[Ben]

Oki doke, thanks to SteaVor, we now have another feature to implement into the installer. We can now clean out the Audio folder entirely of unused VC files. This package does the job - I created the BAT file, which removes all files from the Audio folder except for the radio stations and SFX, and the updated INI, done by SteaVor, means we can now put the GTA3 audio files straight into the Audio folder, thus meaning we have no need for the audioLC folder.

About the only thing the installer is going to need to do is run the bat file (which will be put into the Audio folder) and then delete it after it has finished running. CTM, whenever you get back, do you think you can do that?

Can you also fill me in on the progress of the installer please? It's been a while since we talked about it.



PS - I've updated the first post with this as well. IIRC, CTM had implemented the audio blanker into the installer, so that's going to have be replaced with this (just to be a pain in the ass ).

[STRIKER 2008]

I will likely add a torrent to the new package when it's ready.

This is a good idea. Adding a torrent to the new package will make the download faster than ever.

This post has been edited by ModelingMan on Saturday, Jul 5 2008, 23:42

[Alt]

I have suggest for some files of current installer. Those files are temporary so you can make them to self-delete after they do their job. So here is my edited FinishInstall batch file. I copied content of AudioCleanup.bat (so you wouldn't need it no more), added command to delete ShortcutSetup.vbs and added self-delete command for current batch file

CODE

DEL /F /Q %0

This post has been edited by Alt on Sunday, Jun 13 2010, 00:25

[SteaVor]

Actually, for the final release we'd put it all in one file (instead of three separate ones) which could be called by the installer at the end of the installation - or rather, some things included in the script will be done by the installer rather than the script (e.g. Desktop shortcut). The script was only meant to be used for the beta releases that didn't ship with an installer, so we've got two options now:

a) integrating all the things the script currently does into the installer

or

b) at least have the installer call a trimmed-down version of the script at the end of the install process.

What the FinishInstall script currently does:

- remove the read-only flag from all files in the folder
- setting up shortcuts (base functionality of any installer, so definitely not needed anymore)
- remove unneccessary audio und map files

As far as I can tell this should be fairly easy to integrate into any type of installer.

[Alt]

If installer will limited only with tasks you mentioned (not make back-ups, specify audio folder) then it makes no sense to make advanced inno setup (or whatever) installer. Just make winRar SFX as before and FinishInstall.bat as post-install task (it's not very hard to make it hidden too). If you want to specify GTA 3 Audio folder I see only way (through WinRar): some easy gui tool (or simple NSIS script) where you will only chose the path of your GTA 3 Audio folder and press OK or Cancel. SFX audio should be in SFX.raw, because manual installation is a bit long and complicated (and with installer it will make no scene).

[SteaVor]

No, I didn't mean to say that the installer should only do these things, but rather that the use of an installer (ANY decent installer) should make the FinshInstall script as a whole unneccessary as the tasks it performs aren't very sophisticated. The installer should do these things additionally.

[silver007]

Since installer progress appears to have stopped, and I had an idea on using Inno Setup for an installer solution prior to reading this topic, I went ahead and created my own version of the installer. Tested it a few times myself, and works perfectly to my knowledge but right now doesn't do everything we want it to do.
Those more familiar with GTA:LC might spot something wrong with the Installation that will need to be corrected.

http://sharebee.com/4e3c55e1

It will install GTA:LC Beta 3.1, which has the 3.1 updated files as well, and will also install the SFX automatically for you, and then cleanup all unnecessary files.

There are two things that the Installer doesn't do currently, and may not be possible to do using this solution.
One, you still need to manually un-mark your GTA:VC install from "Read-only" before installing, although Inno setup is able to make the installer overwrite read-only files, the script files that run after install don't work if the files are read-only.
Two, the installer doesn't have an option to install GTA3 audio for you, you still got to do it yourself. The functionality of installing extra files from another directory rather than from inside the .exe itself isn't in Inno Setup. However there is their feature request or there may be a way to do it using the built in support for Pascal scripting, which I know nothing about. I'll continue looking into it, if not I'll see if NSIS is a better solution.

As suggested by SteaVor, that the Installer should do everything we need it do it all by itself (unmark read-only, install, replace SFX, install GTA3 audio etc) without relying on any post-install scripts like this one, and previous ones do is not feasible if we are looking into using all-in-one installation builders like Inno Setup, or NSIS. An Installer package to fit all our specific needs without using scripts, especially having to run Nullpointer's Sound Tools, would simply have to be made from scratch, as I believe older installers like the Beta V1 installer was.

Even if it's not perfect or our final solution, I think it beats having to do it all yourself via extracting the winrar archives.

[silver007]

So scratch that Inno Setup installer, after learning how to use NSIS, it (potentially) is a perfect solution to what we want it to do.

http://sharebee.com/63b2578e

Here's what the progress is on what I've been able to do.

• Remove read only settings from VC.
  It is possible, but the command to do so SetFileAttributes, doesn't support wildcards, therefore a SetFileAttributes has to be called for every single file in the GTAVC installation
• Install/uninstall GTALC
  Working perfectly
• Optional Backup GTAVC prior to install, revert back to VC on uninstall.
  the functionality is working, however the command that should copy everything over to the "backup" folder, fails for some reason. But I was able to make a work around by puting additional commands to copy over the remaining folders.
• Automation of the SFX installation.
  After much headaches, finally got it working, problem was that without the UAC add-on, external programs like Nullpointer's Sound Tools didn't run as admin alongside the installer.
  Also, Unlike with Inno setup, it hides the Command windows from popping up. Instead you just see the status messages of what the installer is doing.
  SFX installation is also optional, it's checked on by default, not installing it obviously speeds up the install, but the VC SFX remain.
• GTA3 Audio
  Working perfectly, After GTALC installs, you are asked to specify a folder where the GTA3 audio is, (either from the disk itself, or a folder on the Hard Drive), If the User selects a folder that dosn't contain GTA3 audio files, a message pops up asking to select one that does, Users can skip this step by just pressing "Next"
• Install specific components of the GTALC installation only (models, data, etc)
  Possible, but a manual list of files to be copied would need to be made for each section, put on hold for now.
• No batch files
  All simple operations that the batch files did (which was just coping and deleting), are supported by NSIS. therefore there will be no batch files needed in the installation.
• Web Install
  Connecting to the internet and downloading files is supported via add-ons, and doesn't look that hard to implement, but on hold right now while I figure out more basic stuff.

The custom start and finish pages I made aren't that pretty, but i'll worry about that later. If we want to go ahead and use this, I can provide the NSIS script file as well as instructions on how to build your own install.

[Craig Kostelecky]

I like what you're doing. Keep it up!

[speed racer]

QUOTE (silver007 @ Oct 11 2010, 00:10)

So scratch that Inno Setup installer, after learning how to use NSIS, it (potentially) is a perfect solution to what we want it to do. http://sharebee.com/63b2578e Here's what the progress is on what I've been able to do. Remove read only settings from VC. It is possible, but the command to do so SetFileAttributes, doesn't support wildcards, therefore a SetFileAttributes has to be called for every single file in the GTAVC installation Install/uninstall GTALC Working perfectly Optional Backup GTAVC prior to install, revert back to VC on uninstall. the functionality is working, however the command that should copy everything over to the "backup" folder, fails for some reason. But I was able to make a work around by puting additional commands to copy over the remaining folders. Automation of the SFX installation. After much headaches, finally got it working, problem was that without the UAC add-on, external programs like Nullpointer's Sound Tools didn't run as admin alongside the installer. Also, Unlike with Inno setup, it hides the Command windows from popping up. Instead you just see the status messages of what the installer is doing. SFX installation is also optional, it's checked on by default, not installing it obviously speeds up the install, but the VC SFX remain. GTA3 Audio Working perfectly, After GTALC installs, you are asked to specify a folder where the GTA3 audio is, (either from the disk itself, or a folder on the Hard Drive), If the User selects a folder that dosn't contain GTA3 audio files, a message pops up asking to select one that does, Users can skip this step by just pressing "Next" Install specific components of the GTALC installation only (models, data, etc) Possible, but a manual list of files to be copied would need to be made for each section, put on hold for now. No batch files All simple operations that the batch files did (which was just coping and deleting), are supported by NSIS. therefore there will be no batch files needed in the installation. Web Install Connecting to the internet and downloading files is supported via add-ons, and doesn't look that hard to implement, but on hold right now while I figure out more basic stuff. The custom start and finish pages I made aren't that pretty, but i'll worry about that later. If we want to go ahead and use this, I can provide the NSIS script file as well as instructions on how to build your own install.

Dude upload it on Blasteriods.com and you are done. It has a good download speed with DSL.

[silver007]

QUOTE (speed racer @ Oct 15 2010, 21:46)

Dude upload it on Blasteriods.com and you are done. It has a good download speed with DSL.

At the moment the site appears to be down. If I catch it up ill upload it there for you. its 113MB.
Edit: Blasteroids.com does not appear to be a hosting website. It is a gaming website but its content is not provided by its users. (also someone has already registered my username wtf!?)

So I'm gonna go ahead and give out what I have now,
http://matt3d.exofire.net/GTALC/GTALCinstallerv1.0.rar
Inside is the NSIS script file, as well as a read-me with instructions on how to setup and build your own installer for GTA:LC, ya know... for those who have more updated files.
The script file will build the installer from 2 posts ago, no changes.

I am currently working on a new version, using the "Modern UI2" plug in, which will allow for a much more pleasant & recent looking Installer theme. The downside is that It looks like I won't be able to make a custom finish page that dynamically displays to you what options got installed like it does right now.
Also as a thought, I tried to see if during the VC backup, compressing VC to an archive instead of just copying the files to a "backup" folder was worth it or not. The only benefit it gives is an extra 300MB less space needed to back it up, while also increasing the time it takes to backup significantly. So no, not really.

This post has been edited by silver007 on Saturday, Oct 16 2010, 05:15

[lord_lc93]

QUOTE (silver007 @ Oct 16 2010, 04:42)

QUOTE (speed racer @ Oct 15 2010, 21:46) Dude upload it on Blasteriods.com and you are done. It has a good download speed with DSL. At the moment the site appears to be down. If I catch it up ill upload it there for you. its 113MB. Edit: Blasteroids.com does not appear to be a hosting website. It is a gaming website but its content is not provided by its users. (also someone has already registered my username wtf!?) So I'm gonna go ahead and give out what I have now, http://matt3d.exofire.net/GTALC/GTALCinstallerv1.0.rar Inside is the NSIS script file, as well as a read-me with instructions on how to setup and build your own installer for GTA:LC, ya know... for those who have more updated files. The script file will build the installer from 2 posts ago, no changes. I am currently working on a new version, using the "Modern UI2" plug in, which will allow for a much more pleasant & recent looking Installer theme. The downside is that It looks like I won't be able to make a custom finish page that dynamically displays to you what options got installed like it does right now. Also as a thought, I tried to see if during the VC backup, compressing VC to an archive instead of just copying the files to a "backup" folder was worth it or not. The only benefit it gives is an extra 300MB less space needed to back it up, while also increasing the time it takes to backup significantly. So no, not really.

Good job keep up the good work.

EDIT-Where to put the SFX folder.Into LC folder or the folder containing LC folder.

This post has been edited by lord_lc93 on Thursday, Oct 21 2010, 01:41

[silver007]

QUOTE (lord_lc93 @ Oct 20 2010, 21:11)

QUOTE (silver007 @ Oct 16 2010, 04:42) QUOTE (speed racer @ Oct 15 2010, 21:46) Dude upload it on Blasteriods.com and you are done. It has a good download speed with DSL. At the moment the site appears to be down. If I catch it up ill upload it there for you. its 113MB. Edit: Blasteroids.com does not appear to be a hosting website. It is a gaming website but its content is not provided by its users. (also someone has already registered my username wtf!?) So I'm gonna go ahead and give out what I have now, http://matt3d.exofire.net/GTALC/GTALCinstallerv1.0.rar Inside is the NSIS script file, as well as a read-me with instructions on how to setup and build your own installer for GTA:LC, ya know... for those who have more updated files. The script file will build the installer from 2 posts ago, no changes. I am currently working on a new version, using the "Modern UI2" plug in, which will allow for a much more pleasant & recent looking Installer theme. The downside is that It looks like I won't be able to make a custom finish page that dynamically displays to you what options got installed like it does right now. Also as a thought, I tried to see if during the VC backup, compressing VC to an archive instead of just copying the files to a "backup" folder was worth it or not. The only benefit it gives is an extra 300MB less space needed to back it up, while also increasing the time it takes to backup significantly. So no, not really. Good job keep up the good work. EDIT-Where to put the SFX folder.Into LC folder or the folder containing LC folder.

Yeah after re-reading my read me I should of made that clearer, it should be in the same folder as the .nsi file, therefore you should have the .nsi file, plus the 2 folders "GTALC" and "SFX"

I've notice that the script may contain a bug, when initially testing the installer, it would clean up any unneeded directories, (ie. after install, there should not be a "SFX" folder in the GTALC folder, also there shouldn't be GTAVC related map folders in "data/maps/")
But it dosn't seem to be working now. I'm not sure if its a bug with the script I gave in that download, or its a bug in my newer versions that I am testing. let me know if you can.

[lord_lc93]

The installer is perfect now game works without bugs. Silver007 I think you should ask SANVICE team about backup function of NSIS bcz their backup was proper.

[SteaVor]

I've thought about using a binary diff/patch (delta encoding) tool instead of Nullpointer's tools for the SFX and today took the time to test whether it was worth the effort, i.e. whether it reduced the size of the download considerably.

I've tested it with both sfx.RAW and gta3.img, the two largest files by far that we'd want to ship with GTA:LC final.
I've used the 64-bit version of xdelta3.0z to create the diffs (between GTAVC unmodified and GTALC Beta 3.1) and here are the results:

gta3.img
VC: 327,487,488 Bytes
LC: 192,194,560 Bytes
xdelta delta file: 79,312,505 Bytes

sfx.RAW
VC: 340,245,502 Bytes
LC: 283,815,444 Bytes
xdelta delta file: 35.503.780

That looks quite impressive, but unfortunately you'll need to take into account that the delta file produced by xdelta is highly compressed already, which means that archiving it doesn't compress it any further, unlike the plain gta3.img and sfx.RAW files, which can be compressed considerably well.

So how would using xdelta impact the overall size of the LC download archive?

First of all I've extracted Beta3.1.rar into a new folder and re-RARed that folder again, to make sure all the following archives would be created with the same settings (solid archive with best compression level)

Size of this archive: 97,833,378 Bytes

If we shipped the contents of LC-SFX.rar (26,589,383 Bytes) in the same archive, we'd arrive at about 124,000,000 Bytes.

Now I added the LC sfx.RAW to the Beta3.1 folder and RARed it with the same settings (solid archive, max compression) and got 324,159,690 Bytes ( ).

Now I replaced sfx.raw and gta3.img with their xdelta counterparts and the size of the resulting archive was 129,620,066 Bytes.

Finally I deleted the delta file for sfx.raw from the folder to be able to compare the result with the first archive: 102,597,903 Bytes


Conclusion:
Delta encoding doesn't seem to help reduce the size of the download in our case (97,833,378 vs. 102,597,903 Bytes, 124,000,000 Bytes vs. 129,620,066 Bytes), but it seems like the right thing to do for the SFX, as this would get rid of all that creating-thousands-of-small-files-half-of-which-are-blanked-seconds-later etc.

We'd just need to ship the xdelta command line tool with the mod instead of Nullpointer's tool. The only thing we'd need to be aware of is that binary patching obviously requires the file to be patched to be bit-identical to the one the delta file was originally derived from, but as far as I know the sfx.RAW should be identical in all versions of VC and it's hardly ever modified by average players (unlike gta3.img).

File size of an archive containing the sfx delta file, xdelta.exe and a one-line batch file to apply the delta would be around 26 MB, basically the same as the current LC-SFX.rar, so download size for the SFX add-on is not an issue either.

This post has been edited by SteaVor on Monday, Jan 10 2011, 19:38

[Alt]

So, if you wanna to go this way I suggest you silent version of SFX add-on installer.
It works similar to SteaVor's one but has some differences:
1) Check your version of sfx.RAW comparing its MD5 to original;
2) Show banners when checking version and updating files;
3) Show message boxes if something is wrong (sfx.RAW wasn't found in current folder or sfx.RAW isn't original) and when installation ends;
4) Has been made with NSIS and VPatch.

DOWNLOAD!

Also if you liked it want to use I share SFX installer sources for LC Team.

[SteaVor]

Thank you very much, Alt!

Given that NSIS seems to be the way to go for the installer of GTA:LC Final it makes sense to use the VPatch module. I've confirmed your SFX installer works as advertised on my copy of the game, so I'd suggest we use this installer instead of the old RAR archive. I'm currently uploading the installer to Samutz' and my webhosting; will provide links when it's done uploading.

EDIT: Mirror links are up: Mirror #1 | Mirror #2

This post has been edited by SteaVor on Tuesday, Jan 11 2011, 19:23

[Drag0nflamez]

A RARchive would most definitely suck.

[SteaVor]

We're not going to use RAR archives for the final version of GTA:LC, but a full-blown installer - that 's the very point of this topic.

[Alt]

QUOTE (silver007 @ Oct 11 2010, 00:10)

•Remove read only settings from VC. •Install specific components of the GTALC installation only (models, data, etc) •Web Install

I don't think this is really needed because:
1) NSIS can overwrite and delete files with "read only attributes".
2) Whats the point of this? You can easily extract all stuff using 7-zip for example
3) I don't really imagine how this works but if it's check-boxes in installer for some specific add-ons I think its bad idea. Just mention in ReadMe add-ons topic.