Builder]

I didn't read this entire threa so please excuse me if this has been suggested before (or if Im running an old version that doesn't have this capability).

I would love to see the ability to choose which folder the datpacker is going to compress.

Here is what I do, because my plugins folder is constantly being added to, I store my plugins uncompressed in the Simcity4/UncompressedPlugins/

Then when I feel that there has been enough new plugins added to that folder, I delete my existing Plugins folder  and copy the UncompressedPlugins folder to Plugins, then I run the Datpacker and compress them all up.  Then I delete all but the Compressed_Plugins folder that the datpacker creates.

But it would be really great if I didn't have to copy over my uncompressed plugins to the plugins folder before running datpacker by being allowed to choose what main folder the datpacker is going to work in.  Then it's pretty much automated for me and I've only to delete one folder from the plugins folder when it's all done.

So for those wondering, I do all this because I can't remember what files were in the plugins folder when i did the last compression and I don't want duplicates in there so having a folder structure where they are uncompressed allows me to find out if Im trying to add something I've already got.

Not a major big thing or anything, just one of those things that would be a nice feature.

[SC4BOY]

There are many mechanisms for avoiding this issue, none involving modifying DatPacker.. take a look at the thread on "windows shortcuts" which is current (search) and you'll see various suggestions

[wouanagaine]

Ditto as SC4BOY, also, 'moving' files is way faster than 'copying' them especially if you have a big plugins folder

and I'm not on a 'programming' mood period theses days

[quackmofro]

Whenever I try to use the DatPacker, I always get this error at the end:

"Plugins_Compressed\****.dat creation failed 131: An attempt was made to move the file pointer to the beginning of the file."

What does this mean?

[wouanagaine]

Does the ****.dat is a real file or you just type * for 'generic'

If first case I don't think DatPacker will be able to create a '****.dat' file
If last case, can you please write the real filename please ?

[quackmofro]

Oh, that was just a placeholder for a generic filename. The real name of the folder is "Dependencies" basically where all my dependencies end up. However, the size of the folder itself is 1.10 GB, and there are tons of subfolders in it just for organization purposes.

Also, another of my folders, "Lots", has the exact same problem, and it's 767 MB. Maybe I should try to split these folders up into smaller ones?

[wouanagaine]

Yes, maybe a split could help, but I'm not 100% sure

Did you try to datpack a small subfolder ? something around 100Mb to see if it is bound to the size or not

[quackmofro]

I just compressed my BSC dependencies subfolder, 460 MB, and it worked just fine. So it seems that splitting the folders up could help. I'll try that and report the results.

Also, I forgot to mention what a great program this is, and so are the others you've created. Thanks for all the hard work!   

EDIT: Aside from the BSC dependencies, I broke up my dependencies folder into four parts, including a SimGoober folder because it was 220 MB by itself. Everything compressed except for the SimGoober folder with the same error, so I decided to take all the subfolders and compress them individually. Only the SimGoober Farm Fields turned up an error. So I'll try to redownload it and try again. Otherwise everything else ran perfectly.

[quackmofro]

Okay, so I was finally able to compress everything with a few exceptions. It turns out that only a couple of files caused the problem, and after I deleted the old files and redownloaded them, they compressed smoothly. Two subfolders would not compress, telling me that "There is not enough storage to complete the operation", so I ended up just leaving those two uncompressed.

All is well now. Thanks for the assistance!

[wouanagaine]

You're welcome

[soulstealer]

Had the same problem. seems that 1gb+ folders are difficult to pack up.

I posted it before, like quack I keep my props/textures/megapack in their own folder and I ended up not compressing this folder since doing that slowed down my loading times back. I packed up all the rest and it's working great.

I don't know why it happens maybe when the game is loading the lot it also needs to load the lot's dependencies? I assume what happens is that a pack of plugin files containing many lots some with the models and props packed together but many of the lots reference to a prop pack somewhere in my props/dependencies folder, so the game needs to go back and forth between the two packed DAT files. And every time it tries to access the props DAT it needs to open a 1gb+ DAT file and search through it, so it slows down the loading time considerably.

Just a guess. Check it for yourself if you have your plugins organised the same way I have.

[wouanagaine]

A good hint is to have packed files roughly the same size a the simcity_x.dat from maxis

[soulstealer]

Hi wouanagaine . I noticed when DAT packer is at work you often get the message files in XXX were superceded... and was thinking this is a great tool to find duplicates. especially for obsolete prop packs, old models packed in mega packs, etc'. Is it possible to activate DAT packer only in scan mod to go over the whole plugins folder without compressing it, and finding duplicates IID's?

[wouanagaine]

unfortunatly you can't

[xxdita]

I use Clone Cleaner. The Lite version is free.