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You used FarQB to pack the files in 'Ghini Run, right? I've noted that you also included some bits of DQB in the game, so... can you explain me why you used FarQB instead of the "Datafile" module in DQB? It's faster? More secure? Better compression? Or what? :-?

Sorry, I currently have no time to perform these tests by myself, so your comments are really appreciated.

Well, there's 2 reasons I originally used FarQB over the DQB Datafile module..

1) I was going to pack all the supporting files into an archive, and just have an exe to run the program. Datafile is fairly limited in that it only really works with a number of formats tightly integrated with DQB routines that I wasn't even using. And the packUser format was no good for MOD files, or files over 64k.

2) 01001 said he'd add some LZW compression routines to a later release of FarQB. (DQBDatafile doesn't use any compression at all.)

So that's why I used it to start off. However...

i) It turned out FarQB couldnt dearchive the MOD files properly either, so I ended up archiving just the sprite files anyway.
ii) The compression routines were buggy and never made it into a proper release.

So ultimately, I could maybe have used Datafile after all FarQB can also dearchive either to memory or files... and I don't think it has the 64k size restriction. But datafile has the option of password encryption, so...

..the choice is yours

Hmmm... pretty interesting. I thought that DQB Datafiles were compressed using RLE, but if you say so...

Oh, and with your reply... new questions have arrived. Sorry.

Quote:And the packUser format was no good for MOD files, or files over 64k.

What happened?

Quote:It turned out FarQB couldnt dearchive the MOD files properly either...

Again, why? The demo example of FarQB exactly consists on a MOD player, and it seems to work OK.

Well, that's all for now. I'll take into consideration your previous experience. Thank you so much.

Quote:Hmmm... pretty interesting. I thought that DQB Datafiles were compressed using RLE, but if you say so...

*Checks docs* Hey, youre right! Next time I'll RTFM a bit better... :oops:

Quote:Oh, and with your reply... new questions have arrived. Sorry.

Piptol Wrote:And the packUser format was no good for MOD files, or files over 64k.

What happened?

Well it appears that the DQBunpackUser function only unpacks to memory, and the array where to place decoded data must be enough big to contain it. You probably don't want to be doing this with MOD files (which are often bigger than 64k anyway), all I wanted to do was decode the individual files to disk for DS4QB to use, then delete them went the program shut down.

FarQB *could* archive and dearchive MOD files, but when I was trying to create a big multi-format archive, the dearchived MOD files just would not play at all. So in the end I didn't bother, I can only guess it was a bug. I was actually using MO3s rather than sraight MODs.. although it shouldn't have made a difference :???: Maybe you won't have the same problem.

Quote:Well, that's all for now. I'll take into consideration your previous experience. Thank you so much.

De nada

Nuevamente, muchísimas gracias. Really appreciated.

er, you know even the FarQB coder moved on to using UGL, and recomends people using that instead of farqb. UGL has much more advanced archive intergration then DQB. FarQB is great and all, but since it's a stand alone lib it can't let other libs loads files directly from archive without having to extract them. UGL on the other hand can. It also has a full, directory system. Another thing it has is a windows app similar to file explorer to create and edit archives easly.

But you wouldn't know, would you?