Newbie Question Thread

[kj911]

Masquerade: The recompressed BSA archives, betterly compressibble or not?? Or better ways recompressing in store mode (supported?) and packing with any better methods? (ex: msc+srep+lolz)

[Ra7eN]

Originally Posted by Masquerade

For WAV audio, use MSC with Tak plugin. You can rebuild the BSA archives using BSAOpt.
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/247/

Please note if you recode the wavs to mp3 with lame, the game might not recognise them anymore.

Hi, thanks for the fast reply!
I have BSAOPT I'll have to take another look at it. I used to do this with other games that use wav and use lame to crush them down. so far no issues, except one game. I had a wav compressor at one time, however, my main issue was getting the files BACK INTO the bsa file LOL

Currently I did the usual precomp+srep basic and got 27GB skyrim to 11GB, but I am sure if I can at least get the wav files down to size, I should be able to get it under 10GB.

[Ra7eN]

Originally Posted by adrianskiloses

Another question:
What if I convert all the mp3 files in a game to ogg beforehand, and then attach a ogg to mp3 converter and a batch script to revert them back to mp3? Will it improve compression ratio, even a little bit depending on how many mp3 files are there?

why are you converting mp3 to ogg?
It appears that you do not have the LAME encoder based on your post. Instead, it seems that you have a decOGG compressor. If this is correct, I recommend replacing it with LAME, which can be easily found online. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to share a link, but you can look for it in various places. LAME will effectively compress your MP3 files, so there's no need to use OGG in this scenario.

[Masquerade]

Originally Posted by kj911

Masquerade: The recompressed BSA archives, betterly compressibble or not?? Or better ways recompressing in store mode (supported?) and packing with any better methods? (ex: msc+srep+lolz)

BSAopt is not suitable for repacking since every time you make an archive with it, the CRC is different.

I'm not up to scratch with BSA format, but I don't think the media files are compressed. Beyond that, I believe LZ4 compression is used.

[KaktoR]

SkyrimSE using lz4f with level 10 if I remember correct. And if I am not mistaken you have to use lz4 library 1.8.0 or something like that to get a decent amount of streams.

[Ra7eN]

Originally Posted by Masquerade

BSAopt is not suitable for repacking since every time you make an archive with it, the CRC is different.

I'm not up to scratch with BSA format, but I don't think the media files are compressed. Beyond that, I believe LZ4 compression is used.

confirmed, they are not compressed. I forgot about the CRC. Does - skyrim(and/or bethesda) make use of that.

[allgravy]

Howdy! Apologies for my grammer and thanks in advance for your help.

How would i add ztool to diskspan please...

[Ra7eN]

OK, I am from the old BBS days (Myth, Paradigm etc..) and have been fascinated by extreme compression. These days I learn it as a hobby. So wanted to thank you all for this site.

Sorry I have a noob question.

I know this is part of an arc bat file (I love working with batch), however what is this part

-mprecomp+srep+lzma:a1:mfbt4:d256m:fb128:mc1000:lc8

Because when I run it,
arc a -lc8 -ep1 -ed -r -w.\ game-1.bin -mprecomp+srep+lzma:a1:mfbt4:d256m:fb128:mc1000:lc8 "D:\GAMES\my_game_file\*"

gives me an error
recent one was general (de)compression error in precomp
other times it looks like it skips both precomp and srep and just finishes susccessfully.

How am I using this incorrectly?

Thanks!

[Masquerade]

^^

The -m parameter in FreeArc specifies the compression method to be used when making your archives.

Methods can be internal methods built into FreeArc or they can be defined in arc.ini as external compressors.

In your case, it looks like precomp and srep are external compressors whereas you are using FreeArc's internal lzma compressor.

Secondly, when you have methods with colons after their name, this is a way of defining parameters for that compressor at runtime.

For example, the oggre compressor by ProFrager, arc.ini would look like this:

[External compressor:oggre]
header = 0
packcmd = {compressor} {options} $$arcdatafile$$.tmp $$arcpackedfile$$.tmp

FreeArc has many internal constants, two of which I have shown above.

{compressor} instructs FA to look for oggre.exe. It simply fills the {compressor} with the name defined at the start of the entry.

{options} is where we pass our arguments at runtime. For example, if I used -moggre:s3, FA would translate the s3 to -s3 and use that parameter for oggre.exe.

[Ra7eN]

@Masquerade

thanks.. easy to follow.
I noticed when reading the "specific game" section they put up a series of commands. Using an example where in the command line is that inserted?

Is there a thread here that goes into more detail. I would like to explore this more in depth.

Thanks!

[Ra7eN]

hI
OK, One final Noob question

regarding the "specific game" section ??

What criteria is needed to determine which method to use.

Lets say for example I have a ton of wav files in a game, or lots of DDS files. What would I need to look for?

Thanks!

[Masquerade]

Originally Posted by Ra7eN

@Masquerade

thanks.. easy to follow.
I noticed when reading the "specific game" section they put up a series of commands. Using an example where in the command line is that inserted?

Is there a thread here that goes into more detail. I would like to explore this more in depth.

Thanks!

Please may you give an example of what you mean?

Originally Posted by Ra7eN

hI
OK, One final Noob question

regarding the "specific game" section ??

What criteria is needed to determine which method to use.

Lets say for example I have a ton of wav files in a game, or lots of DDS files. What would I need to look for?

Thanks!

for wavs, use msc with tak plugin. For DDS, use srep then lolz.

[Ra7eN]

^^^
Example: Yes
Here is a good page I think covers the information I am looking for

https://fileforums.com/showpost.php?...1&postcount=11

Which goes hand-in-hand with my question for the following you suggested:

for wavs, use msc with tak plugin. For DDS, use srep then lolz

How are these and what you suggested implemented?

Please keep in mind, that I am from the old BBS days where we ripped games in order to get them to make for a decent download on 9,600 - 14.4bps modems. So this method with arc is a little new to me after some 30yrs :-) (ok, Im an old fart)

[KaktoR]

^
You cannot use more then one -m option in command line for a single archive. So either combine them or make two archives.

arc.exe a -s -ep1 -r -ed -w.\game1.arc -mmsc ["path_to_game_folder\*.wav"]
arc.exe a -s -ep1 -r -ed -w.\game2.arc -msrep+lolz ["path_to_game_folder\*.*"] -x["path_to_game_folder\*.wav"]

As for the TAK plugin for MSC, you just have to place "pack_TAK.exe" in the same folder where "msc.exe" is located for compression and use in arc.ini like this

[External compressor:msc]
header     = 0
default    = -raw=1 -bmf=9 -bmp=1 -wav=1 -mp3=1
packcmd    = "MSC.exe" c -f -v {options} InFile OutFile
unpackcmd  = "FAZip32.exe" -i0 decompress:msc_d <stdin> <stdout>
datafile   = InFile
packedfile = OutFile

[Ra7eN]

I caught that right as I sent that. I am working with too many bat files, so cleaned it up. I'll take another look again

Thanks!