Converting Sound Folders Into BA2 Archives

[BlasterMasterCaster]

 

 

BA2 doesn't have a 2GB file size limit actually, it supposedly is a 64 bit format. I have seen archives in the upper single-digit GB range but don't know if there is a soft or hard limit below 64 bit. Look at Old World Radio for example, its Sounds archive is almost exactly 6 GB. Luxors texture packs touch the 4GB mark.

 

The archives should still provide a substantial performance advantage. Compression works regardless, might even be beneficial to operate on smaller archives for threading. Doesn't really matter if you have to keep one, two or three dozen file handles around though, as long as you don't make it a few hundreds to thousands by introducing loose files. I'm fine with a few very large archives though.

 

 

 

I went to take a look again at the data folder and saw that even Fallout 4 files do this. There are several texture files for FO4 and one goes a little bit above the 2GB "limit" thing that I read about in a couple of places, and FO4 also has a texture file with 2.4GB in a single BA2.

 

Maybe when I read about the 2GB limit they must have been referring to the Xbox limit and how mod creators would slash BA2 file sizes to make them compatible with Xbox or something, something about Xbox was mentioned in the website I read about the 2GB limit.

 

I remember downloading OWR but never saw the contents. lol

 

Now, the daunting part of archiving is going back to the game and testing all the archived contents to verify everything is in order. So far like 95% of what I have archived worked, but Archimedes II by CROSS for some reason refuses to recognize a skin texture and shows the C-Finder texture as pink, and I have no idea how to fix it so I am leaving that weapon with it's own BA2s.

 

I am also planning to archive mods that came as Loose Files into batches of BA2s. :smile:

 

I used to dislike BA2s and even went in a "turn everything into loose files" rampage when I found out about the seeming "limit" to BA2s that Fallout 4 can load, but now that I can archive BA2s together, I can slash the number of BA2s in the game while also turning things into BA2s, so archives are back on business for me again. :D

Edited September 26, 2019 by BlasterMasterCaster

[payl0ad]

9 out of 10 times when Archive2 refused to pack a texture file in a DDS-type archive on me, the texture file was missing mipmaps. The 10th time was me trying to feed it a PNG.

[BlasterMasterCaster]

9 out of 10 times when Archive2 refused to pack a texture file in a DDS-type archive on me, the texture file was missing mipmaps. The 10th time was me trying to feed it a PNG.

I am not sure if you are responding to my last post or making an unrelated comment, but if you are suggesting that the Archimedes II problem I wrote about could be related to mipmaps (I don't know much about them) or me inserting a PNG, I think this could be highly unlikely because the contents of Archimedes II I extracted from another BA2, they were already BA2s to begin with.

 

Unless you are telling me that there is another way to pack files into BA2s other than Archive2 that lets you insert PNGs and now that I try to do the same with Archive2 I can't get the BA2 to work? ???

 

I have experienced several issues when dealing with Niero's CROSS mods though, when I play with turning them into Loose and BA2 versions and get them to work. It's almost like Niero's mods refuse to be repackaged or turned into Loose files. Niero gives a low resolution of a lot of his mods available in the Nexus and then you go to his Patreon to download the high resolution textures. When I turned some of his mods into Loose files or other BA2s the high resolution textures refuse to be recognized in-game and instead appear low resolution for some reason.

[payl0ad]

I was trying to help you in finding out why that C-Finder shows up as purple.

 

Archive2.exe expects your DDS files to have mipmaps. If they don't, they're not valid DDS files as far as Archive2 is concerned, and it will throw an error message upon saving the archive. It will also not pack the texture into the archive. This is the most common problem I've encountered that would cause this for you. You can solve that by opening the DDS in your image editor (I'd prefer Paint.NET here as it's very fast and you only need to fix a simple thing) and re-save it generating mipmaps. Then re-pack the archive.

 

The PNG thing was a joke. I make mistakes, sometimes I try to pack the wrong files. Not saying it's the problem for you.

Edited October 6, 2019 by payl0ad