[wouanagaine]

This is a place holder for those who have registered to the BSC LEX and had downloaded SC4DatPacker

If you have any problems, questions, comments, just put them here

[pvarcoe]

Thanks Wouanagaine.

I have downloaded the SC4DatPacker and am going to fire it up in the couple of days.
I will start by combining all my tree files into one, and see how that goes.

[Gaston]

Wouanagaine,
    Seems like pretty good stuff.  Only problem is that my readme seems to have dissapeared into never never land, and I think I did something wrong.   I now have doubles of a bunch of stuff.    I seem to recall that I am supposed to move something after running it but I can't remember what it was and can't find the readme to find out.  And yes I did read the readme, just not very well I guess.   LMAO.   Okay ya'll can stop laughing now. 
Can you sent me the readme or link me to it?    Thanks in advance.

---Gaston

Okay I said you can stop laughing now.

[BarbyW]

You need to move all your sub folders except the Plugins_Compressed out of your plugins folder to play. I use start up manager and so I have a Plugins and a Plugins Disabled folder. All the folders I have packed into the Plugins_Compressed folder move to Plugins Disabled to play. Hope this helps.

[Gaston]

Thanks Barbyw.   I think I understand.    So everything in the "plugins compressed" is a copy of the files in plug ins.   So, if I understand you correctly, I need to move everything in plug ins except the "plugins compressed" file out to something else like a "plugins disabled" file out-side SC4, like into my "my documents" or someplace like that.    I think?   I hope that is what you mean.     Or I'm gonna be moving alot of files back and forth today.     LOL.


---Gaston

[pvarcoe]

Yup, as far as I know, you got it correct Gaston.

I tried out DatPacker at lunch and it compressed 159 files (trees) into 1 file (88 megs, mind you).
I moved the original tree files out of plugins folder and fired up the game.
Seemed to work correctly, but I need to do some before and after time checks to compare results.

[BarbyW]

Gaston, You don't sctually need to move them out of the MyDocs\SC4 folder but out of Plugins. Make a folder in the SC4 folder called Plugins Disabled and then you haven't far to move them. The game will not take any notice of the Plugins Disabled folder.

[Gaston]

Thanks a bunch barbyw.   I'll give it a try.    Hopefully it will solve the doubles problem and make things work faster.    Since I recently "de-vanilla'd" the game a bit more, I have increased the plug ins alot.  That has slowed me down as well.    Hmmmm, I wonder if I can move the entire contents out then move the "plugins compressed" back in?    I guess I'll find out.   LOL


Thanks again,
---Gaston

[jeronij]

Hello there,

I just wanted to post my congratulations and thanks to Wouanagaine for releasing this tool.
I want to write a brief tutorial about how to boost your loading times witht this tool, and take advantadge of its modular use. I am so short of time that I dont know when will I be able to write it so in the meantime, a quick hint: Once you have created your compressed folders, run the windows defragmenter. It will greatly increase not only the game, city and menu load times, but also the main system performance.
I have a 1.7GB compressed plugins folder, and it takes 1 to 2 minutes to load the game, the first time, and 2 to 3 minutes to load a big city tile which is half developed at the moment. The menus do also open inmediatley !!! ( before this tool, most of the times I forgot what I was looking for, after waiting minutes for the menus to open !!!)

MERCI MON AMI for this great one 

[wouanagaine]

wOW lot of discussion when I'm not here

Ok Gaston, rinstalling won't hurt to get the readme back , but here is the readme with pics
Barbyw summed the readme
Moving ( not copynig  ) file take 0 times in windows if you move file on same drive ( 0 more or less ). Do not move any file that are in the root of the plugins folder as they are not packed (like the bldgprop_vol1.dat for example ). Now you can run the game and you'll notice :
switching between cities is faster
as jeroni said, opening a menu is faster


When you want to install new stuffs, just move the content of the disabled folder back into the plugins folder, install the new stuffs, run sc4datpacker again, it will only recompress what is needed, then repeat the operation


pvarcoe, I used it for 6 months now, not getting any problems so far with 1.8Go plugins, always get around 3 mins to get into a developped medium city from the desktop. Never get a 10 mins loading like I saw some players experienced with a same sized plugins folder

Hopefully barbyw and jeroni will write a good english readme on how to get the best from this tool to enhance your gameplay experience, without messing with my poor english

Thx all for your support&comment

[Alek King of SC4]

this is sounding very interesting I am approaching a 3 gig plugins and my load times are creeping up on unpleasent even with a high powered machine. after reading jeronij's testimonial i am very excited, you are a mad computer genious.

[Fred_Ginger]

Ummmm,  could someone help me with this?   
"error in file C:\Documents and Settings\Vicki\My Documents\SimCity 4\Plugins\Jeronij\JRJ_CPT Trees as props\CP DougFir 1 to 5 Prop Vfamily.dat

error in file C:\Documents and Settings\Vicki\My Documents\SimCity 4\Plugins\parks\Parks-Other\Legoland-0x5ad0e817_0x2d92824a_0x1a0000.SC4Model"
I got the tree error three times.

Please, single syllable words - remember, I'm the computer idiot!

Oh, and maybe you should have said something like "Vicki, you twit, you should run your new installs before running th SC4 DAT Packer" 

[wouanagaine]

well let whisper will you ? I think Jeroni knows that his CP DougFir 1 to 5 Prop Vfamily.dat is 0 kb size and hence datPacker can't read it.

For the other file I suspect the same kind of error.

So with single syllable words => no prob in fact
If datPacker can't read a file, it is likely SC4 won't be able to read it either, so you won't see a miss in SC4

And now I said it :
Vicki, you twit, you should run your new installs before running th SC4 DAT Packer

but it really does not hurt, I install stuff everyday and it is just a matter of moving files in/out your plugins.
DatPacker will be aware of new file in a subfolder and will only rebuild pack of modified subfolder
So with your example, if you install a new park ( I suppose you will put it into somewhere under C:\Documents and Settings\Vicki\My Documents\SimCity 4\Plugins\parks\ ), you run SC4 DatPacker, hit start, it will only rebuild the 'Parks.dat' in 'Plugins_compressed' , not 'Jeronij.dat'

[Fred_Ginger]

Thank you, I even understood all of that!

[Gaston]

wouanagaine,
    1st:    Thank You , Thank You , Thank You... repeat into infinity.
     
     B):     This is the greatest thing ever created for "normal" computers.   (ie. Not some duo processing multi core ....   I don't even know what computer)     This makes running the game with lots of "icing" available to most of us.

     Thirdly:     I followed the advice from barbyw and it worked like a dream.   It proably cut the time it took to load in half and in the game it was running like I was still playing a vanilla game.   And I have just a bit less than 2G in my plug ins.

     I would recommend this to everyone.      It is a wonderful tool.      Now if I could just figure out how to get the lot information tool to work I'd be all set.            LOL     

     Thanks for posting the read me.  I dl'd it and will save it this time in my file for read me's.     I don't know how the other one didn't make it there.        Thanks once again.


---Gaston

[Fred_Ginger]

I'll have to 2nd Gaston's thank yous!  What a treat, my game loaded in two minutes!  The (large) city in two and 1/2 minutes!
Now, I have another question, how do I get things out of the compressed plugins - if I delete them from my regular plugins then run the tool again will it remove things?

[wouanagaine]

Wow thx for all the nice comments !

Now if I could just figure out how to get the lot information tool to work I'd be all set.

You should post a description of your problem in the SC4LIG Thread, either at SC4D or ST.

Now, I have another question, how do I get things out of the compressed plugins - if I delete them from my regular plugins then run the tool again will it remove things?

It should . The tool check the latest date/time operation in your folders and compare it to the date/time of the corresponding packed file. If the folder time is newer than the packed file, the packed file is rebuild.
If for some reasons the tool do not rebuild the packed file, you should click on the checkbox associated with that folder to force the repacking no matter what the date/time is. Or you can just delete the packed file from the compressed_plugins folder

[jeronij]

Fred_Ginger, a new version of CPT trees as props, fixing this 0Kb file is available in the LEX  .

[Fred_Ginger]

Thank you both, I gotta tell you - you've made this little old lady one might happy SC4 player!

[Gaston]

Wow thx for all the nice comments !
You should post a description of your problem in the SC4LIG Thread, either at SC4D or ST.

Thanks again wouanagaine.   I didn't even realize there was a SG4LIG thread.   LOL   I was actually just venting a bit of frustation.   But I will post something there.

Thanks again for the creation of "The Packer"   LOL


---Gaston