Best Compression Methods for 'Specific' Games. Q&A

[L33THAK0R]

UPDATE: It seems it was an error on my end after-all.

Has anyone else had issues with reflate & preflate regarding "The Saboteur"? I ran reflate for a good 14hrs prior, as a first test, but alas it was still stuck at the same spot. Just want to know if it's something on my end or just the title itself, as the "Odin Engine" is a custom game-engine only used for this title (I don't know if its a fork of something like UE3 or Source, I couldn't find any documentation on it, after a brief searching period), and I'm not sure how its game-data archives function.

[Masquerade]

Originally Posted by L33THAK0R

UPDATE: It seems it was an error on my end after-all.

Has anyone else had issues with reflate & preflate regarding "The Saboteur"? I ran reflate for a good 14hrs prior, as a first test, but alas it was still stuck at the same spot. Just want to know if it's something on my end or just the title itself, as the "Odin Engine" is a custom game-engine only used for this title (I don't know if its a fork of something like UE3 or Source, I couldn't find any documentation on it, after a brief searching period), and I'm not sure how its game-data archives function.

Try using old xtool. Also use stdio instead of using $$arc$$s, it's faster. Also, srep+lolz+bpk makes bpk useless since any bink data will be put through srep and lolz.

[L33THAK0R]

Originally Posted by Masquerade

Try using old xtool

Yeah ended up going with xtool 2019.

Also use stdio instead of using $$arc$$s, it's faster

I'm still a massive newbie so got no clue what stdio is, I'll have to research this

Also, srep+lolz+bpk makes bpk useless since any bink data will be put through srep and lolz.

I'm fully aware, the actual order of compressors for that preset is bpk + srep + lolz, but as its my own script I haven't seen the need to change that (I have ~40 copies of it on my system, spread across multiple drives to limit the impact of storage I/O limitations, making it a pain to update all of em since at least 7 instances are running at any given time). Now that I think about it I used to use a mask for the bpk compressor (srep+lolz/$BINK=bpk) until a few months back when I encountered bink video files under different extension names & within archives, and stopped using it as a mask (couldn't be bothered constantly updating the mask), which probably explains the label of the preset.

[Masquerade]

Originally Posted by L33THAK0R

I'm still a massive newbie so got no clue what stdio is, I'll have to research this

Instead of $$arcdatafile$$.tmp $$arcpackedfile$$.tmp,you use - - <stdin> <stdout>

Example for old xtool:

packcmd = xtool e:precomp:t100p,c128m:zlib - - <stdin> <stdout>

[L33THAK0R]

Originally Posted by Masquerade

Instead of $$arcdatafile$$.tmp $$arcpackedfile$$.tmp,you use - - <stdin> <stdout>

Example for old xtool:

packcmd = xtool e:precomp:t100p,c128m:zlib - - <stdin> <stdout>

Ah alright, I didn't think there was an actual performance difference between the two, I'll run some tests to see what the difference is!