help Creating a .CAT file with a folder.

[Lolmin2908 0]

Hello, 

I'll start off with just a one question; how do i create a .cat file? I don't even know if this is the right forum to do this but it was the best one. So why do i need to make a .cat file?, i wanted to add some RWRsounds to the sound list but was dumbfounded when it didn't belong in there. So i got the Cat extractor from thirdwire out and searched for the base RWRsounds, i extracted all the files from the Flightdata.cat and put them in a folder but now i am stuck with a regular folder that needs to replace the Flightdata.cat. But i don't understand anything when it comes to catalog files. If anybody does, please help me. I don't know what i need or what i need to do. 

Kind regards

Edited December 29, 2022 by Lolmin2908

[+EricJ 3,934]

As far as I know there isn't a way to make game-ready .cat files for the game. Nobody in the community has successfully done it. I may be missing something but you use the mod folder as your "cat" file and so on. You'd have to contact TK (good luck with that...) and maybe he would release the program that makes them. But realistically there isn't a way I know of since 2005 (when I started my membership here).

[Lolmin2908 0]

9 minutes ago, EricJ said:

As far as I know there isn't a way to make game-ready .cat files for the game. Nobody in the community has successfully done it. I may be missing something but you use the mod folder as your "cat" file and so on. You'd have to contact TK (good luck with that...) and maybe he would release the program that makes them. But realistically there isn't a way I know of since 2005 (when I started my membership here).

Wow okay, i didn't know this was a long-ongoing discussion. But i appreciate the quick response. But could you know why the sounds aren't registered in-game? (it's a mod that is downloaded but the RWR track and lock sound aren't present, i tried contacting the mod creator but that was a bust. And with a long day of looking in files and trying stuff, i ended up with the .cat)

 

[bazillius 1,252]

I can't even imagine of a situation in which I would need to pack the modification into a cat file. Well, leave it in the mod folder. What for?

Edited December 29, 2022 by bazillius

[Lolmin2908 0]

18 minutes ago, bazillius said:

I can't even imagine of a situation in which I would need to pack the modification into a cat file. Well, leave it in the mod folder. What for?

A F-22 mod. Everything works except for the RWR alert sounds. And i kinda want them to be able to fly. But they don't work with the mod sounds nor the standard sounds. Soundslist.ini and all mod ini's proved meaningless. I kinda spiraled down and ended up in the flight folder with the .cat's. It was a last effort action. 

[Wrench 9,424]

There is no need and absolutely no reason to repack cat files. Any and all extracted files go into their various folders within the mods folder.

example, in your case, all RWR lists go in the /Flight folder. All RWR tgas go in the flight folder. For specific aircraft, you can put their *name-of-plane* rwr.lst into BOTH the aircraft's folder AND the /Flight folder. Unless the warning sounds require a specfic noise, you shouldn't have to mess with the sound list file, either.

[Lolmin2908 0]

38 minutes ago, Wrench said:

There is no need and absolutely no reason to repack cat files. Any and all extracted files go into their various folders within the mods folder.

example, in your case, all RWR lists go in the /Flight folder. All RWR tgas go in the flight folder. For specific aircraft, you can put their *name-of-plane* rwr.lst into BOTH the aircraft's folder AND the /Flight folder. Unless the warning sounds require a specfic noise, you shouldn't have to mess with the sound list file, either.

okay that explains alot but, but why does it still not work when i have verified that it is looking for the right file? and the mod's readme said that a custom sound is recommended. I had the same thing happen with another mod but i didn't keep the mod so i thought it was just broken. but now i am thinking that it is my game that's doing this.

Edited December 29, 2022 by Lolmin2908
I forgor

[bazillius 1,252]

3 hours ago, Lolmin2908 said:

A F-22 mod. Everything works except for the RWR alert sounds.

edit F-22A_AVIONICS.INI

[RWR]

....

TrackSound=F22RWRTrackSound.wav
LockSound=F22RWRLockSound.wav
FlashActivityOnLaunch=TRUE
ThreatLibraryFile=RWR.LST

 

Packing in a cat file it is the strangest thing i have ever heard here on the forum

 

[+yakarov79 10,503]

Well i have to disagree. If us modders can create cat file - creating complex mods  would be much easier. I could make 6 versions of one cockpit but still use majority of skin jpges from one dedicated cat file...and then few aircraft can use same cockpit which result in saving disk space in case of big mods...one harrier can use one dedicated cat file cockpit in few different game mods

...not to mention easier life for ground object modders and terraformers.

[Lolmin2908 0]

1 hour ago, bazillius said:

edit F-22A_AVIONICS.INI

[RWR]

....

TrackSound=F22RWRTrackSound.wav
LockSound=F22RWRLockSound.wav
FlashActivityOnLaunch=TRUE
ThreatLibraryFile=RWR.LST

 

Packing in a cat file it is the strangest thing i have ever heard here on the forum

 

Okay… I am sorry

[bazillius 1,252]

2 hours ago, Lolmin2908 said:

Okay… I am sorry

Thats okay , pal. the forum is made for question as i think. I was just surprised by your question.  I assume that you have previously modified some other game, such as Quake, unpacked the resources and again packed them into a *,pak . Here its not work in this game

[+gerwin 449]

4 hours ago, yakarov79 said:

Well i have to disagree. If us modders can create cat file - creating complex mods  would be much easier. I could make 6 versions of one cockpit but still use majority of skin jpges from one dedicated cat file...and then few aircraft can use same cockpit which result in saving disk space in case of big mods...one harrier can use one dedicated cat file cockpit in few different game mods

...not to mention easier life for ground object modders and terraformers.

FYI CatPack can do that. You have to select format version 2 two when it asks. (version 1 is the older format for SF1). It does not support folders (I could add that, but who cares?). All versions of SF2 work fine with the created cat files.

[+DoctorQuest 107]

And I would think there is some processing efficiency gained by packing files into a CAT. Whether it is worth it is an entirely different question.

Would ODS load faster if some of the larger components were packed into CAT files rather than existing as discrete files in a folder? I really don't know. I also don't know how a CAT file would be viewed by the game if it existed in a mod folder.

I think it was a legit question.

 

[+Menrva 3,990]

6 hours ago, gerwin said:

FYI CatPack can do that. You have to select format version 2 two when it asks. (version 1 is the older format for SF1). It does not support folders (I could add that, but who cares?). All versions of SF2 work fine with the created cat files.

Well, folder support would actually be useful, it would allow us to replicate the stock game's .CAT archives. I think it's worth having.

6 hours ago, DoctorQuest said:

And I would think there is some processing efficiency gained by packing files into a CAT. Whether it is worth it is an entirely different question.

Would ODS load faster if some of the larger components were packed into CAT files rather than existing as discrete files in a folder? I really don't know. I also don't know how a CAT file would be viewed by the game if it existed in a mod folder.

It depends. I experimented with a terrain packed into a CAT and there was no such gain. The real gain, if folder support is added, is to have identical textures be shared between objects instead of having dozens of copies of the same texture. That would bring some gain.

An effective way to optimize stuff would be to map aircraft and object 3d models to a limited number of texture files. Having 4 or 5 bitmaps for each aircraft skin surely offers best quality but at much expense of VRAM. That is why sometimes you get black/missing textures in ODS and in other bigger mods. How the game loads textures into VRAM is not in our control and from what I see the game is ineffecient on this end; play consecutive missions in a campaign and it feels like VRAM is filled with textures loaded from those previous missions, even if certain objects are no longer present in the new mission. Unfortunately it's not like we can remodel and remap hundreds of aircraft. Resizing all textures to 1k or 512 resolution is out of question for ODS, I already lost weeks in resizing most of them manually to reasonable values as a compromise between quality and performance.

Edited December 30, 2022 by Menrva

[bazillius 1,252]

12 hours ago, yakarov79 said:

..one harrier can use one dedicated cat file cockpit in few different game mods

 

are you sure it will work without adding new links for your new cockpits in game engine? cat file it is just an archive

[+gerwin 449]

On 30-12-2022 at 12:18 PM, bazillius said:

are you sure it will work without adding new links for your new cockpits in game engine? cat file it is just an archive

It works. For example; I have a few spitfires with a cockpit.ini as below. But the actual model+texture files are in a .cat. They are found and used.
 

[CockpitData]
Directory=cockpit
...
[CockpitSeat001]
ModelName=spitfire_F45_cockpit

 

[bazillius 1,252]

1 hour ago, gerwin said:

It works. For example; I have a few spitfires with a cockpit.ini as below. But the actual model+texture files are in a .cat. They are found and used.
 

[CockpitData]
Directory=cockpit
...
[CockpitSeat001]
ModelName=spitfire_F45_cockpit

 

you want to say that you made custom cockpit and packed it in cat file. then you call it with ini file in Cocpit.ini and it works?

Why then if i copy and paste renamed file Avionics70.dll to Avionics70_experiment.dll

and i call it for example by A-4M.ini file with this string

[AircraftData]
AircraftFullName=A-4M Skyhawk
AircraftShortName=A-4
AircraftDataFile=A-4M_data.ini
CockpitDataFile=A-4F_COCKPIT.INI
HangarScreen=A-4M_hangar.JPG
LoadingScreen=A-4M_Loading.JPG
LoadoutImage=A-4M_loadout.tga
LoadoutFile=A-4M_Loadout.ini
AvionicsDataFilename=A-4M_avionics.ini
AvionicsDLL=Avionics70_experiment.dll
UserList=A-4M_UserList.ini

 

it doesnt work.

if in engine function is to read the folder not the direct link it have to work than.

In this case you can pack any files in any cat file and it shoud work than. I t shod unpack in RAM at the game loading and stay there for calling by game. Why problem apear than? or i understand something wrong?

Edited January 2, 2023 by bazillius

[bazillius 1,252]

And even if so, I still see no reason to pack everything into a cat file. The modification size on the hard disk is being exchanged for the occupied RAM memory. Which, in my opinion, is only worse. Because the game is so slow to the point of horror. I would not pack my mods in cat.

[+EricJ 3,934]

I think for a good sized mod (like ODS) then maybe it would be good. It'll cut down on files that's for sure and maybe space (don't know much about that), but for small mods I agree as it isn't necessary so much, unless you're doing a lot.

[+Menrva 3,990]

10 hours ago, bazillius said:

it doesnt work.

if in engine function is to read the folder not the direct link it have to work than.

In this case you can pack any files in any cat file and it shoud work than. I t shod unpack in RAM at the game loading and stay there for calling by game. Why problem apear than? or i understand something wrong?

No, it doesn't work like that. DLL files cannot be packed into CAT archives nor can be added to mod folders, they are the main game's logic and libraries. You have to add your DLL in the proper subfolder of the game directory alongside the other stock game ones.