[Konstantinos]

QUOTE ([CTD]LaBan @ May 4 2007, 22:55)

hi, i just wanted to ask do someone add gas grenades to LC? It would be great

VC Weapons in LC

[Ben]

That's only the teargas pickup though, right? It's not the fully functional version?

[Konstantinos]

Of course it's just a pickup spawn - that's all you can do via SCM
I've heard the teargas worked better on the PS version - haven't actually seen it, only in SA. It's really sort of crappy on VC PC. It does kill peds (while not hurting player), but it takes a long exposure - which is hard to achieve, since they will run like hell from the afflicted area. If you manage to keep them in the cloud long enough, they will eventually drop dead. Plus, it causes a huge framerate drop.

[[CTD]LaBan]

well... i downloaded teargas mod a year ago... and it worked. I downloaded it again yesterday. Yes, it is available thought SCM
http://tubbytim.tripod.com/sitebuildercont.../teargasmod.zip
and here is VC camera pickup mod
http://tubbytim.tripod.com/sitebuildercont...s/cameramod.zip

Here ya go :colgate

EDIT: tear gas is where it was on PS2 - at police office on 1.st island... and propably in army too.

This post has been edited by [CTD]LaBan on Saturday, May 5 2007, 21:41

[Ministry]

Is there any way to increase frame rate from its default value (probably 25 or 30) to higher (say 50) but constant value? I’d like to use Frame Limiter function disabled instead because everything is much smoother and pleasing to the eye. But when I turn Frame Limiter off I have some graphical glitches like disappeared buildings, absent textures, blurry textures. So I figured maybe it would be possible not to touch Frame Limiter but simply increase original frame rate a little. It’s somewhere inside those files but I don’t know where. Can you please help?

[ModelingMan]

QUOTE (Ministry @ May 21 2007, 15:08)

Is there any way to increase frame rate from its default value (probably 25 or 30) to higher (say 50) but constant value?

Increasing the frame rate seems to cause the game timers to increase in speed (e.g. fast animations, fast uncontrollable driving, etc.). Personally, I wouldn't recommend it; the game was made to run properly at it's "limited" speed.

[Ministry]

Oh maybe you don’t know. But there is an option “Frame limiter” made by developers and the game was supposed to run well with it. It’s just that GTA:LC runs with glitches when you switch it off for some reason. Anyway recommendations are all good but I was asking for specific answers not recommendations. Guys who made GTA:LC ploughed through the game resources like no one else. They certainly should know where to change it. I’d like to experiment. Thanks.

[SteaVor]

QUOTE (Ministry @ May 22 2007, 08:14)

Oh maybe you don’t know. But there is an option “Frame limiter” made by developers and the game was supposed to run well with it.

No. See below.

QUOTE

It’s just that GTA:LC runs with glitches when you switch it off for some reason.

None of the (3D-) GTA games run trouble-free if the Frame Limiter has been disabled (in SA you won't even be able to complete the main storyline if it's disabled...), thus it's enabled by default.
Your computer isn't fast enough to (un-)load the textures etc. fast enough, so you'll experience graphical issues. The FL option is really just there to give the gamers more choice ('freedom', if you prefer the GTA buzzword).
Overriding the hardcoded setting (25 FPS) WON'T make the game flow smoother, but WILL result in faster overall gameplay (ever played one of the top-down games with FL disabled?) and WILL be the more unplayable the higher you set the new value. That's probably not what you want.

This post has been edited by SteaVor on Tuesday, May 22 2007, 07:09

[Ministry]

Ok .Thank you for the explanation. Pity I can’t use it properly. If not those absent textures I’d say game really looked different with frame limiter off. It’s like some tv show. Can’t explain it. The picture just looked alive. And when switching back to 25fps one feels it as utter shock. Simply repulsive. That’s why after trying that option I wanted to stay with it whatever it takes. So how fast should my computer be to be able to load all the textures in time? It seemed to me back when I played original GTA3 that I spent some with limiter off and it was OK. Although I had much slower computer.

[Claude GTA3]

I have the No-CD problem,but I can't make the Show Config utility,There is no New on the right click,nor shortcut,there is Browse with Irfanview though...

[ModelingMan]

QUOTE (Claude GTA3 @ May 31 2007, 14:57)

I have the No-CD problem,but I can't make the Show Config utility,There is no New on the right click,nor shortcut,there is Browse with Irfanview though...

To make the "Show Config" shortcut:

Right-click and drag gta-lc.exe. Let go of the right mouse button and choose "Create Shortcuts Here" like so:


Now right-click the newly created shortcut and choose properties. Modify the "Target" like so: (highlighted text)


Now you can check which audio files are missing...

[Claude GTA3]

Thanks,I managed to make it,but now AUDIO/MISCOM.MP3 is missing when I try to verify paths

[SteaVor]

That means you didn't do a full install of VC or otherwise damaged it, because miscom.mp3 is nothing else than the VC 'Mission complete' sound (the mod places the III one in \audioLC as miscom.wav)

I wonder if it would be problematic to point all unused VC slots to the same fake audio file, so that all the audio files inside the AUDIO folder could be deleted there (excluding sfx.raw/sfx.sdt of course) and the audioLC files could be moved in there?

This post has been edited by SteaVor on Thursday, May 31 2007, 17:37

[Ben]

That's a good idea actually. I'll make a note in the installer topic so that CTM can fix it up whenever he's next around. The last time I spoke to him, he'd done the bulk of the work on the new installer, but he hasn't been around for a few months now.

Do we know which files are and are not used?

If someone wants to work on updating the INI, the audio paths can be changed to AUDIO\BLANK.WAV, and I'll just stick in the same blank file that's used in the SFX. I'm quite happy to fix it up in my time off, but I'll need clarification as to which paths I can actually change without affecting the game.

[SteaVor]

All files that have been blanked already (file size 1 or 3 KB), 967 files, can be pointed to a used file and deleted afterwards.
That already makes a difference, but I think it would be better if the launcher's behaviour was changed in a way that every audio slot that isn't explicitly referenced in the INI gets pointed to a blank or LC file.

I already did it for roughly half of the 967 files that don't contain sound at all (even though bankXXX, lawXXX and so on could also easily be deleted), I pointed them to audioLC/miscom.wav (GTA3 mission complete sound), because it simply won't matter what gets called because these sounds are never ever used in LC. The filesize of gta-lc.ini has more than doubled (8KB->17KB), which makes me think that this would be far too inefficient and thus my aforementioned suggestion would make it far easier to maintain this(because nearly all files that are explicitly used by LC are already listed in the INI).


I've gotten the vehicles to work properly with tweaked Traffic cfg values; I essentially had to cut down on most of the ranges, now I'm going to increase the ranges as far as necessary to not make the cars pop up too near.

Peds are an entirely different area, I wasn't yet able to increase the ped density when in a vehicle.

This post has been edited by SteaVor on Friday, Jun 1 2007, 06:50

[Ben]

Rightio, makes sense. I agree - modifying the launcher to do the process automatically would probably be more efficient.

Are you thinking that we also do that for the files currently listed in the INI as well, or do you think it would be better/easier to change the path manually through the INI (or Show Config)?

[SteaVor]

Are none of the files in AUDIO ever called by the engine? If so, I was - thanks to a nice little script - able to get rid of all files in audioLC (excluding the 2 SFX ones), so that I could move the contents of 'audioLC' to 'audio' (and delete the obsolete audioLC folder).
Filesize of gta-lc.ini is 30 KB, I've moved the [WavePath] section of the INI to the very bottom for easy access to the other settings (without the need to scroll through more than 1300 lines).
It was mainly done to get an impression about the new data structure and the steps that the installer would have to take - it's very easy indeed:

- This procedure is applicable as soon as the Launcher has been updated in the way discussed above (every EXE audio entry that isn't listed in gta-lc.ini is being pointed to a default, blank file - the name of the blank file could be made editable through the interface for greater flexibility) - it wouldn't even require a syntax change; the entries wouldn't have to be modified at all.

- If the user owns GTA3, the installer edits the INI to include the III files, if not it doesn't change the INI -> this could also be simplified by providing two different INIs that are chosen depending on the user's situation

- deletion of the contents of the AUDIO folder, with the exception of sfx.RAW/sfx.SDT and ambsil.mp3 (and radio stations if GTA3 isn't available)

- the files that are currently copied to the audioLC folder are being copied to the AUDIO folder instead, ambsil.mp3 is renamed to blank.mp3 to denote its purpose

That's it - we don't need an additional folder and are saving disk space.
______________________________

Warning, this is experimental and doesn't improve your experience with the mod! I've just uploaded it for completion's sake (and to demostrate how ridiculous the approach of adding a line for each and every VC audio file is - they do provide a base if no one feels like doing the necessary Launcher changes though)
These are the files that I'm using to simulate the above situation - you can choose between two complete INIs or just the [WavePath] sections (the audioLC ones can be used if you didn't move your files from audioLC to audio, the audio ones are to be used if your audioLC folder is completely empty) - all of them require you to put the blank.wav inside the Audio folder.
The 'mission complete' sound won't work with these files - it can be fixed by swapping 101 and 102 around in WavePath. Wait for Ben's updated package!

This post has been edited by SteaVor on Wednesday, Jun 6 2007, 10:00

[Ben]

Looks good . I'm assuming it works just fine as well (I see no reason why it wouldn't). And I still think it's a great idea - it really cleans the LC directory out.

Excellent work - I'll be sure to include that in the next update. I'll be using the AUDIO INI, NOT the audioLC one. The readme will be updated accordingly .

By the way, you can't completely empty your audioLC folder just yet (I don't think)- there's a few files in there that aren't in GTA3's audio folder (VH1 through to VH8, gl_horn, etc.) - these are used in missions and as SFX. MM's working on EXE hacks to get them to play from the SFX though.

[SteaVor]

That's no problem at all -I'm merely moving the contents of the folder, that includes all LC-specific files of course.
Beware though that the INI files have 'ChangeTaskBar' unchecked - this means using the files will result in LC appearing as VC in the taskbar (I did it because I'm dependent on external trainers at the moment because neither III nor VC cheats work with the new ASI). You can easily change that back of course.
Take note that the provided files assume that you're using the III radio stations - they won't work for those that have to use VC ones until they have 'reverted' the path inside the launcher interface (no biggie though, the procedure is already documented in the Help topic).

This post has been edited by SteaVor on Saturday, Jun 2 2007, 06:45

[Ben]

Rightio, thanks for the heads-up.

I'm thinking of how to most easily implement this into the next update - my thoughts at this stage are to use a BAT file to simply delete the unused VC files in the Audio folder (much like the way the SFX is "installed"). That would also make it easy to use when we get a proper installer - the installer would just have to run the BAT file, and then delete it afterwards. If you think that sounds like a good idea, I'll get to work on the BAT file in-between studying (it's not difficult at all, just fiddly/time-consuming) - I'll have it done by the time I'm ready to put together another update package then. What do you think?