5 replies to this topic

[G4LV4TR0N]

Is it possible to unpack *.pak files and play with them unpacked? Assuming folder structure is intact? The only reason for this is possible performance/stutter optimization. Did anyone do any tests? Does PGI allow it?

[NARC BAIT]

your not likely to get any performance increase from unpacking the packed files ... that said, you can can extract the files with most archive programs (like WinRAR), but merely extracting the files will not change the games internal preference to load the .pak files ... you could try removing the pak files from the directory ... but ... I doubt its going to help you any ...

[Iceolator]

I think MWO *.pak files are not like Crysis paks, but just a ZIP archives. You can open any PAK in \Game\ folder with WinRAR and extract the files. I checked the compression and it's around 30%, so if you repack those files with 0% compression ZIP archives and rename they to PAK they may open a bit quicker. I don't know if it will affect the game performance though - probably not, though loading times may improve marginally.

UPDATE: Unfortunately, repacking it with ZIP-archiver and renaming back to PAK makes game unable to launch for me. Probably you also neeed to change some kind of signature with HEX editor or similar software.

Edited by Iceolator, 08 May 2017 - 05:24 AM.

[NARC BAIT]

in most modern engines and architectures, your essentially unpacking the data to ram, and having it compressed can give lower read times from the media, err disk ...

lets humour the idea, a quick look at the level paks, and most of them are around 50mb, with 20% compression ... not great ... a 55 mb of data, is compressed to 46 mb ... first test archive, 15 mb ... assuming the engine will read it ... quick test ... nope ... it doesn't like it ... I could manually restore the 20 files I just messed with ... but .. nah ... lets give the repair tool a go and clean out the cache at the same time ... it crashes, I've still got one of the pak files open, its unrecoverable, kill thread, close file, rinse, repeat ... redo ... run two ... hash test, my file vs what it should be ... repair tool has a hissy fit and becomes unresponsive ... 14% cpu usage, but it isn't progressing ... go make coffee ... give it a minute to see if it gets hysterical or not ...

this time it finishes, and insists on redownloading a few hundred mb of data, including the gamedata.pak file, which I didn't modify this time, but I had actually previously deleted a file from it, and it hadn't had an issue before .... subtracting a file didn't cause an issue ....

anyway, I'd say that pretty much rules this out, unless you can get the devs to increase the level of compression they use, when they make the files ...

[G4LV4TR0N]

I've tried to play with compression level and it didn't work. Loading map crashes game instantly, without map loading screen. I've also tried to unpack files completely, doesn't work neither. Map loading screen shows up but it crashes right after.

But I don't really care much about map loading time, things that are important are for example in-game object loading times, those can cause micro-stutter. This could include mech paks.

Edited by G4LV4TR0N, 08 May 2017 - 11:24 PM.

[NARC BAIT]

I don't think you'll ever be able to find any optimizations there, mainly because of the way pgi has chosen to create the pak's, stored by camo patterns ... it should preload all the mechs in game during its normal process, but it really falls down in the sound system .... those elements are not loaded, until your client 'needs' to play them ... so each time you see a new mech type, you have one delay for its engine noise ( probably still happens on hpg where you cant hear them ) and potentially another for its weapons, assuming they haven't already been seen, to be cached ...