Yeah. Graphics --> Hacks --> EFB Copies --> RAM to fix it.
ah cool, was worried it was my dodgy repacker, thanks
Archived M2K2 Forum
Random question, trying to add language support to the STRG editor. Does anyone know all the languages the Prime games have been released in? All the ones present in the PAL version and MP2 are English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, and Japanese, but I'm not sure if there's more in other versions.
PakTool update! Filenames are now dumped into the list file in dump mode, and can be reused in repack mode. Further, repack mode no longer requires a single MLVL file to be present. These changes mean you can now use it to repack non-world paks like NoARAM or SamusGun. You can also now drag and drop paks onto PakTool to extract them immediately.
This new version of PakTool won't be compatible with the randomizer due to the new list file format. You'll need to use the old version for that.
edit: So here's a random interesting experiment I tried earlier. I deleted Metroid6.pak (Magmoor), then I stuck both Chozo and Magmoor in Metroid2.pak. Everything still worked fine. So that means the game doesn't really care what pak the files are in, so long as it's able to find what it needs. Also means you can easily create extra worlds if you want; not limited to just modifying the 7 the original game had.
This new version of PakTool won't be compatible with the randomizer due to the new list file format. You'll need to use the old version for that.
edit: So here's a random interesting experiment I tried earlier. I deleted Metroid6.pak (Magmoor), then I stuck both Chozo and Magmoor in Metroid2.pak. Everything still worked fine. So that means the game doesn't really care what pak the files are in, so long as it's able to find what it needs. Also means you can easily create extra worlds if you want; not limited to just modifying the 7 the original game had.
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No unused rooms. Lots of unused layers though; there's the boxes in Exterior Docking Hangar that you can see in the screenshot I posted a couple pages back, plus more interesting things like Magmoors in Monitor Station and Elite Pirates in the Phendrana pirate labs. Miles knows more about it than I do...
Oooh this is good news. Really wanted a new ISO tool since I wasn't very happy with any of the ones that were available. I had a lot of trouble with it the other day when I was trying to get the Echoes randomizer working... story time:
I couldn't get GC Rebuilder working properly with the Echoes randomizer, even with the correct systemdata files, for some reason. That led to me trying GC Iso Tool instead, which didn't work much better. The issue seemed to be the tools didn't like that the resulting ISO size would be too big. (Is that even important for USB loading?) GC Rebuilder popped up an error about it and refused to rebuild, while GC Iso Tool tried anyway, but produced a corrupt file that it couldn't even reopen itself. So that led to me working on adding LZO compression functionality to PakTool the other day, plus writing another utility to recompress Echoes MREA files... at least everything finally worked after that. (GC Iso Tool did, anyway. Still couldn't get GC Rebuilder to work, I have no idea why.)
tl;dr I really want a new ISO rebuilding tool so I'm very glad to see you're working on it
Also I'm a little confused by that first sentence
I couldn't get GC Rebuilder working properly with the Echoes randomizer, even with the correct systemdata files, for some reason. That led to me trying GC Iso Tool instead, which didn't work much better. The issue seemed to be the tools didn't like that the resulting ISO size would be too big. (Is that even important for USB loading?) GC Rebuilder popped up an error about it and refused to rebuild, while GC Iso Tool tried anyway, but produced a corrupt file that it couldn't even reopen itself. So that led to me working on adding LZO compression functionality to PakTool the other day, plus writing another utility to recompress Echoes MREA files... at least everything finally worked after that. (GC Iso Tool did, anyway. Still couldn't get GC Rebuilder to work, I have no idea why.)
tl;dr I really want a new ISO rebuilding tool so I'm very glad to see you're working on it
Also I'm a little confused by that first sentence
Quote:
I have well-documented "previous" with Retro Studios' Metroid Prime series of games.
Ah, "previous" is London slang, it's just short for "previous convictions". Well-documented previous convictions with the Metroid Prime series of games.
Not sure whether USB loading makes a difference, the apploader binary might check the FST I suppose and refuse to run if it detects a file out of range. But then USB loaders could probably just patch that check out. No idea.
Not sure whether USB loading makes a difference, the apploader binary might check the FST I suppose and refuse to run if it detects a file out of range. But then USB loaders could probably just patch that check out. No idea.
Forgot to mention. If you're using mkiso with (for example) a randomiser directory that's full of extra files from (for example) the unpacked PAKs, you will need the +ignore-new-files option or it will try to add them all to the new image, which will not end well.
In my tests I've tended to find that the Prime games aren't too worried about how their files are aligned on the disc, so if you're running out of space on an Echoes disc it may be possible to pack files in more tightly by using smaller alignment values. (mkiso doesn't currently support alignment control at all, but a crude hack would do it).
mkiso rebuilds my PAL Echoes image and reports about 50 MB of free space remaining. Not sure how tight your space requirements were but there's a bit of wiggle room there. Having said that it's not like I've tested that game all the way through to the end, so maybe I should shut up.
In my tests I've tended to find that the Prime games aren't too worried about how their files are aligned on the disc, so if you're running out of space on an Echoes disc it may be possible to pack files in more tightly by using smaller alignment values. (mkiso doesn't currently support alignment control at all, but a crude hack would do it).
mkiso rebuilds my PAL Echoes image and reports about 50 MB of free space remaining. Not sure how tight your space requirements were but there's a bit of wiggle room there. Having said that it's not like I've tested that game all the way through to the end, so maybe I should shut up.
The compression is actually a pretty big deal as far as filesize was concerned... Echoes's files come to 1.35 GB in total, and 1.60 GB with uncompressed paks and MREAs. Metroid1.pak alone is 246 MB with everything uncompressed, ~200 MB with compressed paks but uncompressed MREAs, 180 MB with everything correctly compressed.
Here's the MREA compression tool, btw, for anyone interested. One of the MREAs I tested with was identical to the original file after being decompressed/recompressed, so I seem to have nailed down the compression format pretty well.
I should prolly start putting this stuff in the first post soon
Here's the MREA compression tool, btw, for anyone interested. One of the MREAs I tested with was identical to the original file after being decompressed/recompressed, so I seem to have nailed down the compression format pretty well.
I should prolly start putting this stuff in the first post soon
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Another PakTool update; fairly big one.
First of all, repack mode now supports Metroid Prime 2's LZO compression. This is done by specifying the argument "-c 2". Since the tool now explicitly supports two completely different compression modes, compression now defaults to being off. It's recommended you pick the right compression mode based on which game you're repacking for; you can still access Prime 1's zlib compression with the argument "-c 1".
The other big change is support for Metroid Prime 3 paks! File extraction/decompression and file list dumping are all fully functional. That said, there's no repacking yet. Not sure when I'll get around to that; probably not until there's actually some interest in modding Prime 3. For now, this should be pretty handy for anyone who wants to poke through Corruption's files.
This version also fixes a crashing bug that happened occasionally in repacking mode that was introduced in the last version I released.
I'm gonna add all these tools to the first post now, heh. Should have this stuff in a place where it's easier to find...
edit: So if anyone's interested, I checked out the pak format from the leaked Corruption prototype to see if PakTool could dump it out. Turns out the answer is no. The pak format used by the proto is identical to the pak format in Echoes (including the compression format), except with 64-bit file IDs instead of 32-bit ones, so it's not gonna work without some modifications.
First of all, repack mode now supports Metroid Prime 2's LZO compression. This is done by specifying the argument "-c 2". Since the tool now explicitly supports two completely different compression modes, compression now defaults to being off. It's recommended you pick the right compression mode based on which game you're repacking for; you can still access Prime 1's zlib compression with the argument "-c 1".
The other big change is support for Metroid Prime 3 paks! File extraction/decompression and file list dumping are all fully functional. That said, there's no repacking yet. Not sure when I'll get around to that; probably not until there's actually some interest in modding Prime 3. For now, this should be pretty handy for anyone who wants to poke through Corruption's files.
This version also fixes a crashing bug that happened occasionally in repacking mode that was introduced in the last version I released.
I'm gonna add all these tools to the first post now, heh. Should have this stuff in a place where it's easier to find...
edit: So if anyone's interested, I checked out the pak format from the leaked Corruption prototype to see if PakTool could dump it out. Turns out the answer is no. The pak format used by the proto is identical to the pak format in Echoes (including the compression format), except with 64-bit file IDs instead of 32-bit ones, so it's not gonna work without some modifications.
attachment:
Not without modding the game, no. With modding, you'd have to enable the layer in the MLVL, similar to how the Frigate skip is done for the randomizer.
Miles knows a lot more than me about the unused layers, he might have some more information on if there's anything interesting.
Unrelated, but the STRG editor's getting a bit of a facelift.
Miles knows a lot more than me about the unused layers, he might have some more information on if there's anything interesting.
Unrelated, but the STRG editor's getting a bit of a facelift.