PK3 limitations

[Frenchguy]

Hello all,

Been a ooolldd player of Quake III, and still play sometimes with friends.
I reconnected to the game, and I found many new maps and models, UHQ packs textures, IOquake III...
So I was thinking to mix all this over my quake 3 game.

To optimize, I was thniking I could test all maps/models, chooses thoses I want, and mix It all in a single PK3 file...
I even mixed over original quake files, so I don't have redundant files (original/moded)...

and finally It doesn't work...

How you people do for playing the 300+ maps and 100+ models in the Q3A Original game???


I though have read in some forums, that put each bot in a pk3 and have 400 pk3 files in my game directory was worth than grouping It all in one PK3... but seems that I hit a limit... ??

It would be nice by the way If ioQuake3 wouldn't check Original pk3 presence... waist of purity to keep them If finally I use a moded version of 50% contained files...


Hope someone can clear me all this, or teach me a way to do
thanx

[obsidian]

There's little reason why anyone would want to mix the PK3 files together, it's better that they just stay independent and modular.

[Frenchguy]

hhmmm, It's a real phylosophic answer that you made me!

I have some reasons...
have a Quake made one for all, and not have to change It each time I wanna play a map or another...
After I hope I can just enjoy It for years!


you guys really spend your time looking for that Pk3 that contain your favorite map each time you wanna re-play It!
and when for luck you only remember the long map name that have in many case nothing to deal with pk3 filename... uuhh, It can become a great geeky adventure!!

well. maybe someone can give me the reason later. I'm patient.
I guess they must be a finlenumber limit or a quantity of MB that can't be outpast on the file scan at launching... probably coded in the exe, so probably anyway I won't be able to change It...
But If I could know It, then maybe I would limit objects number / total size when I pack my pk3 to fit It at the best!

wait & see

[bludshot]

Can you be more descriptive than "it doesn't work"? What does it do, do you get an error or something?

It's true though, there's no reason to do this. If you want to collect up all the custom and 3rd party pk3s you want and have them in the future in one file, then simply zip up your quake3 folder...

[Frenchguy]

doesn't work mean
1 map + 1 map + 1 map packed in a pk3 doesn't give 3 maps...

I simplified about quantities...

Although, after adding many files together, some maps loads, but part of the texture disappear (file BSP is loaded by the exe, but limit memory reached then no more space to load texture..? something like that I guess)

for the same reason when I use the ui expansion 1.2, It detects the bots, but can't import them ingame cuz the detection of part of the files wasn't done...

so I'm conforted in the idea there's a memory limit or a file number limit that the quake3 exe can handle

WICH por favor!!?? can't believe no one knows It... some dude here seems to program things 10x more complicated.
What I'm looking for seems so basic to me...

[bludshot]

Well, it may not be a memory limitation at all.

Consider this, different pk3's contain different textures and shaders. Sometimes 2 pk3's will have the same name for an asset like that (shader, texture, etc), and when it does, it breaks it for the other map. In fact, when you move everything to 1 giant pack, surely you would have encountered this and overwritten duplicate files. When you do that, you break some maps.

Ultimately what you're attempting to do (as I understand it) is fairly ridiculous. Just have a normal quake 3 folder, with normal pk3s and 3rd party maps and mods etc, and zip up the entire root folder. Then you have your quake 3 zipped into 1 file to install elsewhere, to not lose maps, etc etc.

[Frenchguy]

hhmm, this is precisely the aim.
Not have 10 pK3 with identical files duplicated in each of them.
As long as I don't replace the *.arena file, the maps should still appear.
Anyway, maps alwas have a different name, so no way to overwrite such files.

I can overwrite some 3D models, texture, but in worth case if 2 different map had a teture with identic name but different, one map only would be affected by bad texturing...

The problem I have is adding tons of maps... Q3A loose some "free space" to detect another things, and I got bug, for example on textures of ammo stuff, taht have nothing to deal with maps...

It still doesn't tell me how do you guys manage 200+ maps (maybe If I look better I can reduce the real good useful map list to 100... but still enormous!!!)

waitinf for the messy who will expain me the reason, and not tell me that what I do is stupid!

[Eraser]

What do you mean with "manage"? You just dump the pk3 file in your baseq3 folder and it's there. There's nothing to manage.

Besides, your plan fails miserably when you try to connect to a server running in pure server mode (which basically all public servers do). They only allow the client to load PK3s that are present on the server as well. So your mega pk3 will never be loaded by the client and thus you cannot play those maps on those servers.

So basically, yeah, what you're doing is stupid.

[Frenchguy]

I don't play on internet...
just with my friends...

[obsidian]

What you are trying to do is something that is beyond the initial designs of the system. The PK3 system was designed to be modular by nature and by doing the complete opposite, you are circumventing the design specs. You are free to continue trying to do what you wish, but don't ask people for support when you are intentionally trying to do something outside of the bounds of normal use.

This is like asking your mechanic why your car isn't very good at plowing through trees just because you decided your ideal shortcut is straight through a forest. Your mechanic will only tell you that cars aren't designed to plow through trees and trying to do so is stupid. He sure as hell isn't going to help you mount chainsaws on the front of your car.

[Grenader]

What you are trying to do is something that is beyond the initial designs of the system. The PK3 system was designed to be modular by nature and by doing the complete opposite, you are circumventing the design specs. You are free to continue trying to do what you wish, but don't ask people for support when you are intentionally trying to do something outside of the bounds of normal use.

On that same note, don't post unless you have blue eyes and blonde hair.

[obsidian]

[Plan B]

lol, calling obs a fascist.
That's rich.

[Eraser]

I don't play on internet...
just with my friends...

You talk about managing maps right?
How exactly are you going to manage and keep track of the content if it's all stored in one big pk3? How do you know what file (texture/shader/sound effect/model/etc) belongs to what map? If you have all separate pk3's, you can just remove a pk3 and the map is gone with all the related content. Same thing if a friend asks you for a specific map. You wouldn't know what files are required for the map so you end up copying over your huge pk3 even though your friend only wanted one single map and he's not interested in all the other maps.

So what, exactly, is the advantage of putting everything in one pk3 file? I can only see disadvantages.

[Frenchguy]

well, can someone tell me how do they manage that huge amount of maps and bots avaible on the web??
maybe I will learn a nice way...

[Eraser]

I ask you again. What is there to manage? You just put the pk3 file in your baseq3 folder and that's that. What else do you want?

[Frenchguy]

???

If I put all my pk3, the game will be overlcrowded under the pk3 to detect, I will only get half of It inside of the game to choose, and then, how to know wich ones are not detected then...
It's random choosed then... so I loose probably some good maps and good bots...

[obsidian]

LOL. What makes you think Quake 3 has a limit on the number of PK3 files installed on your system versus the number of maps you have. You're working all this on a pretty big assumption.

Double LOL:
http://www.gamefront.com/files/7854/MapMan_v1_00

[Frenchguy]

because I act, observe and deduce, then I try to explain
It's just a scientific method...

I put X pk3 in a folder
I launch Q3 and observe I have X - Y maps detected

I CAN SEE Y maps that have not been loaded
I KNOW that the the non-loaded maps works fine If alone.

THEN I can imagine that there's a file limit with pk3...

It's really simple to deduce!


If you have another explanation or a bigger knowledge,
FUCK
just share It instead of acting as you do!
You like to be pleased 1 000 times or what?
I fuckin hate that people who never answer clearly, or retain information, in order to look wiser, or to feel more important?????????????

Mapman doesn't work on win7...

people with nothing useufll to help, please... don't say nothing!

[Grenader]

LOL. What makes you think Quake 3 has a limit on the number of PK3 files installed on your system versus the number of maps you have. You're working all this on a pretty big assumption.

Around 255 if I recall. Certainly true for ioq3.

edit: Errr nvm, just managed to actually read your post correctly

[Frenchguy]

Yesterday, I finished my selection of models/bots that I want in my Quake 3 (moved all the ugly skins or too similar...)
I tried to join all the bot declaration in the one file "bots.txt" after the original ones.

I did all good, not forgoting any "{" and the spaces and all...

=> and not any bot anymore in my quake3 to frag with!!!

I remove all I added less 3-4, then It worked...
I added few to few bots, in case one of them would be badly define, making that file to crash
And It stopped working after a "Dragongirl" bot declaration.
Remove that lastly added one... It works back (so, or the bot "too much"=limit outpassed, or taht bot has a problem)
Then I switch It to another bot... still don't work... so I must deduce that file is limited in quantity of something...
Or line number, or file size, or bot number...
For count, It work with 106 bots, not 107...

Then I switch the rest of bots to another file "mybots.bot".
They load in the game interface, but, If I try to add them manually ingame, got a "bot is not defined" error...
So I deduce my bot was loaded by the menu... but, was lost after...

I carry on...
Once I got my list of boats (nearly 140) defined and appearing in the menu... lauynch a game...
And in the addbot ingame list... nothing anymore!!!
leave arena, return to bot menu of the map config, empty too!!

Should I deduce once again that the game loads all PK3 in a given amount of memory, then consume of that memory each time we do things ingame, like loading a map to play??
I remember some years ago when I made a first model/map selection, that I when I was spending too much time looking at my bots, I mean, click on each of them to visualize in 3D, after visualize 50 of them, the game used to simply stop loading the files, and I had a ghost model, with maybe only the gun...
Stop and reload game, and that particular bot was working fine again, then same problem later on after 50 bots visualization...


Anybody has yet experienced such things??????????????
Tried to upper the memory limit, but no changes...
(seta com_hunkMegs "512") and higher values seems really unusefull (2048 even crashes!!)

[Eraser]

Maximum size for bot definition file (such as bots.txt) is 8192 bytes. Do you see a "file too large" error message in the console somewhere?

[Frenchguy]

in effect!! got that message!
Strange to limit that file in size!

I'm gonna check another things with the console... to see If I learn more...

What about the memory consuming that cause file problems???

[Eraser]

It's not strange. You need to allocate memory to read the file and 8192 bytes should be enough for anyone that isn't wasting his time with useless nonsense.

[Frenchguy]

i was speaking about the second aspect...
bot.txt is not so a problem... If I can't join cleanly all in one, I won't do...

the major aim is to finally get the maps and bots installed and working with menu, and ingame...
wich is far from being the case...

I found today a model correctly displayed in the menu when you select the model representating yourself,
but once ingame only 2 textures of It was loaded... ???

so what would be the cause??
the mecanism that display in menu is not the same than in game?
wich are the limitations so?