ModdingWiki - User contributions [en-gb]

VGA Palette

2022-04-03T22:48:27Z

Yetmorecode: Added F1 Manager to listof games and sorted list alphebatically

{{Palette Infobox
| Hardware = VGA
| Depth = 18-bit, 24-bit
| Count = 256

| Games =
{{Game|F-117A Nighthawk}}
{{Game|F1 Manager Professional}}
{{Game|Fatal Racing}}
{{Game|Game Maker}}
{{Game|Stargunner}}
{{Game|Zone 66}}
}}
[[Image:Hocus Pocus palette.png|thumb|128px|right|[[Hocus Pocus]] palette]]
As far as games are concerned, VGA normally means 256 colours. Whereas the EGA standard allowed 16 colours to be displayed at the same time out of a possible 64 (2-bits per channel), VGA allows 256 colours to be displayed at the same time out of a possible 262,144 (6-bits per channel.) VGA palettes often correspond to [[Raw VGA Image|VGA images]].

Unlike EGA games which rarely changed the palette, almost all VGA games alter the palette to their preferred group of 256 colours. When games store the palette on disk, there are two common layouts used.

== The "Classic" format ==

The classic palette format maps exactly to the VGA registers. Each colour takes up three bytes (one each for red, green and blue) and only the lower six bits of each byte are used (as the VGA only uses six bits per colour.) In practice this means each byte will only contain values between zero and 63 inclusive. (However be aware that some games use values between zero and 64! In these cases 64 should be treated the same as 63, as this is what the VGA does.)

This format is often referred to as '''6-bit RGB'''.

== The "Modern" format ==

Since the widespread use of video cards capable of displaying 24-bit images, 256 colour palettes have been increased to use the full eight bits in each byte for storing colour levels. All this means is that each of the red, green and blue bytes will have the full range of values (0-255) instead of the limited VGA values (0-63).

This format is often referred to as '''8-bit RGB'''.

Some variants of this format pad the values out to 32-bits, and this format is often referred to as '''8-bit RGBA'''. In most cases the fourth byte (A) isn't used and can be ignored.

== Conversion ==

To easily convert between one format to another, some simple formulae can be used for each of the red, green and blue values:

// 6-bit VGA to 8-bit RGB:
eight_bit_value = (six_bit_value * 255) / 63

// 8-bit RGB to 6-bit VGA
six_bit_value = (eight_bit_value * 63) / 255

Performing the multiplication before the division removes the need to use floating point numbers and minimises any rounding errors.

More efficient conversions can also be used when speed is more important than code readability:

// 6-bit VGA to 8-bit RGB
eight_bit_value = (six_bit_value << 2) | (six_bit_value >> 4)

// 8-bit RGB to 6-bit VGA
six_bit_value = eight_bit_value >> 2

Note however that the input VGA values may need to be capped to 0x3F (63) as some games output the value 0x40 for 100% instead of 0x3F (TODO: Confirm/link to example). The VGA treats 0x40 the same as 0x3F however (TODO: Confirm).

== Detection ==

It is relatively simple to "detect" a VGA palette file, particularly if they are 6-bit RGB as the files will be exactly 768 bytes long - almost no other files are exactly this size. Looking at the palette in a hex editor will often reveal the file starts with three 0x00 bytes, on account of nearly all games using palette index #0 as black. Seeing groups of the same value (e.g. 10 10 10 20 20 20 30 30 30) is also a good indication of a palette with a greyscale section in it, which is another common feature. This can be seen in the very last row of the Hocus Pocus palette above, where the colour varies from black, through grey and up to white.

== Source Code ==

=== Viewer ===
This program will open a 6 or 8 bit headerless palette file and display swatches for each color, and save a bitmap if you like.

<syntaxhighlight lang="freebasic">
' Generic palette viewer.
' ------------------------------------------
' This viewer assumes that the file has no
' header, that there are 256 colors,
' each color is represented by three bytes.
' This program can display both 6 and 8
' bit color palettes, but you must specify
' which depth you want.

' Declare work variables.
Dim ColorIndex As UShort
Dim BitDepth As UByte
Dim Red As UByte, Green As UByte, Blue As UByte
Dim Col As UShort, Row As UShort
Dim SwatchSize As UByte, SwatchBorder As UByte, BorderColor As UShort
Dim File As String, Bitmap As String

' Custom variables
' ------------------------------------------
' You can adjust the following variables
' to customize the display of the palette
' and save a bitmap if you choose.

' The file path to the palette file you want to open.
File = "E:\Games\F-117A Nighthawk\flight.pal"

' Save a bitmap with the same name as the palette file? Leave blank for no.
Bitmap = "E:\Games\F-117A Nighthawk\flight.bmp"

' Is this palette a 6-bit or an 8-bit palette?
' You can tell a 6-bit because none of the color
' attributes go above 63 (6 or 8).
BitDepth = 6

' How big should the swatches be? (1-12)
SwatchSize = 12

' Draw a border around the swatch? (0 - No, 1 - Yes)
SwatchBorder = 1

' If there is a border, use this color index. (0-255)
BorderColor = 0

' Open the palette file.
Open File For Binary As #1

' Set screen to 320x200, 256 colors.
Screen 13

' Loop through all 256 colors.
Row = 0
Col = 0
For ColorIndex = 0 to 255
' Read the color attributes from the file.
Get #1, , Red
Get #1, , Green
Get #1, , Blue

' Allow for both 6 and 8 bit color depth.
If BitDepth = 6 Then
Red = Red * 4
Green = Green * 4
Blue = Blue * 4
End If

' Change the palette.
Palette ColorIndex, Red, Green, Blue

' Draw a swatch.
Line (Col, Row)-(Col + SwatchSize, Row + SwatchSize), ColorIndex, BF
If SwatchBorder = 1 Then
Line (Col, Row)-(Col + SwatchSize, Row + SwatchSize), BorderColor, B
End If

' Increase the swatch position.
Col = Col + SwatchSize
If Col = SwatchSize * 16 Then
Col = 0
Row = Row + SwatchSize
End If
Next ColorIndex

' Close the palette file.
Close #1

' Save a bitmap of the palette if desired.
If Bitmap <> "" Then
' Quick check to make sure they didn't accidentally use the same file name for both.
If Bitmap <> File Then
BSave Bitmap, 0
End If
End If

' Wait for cursor input.
Sleep
</syntaxhighlight>

[[Category:Articles]]

F1 Manager Professional

2022-04-03T22:20:11Z

Yetmorecode: Added link to more external documentation

{{NeedMoreInfo}}
{{Game Infobox
| Title = F1 Manager Professional.jpg
| Levels = No
| Tiles = No
| Sprites = No
| Fullscreen = No
| Sound = No
| Music = No
| Text = Edit
| Story = No
| Interface = No
}}

[[F1 Manager Professional]] is a 1997 F1 management simulation by Software 2000. It is the successor to the 1996 german-only title [[F1 Manager 96]].

== Obtaining the game ==

The full version of this game [https://www.myabandonware.com/game/f1-manager-professional-bjp can be downloaded as abandonware]. There is also a [https://f1managerprofessional.wordpress.com/ modded version] with updated game data for up to the 2020 F1 season.

== Tools ==

{{BeginFileFormatTools|Type=game}}
{{FileFormatTool
| Name = [https://ghidra-sre.org/ Ghidra] [https://github.com/yetmorecode/ghidra-lx-loader LE-Loader]
| Platform = Java
| grp = No
| map = No
| gfx = No
| mus = No
| sfx = No
| txt = No
| sav = No
| exe = Read
| notes = Ghidra with a custom loader can make sense of the LE packed game
}}
{{FileFormatTool
| Name = [https://github.com/yetmorecode/proline-resource-editor Proline Resource Editor]
| Platform = Java
| grp = Read
| map = No
| gfx = Read
| mus = No
| sfx = No
| txt = No
| sav = No
| exe = No
| notes = Decodes and shows various sprites and PCX backgrounds found in f1_e.rsc (WIP)
}}
{{FileFormatTool
| Name = [https://github.com/yetmorecode/f1mp-point-system Point-System editor]
| Platform = Java
| grp = No
| map = No
| gfx = No
| mus = No
| sfx = No
| txt = No
| sav = No
| exe = Edit
| notes = Can change the awarded points for each race position
}}
{{FileFormatTool
| Name = [https://github.com/yetmorecode/f1edit F1MP Editor]
| Platform = DOS4GW
| grp = No
| map = No
| gfx = No
| mus = No
| sfx = No
| txt = No
| sav = No
| exe = Edit
| notes = WIP Editor build with Watcom C for usage directly in DOS
}}
{{EndFileFormatTools}}

{{BeginGameFileList}}
{{GameFile
| Name = F1.exe
| Format = [[Linear Executable (LX/LE) Format]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Game executable
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = F1.CFG
| Format = [[CFG Format (F1 Manager Professional)]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Game settings
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = NOTIZEN*.TMP
| Format = TMP Format (F1 Manager Professional)
| KnownFormat = No
| Desc = In-game notes as taken by players on drivers, tracks, etc.
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = F1_e.rsc
| Format = [[RSC Format (F1 Manager Professional)]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Archive containing color palettes, PCX images and sprites
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = USER_E.RSC
| Format = [[RSC Format (F1 Manager Professional)]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Archive containing color palettes, PCX images and sprites
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = 3D.RSC
| Format = [[RSC Format (F1 Manager Professional)]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = 3D assets for BRender
}}

{{GameFile
| Name = FAHRER.DAT
| Format = [[DAT Format (F1 Manager Professional)]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Static driver data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = INGS.DAT
| Format = [[DAT Format (F1 Manager Professional)]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Static engineers data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = MOTOREN.DAT
| Format = [[DAT Format (F1 Manager Professional)]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Static car engines data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = SPONSOR.DAT
| Format = [[DAT Format (F1 Manager Professional)]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Static sponsors data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = STRECKEN.DAT
| Format = [[DAT Format (F1 Manager Professional)]]
| KnownFormat = No
| Desc = Static track data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = STRINFO.DAT
| Format = [[DAT Format (F1 Manager Professional)]]
| KnownFormat = No
| Desc = Static track information data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = TEAMS.DAT
| Format = [[DAT Format (F1 Manager Professional)]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Static teams data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{EndGameFileList}}

== f1_e.rsc ==

The <tt>f1_e.rsc</tt> contains unnamed files of the following formats:
{{BeginGameFileList
| header = false
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = *.pal
| Format = [[VGA Palette]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = VGA palettes
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = *.pcx
| Format = [[PCX Format]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = 640 x 480 pixel backgrounds
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = *
| Format =
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Variable sized sprites
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = *
| Format =
| KnownFormat = No
| Desc = Sound effects (mostly unknown)
}}
{{EndGameFileList}}

A more detailed writeup of the contents can be found at https://github.com/yetmorecode/f1-manager-professional-editor/blob/master/doc/rsc/format.md.

== 3d.rsc ==

The <tt>3d.rsc</tt> contains the 3D models for 17 tracks, the design studio previews and some more assets. The following formats are used (omitting files with redundant formats):
{{BeginGameFileList
| header = false
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = MONACO/MONACO.ACT
| Format = [[DAT Format (BRender Datafile)]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = BRender actor hierarchy for the track (includes materials and lights)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = MONACO/MONACO.MOD
| Format = [[DAT Format (BRender Datafile)]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = BRender models (multiple models for trees, grandstands, etc.)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = MONACO/MONACO.CAM
| Format = [[DAT Format (BRender Datafile)]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = BRender camera definitions
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = MONACO/MONACO.OCF
| Format =
| KnownFormat = No
| Desc =
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = MONACO/MONACO.C8
| Format =
| KnownFormat = No
| Desc =
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = TEXTUREN/*.8
| Format =
| KnownFormat = No
| Desc = Supposedly textures
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = BDD/*.BDD
| Format = [[BDD Format (BRender Driver)]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = BRender graphics drivers
}}
{{EndGameFileList}}

The full list of extracted files from <tt>3d.rsc</tt> is available at: https://github.com/yetmorecode/f1edit/tree/main/3d

== Notes ==

* The game is 32bit and requires the DOS4G(W) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOS_extender DOS Extender] (or anything compatible).
* DOS4G(W) can safely be replaced with [https://dos32a.narechk.net/index_en.html dos32a], which has sources available and makes it considerably easier stepping past the initial loader stage in a debugger
* Text strings are embedded in the game executable and can be freely changed with just a hex editor

[[Category:Software 2000]]
[[Category:F1 Manager Professional]]
[[Category:Management Simulation]]
[[Category:Abandonware]]

F1 Manager Professional

2022-04-03T22:13:46Z

Yetmorecode: Added formats found in RSC files and f1edit tool

{{NeedMoreInfo}}
{{Game Infobox
| Title = F1 Manager Professional.jpg
| Levels = No
| Tiles = No
| Sprites = No
| Fullscreen = No
| Sound = No
| Music = No
| Text = Edit
| Story = No
| Interface = No
}}

[[F1 Manager Professional]] is a 1997 F1 management simulation by Software 2000. It is the successor to the 1996 german-only title [[F1 Manager 96]].

== Obtaining the game ==

The full version of this game [https://www.myabandonware.com/game/f1-manager-professional-bjp can be downloaded as abandonware]. There is also a [https://f1managerprofessional.wordpress.com/ modded version] with updated game data for up to the 2020 F1 season.

== Tools ==

{{BeginFileFormatTools|Type=game}}
{{FileFormatTool
| Name = [https://ghidra-sre.org/ Ghidra] [https://github.com/yetmorecode/ghidra-lx-loader LE-Loader]
| Platform = Java
| grp = No
| map = No
| gfx = No
| mus = No
| sfx = No
| txt = No
| sav = No
| exe = Read
| notes = Ghidra with a custom loader can make sense of the LE packed game
}}
{{FileFormatTool
| Name = [https://github.com/yetmorecode/proline-resource-editor Proline Resource Editor]
| Platform = Java
| grp = Read
| map = No
| gfx = Read
| mus = No
| sfx = No
| txt = No
| sav = No
| exe = No
| notes = Decodes and shows various sprites and PCX backgrounds found in f1_e.rsc (WIP)
}}
{{FileFormatTool
| Name = [https://github.com/yetmorecode/f1mp-point-system Point-System editor]
| Platform = Java
| grp = No
| map = No
| gfx = No
| mus = No
| sfx = No
| txt = No
| sav = No
| exe = Edit
| notes = Can change the awarded points for each race position
}}
{{FileFormatTool
| Name = [https://github.com/yetmorecode/f1edit F1MP Editor]
| Platform = DOS4GW
| grp = No
| map = No
| gfx = No
| mus = No
| sfx = No
| txt = No
| sav = No
| exe = Edit
| notes = WIP Editor build with Watcom C for usage directly in DOS
}}
{{EndFileFormatTools}}

{{BeginGameFileList}}
{{GameFile
| Name = F1.exe
| Format = [[Linear Executable (LX/LE) Format]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Game executable
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = F1.CFG
| Format = [[CFG Format (F1 Manager Professional)]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Game settings
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = NOTIZEN*.TMP
| Format = TMP Format (F1 Manager Professional)
| KnownFormat = No
| Desc = In-game notes as taken by players on drivers, tracks, etc.
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = F1_e.rsc
| Format = [[RSC Format (F1 Manager Professional)]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Archive containing color palettes, PCX images and sprites
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = USER_E.RSC
| Format = [[RSC Format (F1 Manager Professional)]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Archive containing color palettes, PCX images and sprites
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = 3D.RSC
| Format = [[RSC Format (F1 Manager Professional)]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = 3D assets for BRender
}}

{{GameFile
| Name = FAHRER.DAT
| Format = [[DAT Format (F1 Manager Professional)]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Static driver data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = INGS.DAT
| Format = [[DAT Format (F1 Manager Professional)]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Static engineers data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = MOTOREN.DAT
| Format = [[DAT Format (F1 Manager Professional)]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Static car engines data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = SPONSOR.DAT
| Format = [[DAT Format (F1 Manager Professional)]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Static sponsors data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = STRECKEN.DAT
| Format = [[DAT Format (F1 Manager Professional)]]
| KnownFormat = No
| Desc = Static track data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = STRINFO.DAT
| Format = [[DAT Format (F1 Manager Professional)]]
| KnownFormat = No
| Desc = Static track information data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = TEAMS.DAT
| Format = [[DAT Format (F1 Manager Professional)]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Static teams data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{EndGameFileList}}

The <tt>f1_e.rsc</tt> contains unnamed files of the following formats:
{{BeginGameFileList
| header = false
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = *.pal
| Format = [[VGA Palette]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = VGA palettes
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = *.pcx
| Format = [[PCX Format]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = 640 x 480 pixel backgrounds
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = *
| Format =
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Variable sized sprites
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = *
| Format =
| KnownFormat = No
| Desc = Sound effects (mostly unknown)
}}
{{EndGameFileList}}

The <tt>3d.rsc</tt> contains the 3D models for 17 tracks, the design studio previews and some more assets. The following formats are used (omitting files with redundant formats):
{{BeginGameFileList
| header = false
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = MONACO/MONACO.ACT
| Format = [[DAT Format (BRender Datafile)]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = BRender actor hierarchy for the track (includes materials and lights)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = MONACO/MONACO.MOD
| Format = [[DAT Format (BRender Datafile)]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = BRender models (multiple models for trees, grandstands, etc.)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = MONACO/MONACO.CAM
| Format = [[DAT Format (BRender Datafile)]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = BRender camera definitions
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = MONACO/MONACO.OCF
| Format =
| KnownFormat = No
| Desc =
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = MONACO/MONACO.C8
| Format =
| KnownFormat = No
| Desc =
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = TEXTUREN/*.8
| Format =
| KnownFormat = No
| Desc = Supposedly textures
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = BDD/*.BDD
| Format = [[BDD Format (BRender Driver)]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = BRender graphics drivers
}}
{{EndGameFileList}}

The full list of extracted files from <tt>3d.rsc</tt> is available at: https://github.com/yetmorecode/f1edit/tree/main/3d

== Notes ==

* The dos4gw [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOS_extender DOS Extender] is used to enble 32-bit protected mode and then load the actual 32-bit game
* dos4gw can safely be replaced with [https://dos32a.narechk.net/index_en.html dos32a], which has sources available and makes it considerably easier stepping past the initial loader stage in a debugger
* Text strings are embedded in the game executable and can be freely changed with just a hex editor

[[Category:Software 2000]]
[[Category:F1 Manager Professional]]
[[Category:Management Simulation]]
[[Category:Abandonware]]

User talk:Yetmorecode

2022-04-03T17:28:29Z

Yetmorecode:

== RSC Format (F1 Manager Professional) ==

From the "File entry" description:

> [[BYTE]][40] name Name of file entry

> char name[14];

Is it 40 or 14 bytes long? Also there is a [[char]] type.

[[User:CTPAX-X Team|CTPAX-X Team]] ([[User talk:CTPAX-X Team|talk]]) 11:35, 2 April 2022 (GMT)

: Thanks for spotting this. It's 14 bytes. I tried "CHAR" before to no luck. Both fixed now [[User:Yetmorecode|Yetmorecode]] ([[User talk:Yetmorecode|talk]]) 17:28, 3 April 2022 (GMT)

RSC Format (F1 Manager Professional)

2022-04-03T17:26:00Z

Yetmorecode: Fixed minor mistakes in format and using char type

{{Archive Infobox
| MaxFiles = unlimited
| FAT = None
| Names = only B
| Metadata = only B
| Subdirectories = only B
| Compressed = N
| Encrypted = N
| Hidden = N
| Games =
{{Game|F1 Manager Professional}}
{{ Game|F1 Manager 96}}
}}

F1 Manager games by Software 2000 use the RSC Format to store various game assets.

== File Format ==

There are 2 different formats used by Software 2000:

* Variant A: Stores VGA palettes, PCX images and sound files (<tt>f1_e.rsc</tt> and <tt>user_e.rsc</tt>)
* Variant B: Stores BRender assets: actors, models, materials, lights and cameras (<tt>3d.rsc</tt>)

=== Variant A: f1_e.rsc - palettes, PCX, sprites and sounds ===

==== Signature ====

Archive files start with a plain ASCII signature "PROLINE Resource File (c) 1997 by PROLINE Software GmbH". The archive file has no further header.

==== File Entry ====

The entries in the archive are described by their size followed by the actual unencoded contents of the entry:

{|class="wikitable"
! Data type !! Name !! Description
|-
| [[UINT32LE]] || size || Size of entry
|-
| [[BYTE]][size] || data || Unencoded data of entry
|}

The archive itself holds no description of its contents, so the offsets must be deduced from the executable reading the archive. There is no compression or special encoding used.

=== Variant B: 3d.rsc - BRender actors, models, etc. ===

==== Header ====

Those files have no signature and start with a simple header:

{|class="wikitable"
! Data type !! Name !! Description
|-
| [[UINT32LE]] || num_directories || Number of directories in the archive
|-
| [[UINT32LE]] || num_files || Number of files in the archive
|}

==== File entry ====

A list of <tt>num_files</tt> file entries follows the header:

{|class="wikitable"
! Data type !! Name !! Description
|-
| [[UINT32LE]] || offset || Offset of data in file
|-
| [[UINT32LE]] || size || Size of data
|-
| [[UINT16LE]] || directory || Index into directories
|-
| [[char]][14] || name || Name of file entry
|}

typedef struct {
uint32_t offset;
uint32_t size;
uint16_t directory;
char name[14];
} file_entry;

==== Directory Entry ====

A list of <tt>num_directories</tt> directory entries follows the file entries:

{|class="wikitable"
! Data type !! Name !! Description
|-
| [[char]][80] || name || Name of the directory
|}

typedef struct {
char name[80];
} dir_entry;

After the directory entries the actual data as referenced by the file's <tt>offset</tt> field will start.

Talk:Proline Resource File

2022-04-01T21:53:34Z

Yetmorecode: Created page with "I added a new page for the RSC format used in F1 manager professional which makes this page obsolete. I think it's safe to delete this page. ~~~~"

I added a new page for the RSC format used in F1 manager professional which makes this page obsolete. I think it's safe to delete this page. [[User:Yetmorecode|Yetmorecode]] ([[User talk:Yetmorecode|talk]]) 21:53, 1 April 2022 (GMT)

F1 Manager Professional

2022-04-01T21:50:49Z

Yetmorecode: Changed link to RSC format

RSC Format (F1 Manager Professional)

2022-04-01T21:49:18Z

Yetmorecode: Minor changes in headings

{{Archive Infobox
| MaxFiles = unlimited
| FAT = None
| Names = only B
| Metadata = only B
| Subdirectories = only B
| Compressed = N
| Encrypted = N
| Hidden = N
| Games =
{{Game|F1 Manager Professional}}
{{ Game|F1 Manager 96}}
}}

F1 Manager games by Software 2000 use the RSC Format to store various game assets.

== File Format ==

There are 2 different formats used by Software 2000:

* Variant A: Stores VGA palettes, PCX images and sound files (<tt>f1_e.rsc</tt> and <tt>user_e.rsc</tt>)
* Variant B: Stores BRender assets: actors, models, materials, lights and cameras (<tt>3d.rsc</tt>)

=== Variant A: f1_e.rsc - palettes, PCX, sprites and sounds ===

==== Signature ====

Archive files start with a plain ASCII signature "PROLINE Resource File (c) 1997 by PROLINE Software GmbH". The archive file has no further header.

==== File Entry ====

The entries in the archive are described by their size followed by the actual unencoded contents of the entry:

{|class="wikitable"
! Data type !! Name !! Description
|-
| [[UINT32LE]] || size || Size of entry
|-
| [[BYTE]][size] || data || Unencoded data of entry
|}

The archive itself holds no description of its contents, so the offsets must be deduced from the executable reading the archive. There is no compression or special encoding used.

=== Variant B: 3d.rsc - BRender actors, models, etc. ===

==== Header ====

Those files have no signature and start with a simple header:

{|class="wikitable"
! Data type !! Name !! Description
|-
| [[UINT32LE]] || num_directories || Number of directories in the archive
|-
| [[UINT32LE]] || num_files || Number of files in the archive
|}

==== File entry ====

A list of <tt>num_files</tt> file entries follows the header:

{|class="wikitable"
! Data type !! Name !! Description
|-
| [[UINT32LE]] || offset || Offset of data in file
|-
| [[UINT32LE]] || size || Size of data
|-
| [[UINT16LE]] || directory || Index into directories
|-
| [[BYTE]][40] || name || Name of file entry
|}

typedef struct {
uint32_t offset;
uint32_t size;
uint16_t directory;
char name[14];
} file_entry;

==== Directory Entry ====

A list of <tt>num_directories</tt> directory entries follows the file entries:

{|class="wikitable"
! Data type !! Name !! Description
|-
| [[BYTE]][80] || name || Name of the directory
|}

typedef struct {
char name[80];
} dir_entry;

After the directory entries the actual data as referenced by the file's <tt>offset</tt> field will start.

RSC Format (F1 Manager Professional)

2022-04-01T21:46:41Z

Yetmorecode: Added description for second variant of RSC files used by f1 manager pro. Merged both different RSC formats used by the game into one page.

{{Archive Infobox
| MaxFiles = unlimited
| FAT = None
| Names = only B
| Metadata = only B
| Subdirectories = only B
| Compressed = N
| Encrypted = N
| Hidden = N
| Games =
{{Game|F1 Manager Professional}}
{{ Game|F1 Manager 96}}
}}

F1 Manager games by Software 2000 use the RSC Format to store various game assets.

== File Format ==

There are 2 different formats used by Software 2000:

* Variant A: Stores VGA palettes, PCX images and sound files (<tt>f1_e.rsc</tt> and <tt>user_e.rsc</tt>)
* Variant B: Stores BRender assets: actors, models, materials, lights and cameras (<tt>3d.rsc</tt>)

=== Variant A (palettes, PCX, sprites and sounds) ===

==== Signature ====

Archive files start with a plain ASCII signature "PROLINE Resource File (c) 1997 by PROLINE Software GmbH". The archive file has no further header.

==== File Entry ====

The entries in the archive are described by their size followed by the actual unencoded contents of the entry:

{|class="wikitable"
! Data type !! Name !! Description
|-
| [[UINT32LE]] || size || Size of entry
|-
| [[BYTE]][size] || data || Unencoded data of entry
|}

The archive itself holds no description of its contents, so the offsets must be deduced from the executable reading the archive. There is no compression or special encoding used.

=== Variant B (BRender assets) ===

==== Header ====

Those files have no signature and start with a simple header:

{|class="wikitable"
! Data type !! Name !! Description
|-
| [[UINT32LE]] || num_directories || Number of directories in the archive
|-
| [[UINT32LE]] || num_files || Number of files in the archive
|}

==== File entry ====

A list of <tt>num_files</tt> file entries follows the header:

{|class="wikitable"
! Data type !! Name !! Description
|-
| [[UINT32LE]] || offset || Offset of data in file
|-
| [[UINT32LE]] || size || Size of data
|-
| [[UINT16LE]] || directory || Index into directories
|-
| [[BYTE]][40] || name || Name of file entry
|}

typedef struct {
uint32_t offset;
uint32_t size;
uint16_t directory;
char name[14];
} file_entry;

==== Directory Entry ====

A list of <tt>num_directories</tt> directory entries follows the file entries:

{|class="wikitable"
! Data type !! Name !! Description
|-
| [[BYTE]][80] || name || Name of the directory
|}

typedef struct {
char name[80];
} dir_entry;

After the directory entries the actual data as referenced by the file's <tt>offset</tt> field will start.

F1 Manager Professional

2022-04-01T21:05:56Z

Yetmorecode: Adding RSC format documentation for 3d.rsc. Merged all different undocumented dat types into one for the game.

Linear Executable (LX/LE) Format

2022-04-01T20:43:48Z

Yetmorecode: /* Specifications */ Added win2k exe_vxd.h reference

{{Executable Infobox
| Interpreted = N
| Platform = MS-DOS
| Code = 16-bit (LX), 16/32bit mixed (LE)
| Hidden = Y
}}

The '''Linear Executable format''' is an executable format used by OS/2, many [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOS_extender DOS extenders] and Microsoft Windows VxD files. There are two main variants LX (16 bit only) and LE (16/32 bit mixed).

Many DOS games from the late 90s are 32-bit games shipped as LE executable together with a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOS_extender DOS extender]. The DOS extender will boot the CPU into 32-bit protected mode, extract the actual game from the game executable, load it into memory and run it. A popular choice at the time was [[wp:DOS/4G|DOS4G(W)]] that can be found along many games.

== History ==

The Linear Executable (LX/LE) Format is the direct successor of the [[New Executable (NE) Format]]. It was superseded by the [[Portable Executable (PE) Format]].

== Format Specifications ==

=== Signature ===

A Linear executable features a [[EXE Format|standard MZ header]], with the e_lfanew field at offset 0x3C pointing to an LX/LE header instead of an NE header. The LX/LE headers have a different magic value than the NE header, namely "LX" and "LE".

See the links below for further details on the format.

=== Specifications ===

* http://fileformats.archiveteam.org/wiki/Linear_Executable
* June 3, 1992: http://www.textfiles.com/programming/FORMATS/lxexe.txt
* June 30, 1994 (Revision 8): http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/ibm/pc/os2/OS2_OMF_and_LX_Object_Formats_Revision_8_199406.pdf
* June 14, 2001 (Revision 11): https://archive.org/details/IBMOS2Warp4ToolkitDocuments2/32-bit%20Linear%20eXecutable%20Module%20Format%20%28LX%29%20Specification/
* https://github.com/open-watcom/open-watcom-v2/blob/master/bld/watcom/h/exeflat.h
* Headers from Windows: https://github.com/gameprive/win2k/blob/4abce2f1531739102d49db5c9f9e20e1e2d0de71/private/windbg64/langapi/include/exe_vxd.h

== Notes ==

* Many specifications are old and for the LX variant, which was not used by DOS extenders. There are some slight differences when reading LE file compared to reading LX file, like page map entries being 32bit wide for LE but 64bit wide for LX). Open watcom as linked above is a good source to see those differences
* dos32a is an open source DOS extender which can also help with understanding the LE variant

== Modding ==

* [[Tutorial:Adding more space to Linear Executable DOS Games]] (Add room for new code, assets and text strings)
* [[Tutorial:Unbinding Games from DOS extenders with dos32a]]

Linear Executable (LX/LE) Format

2022-03-20T04:04:35Z

Yetmorecode: /* Specifications */ Added revision 11

{{Executable Infobox
| Interpreted = N
| Platform = MS-DOS
| Code = 16-bit (LX), 16/32bit mixed (LE)
| Hidden = Y
}}

The '''Linear Executable format''' is an executable format used by OS/2, many [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOS_extender DOS extenders] and Microsoft Windows VxD files. There are two main variants LX (16 bit only) and LE (16/32 bit mixed).

Many DOS games from the late 90s are 32-bit games shipped as LE executable together with a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOS_extender DOS extender]. The DOS extender will boot the CPU into 32-bit protected mode, extract the actual game from the game executable, load it into memory and run it. A popular choice at the time was [[wp:DOS/4G|DOS4G(W)]] that can be found along many games.

== History ==

The Linear Executable (LX/LE) Format is the direct successor of the [[New Executable (NE) Format]]. It was superseded by the [[Portable Executable (PE) Format]].

== Format Specifications ==

=== Signature ===

A Linear executable features a [[EXE Format|standard MZ header]], with the e_lfanew field at offset 0x3C pointing to an LX/LE header instead of an NE header. The LX/LE headers have a different magic value than the NE header, namely "LX" and "LE".

See the links below for further details on the format.

=== Specifications ===

* http://fileformats.archiveteam.org/wiki/Linear_Executable
* June 3, 1992: http://www.textfiles.com/programming/FORMATS/lxexe.txt
* June 30, 1994 (Revision 8): http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/ibm/pc/os2/OS2_OMF_and_LX_Object_Formats_Revision_8_199406.pdf
* June 14, 2001 (Revision 11): https://archive.org/details/IBMOS2Warp4ToolkitDocuments2/32-bit%20Linear%20eXecutable%20Module%20Format%20%28LX%29%20Specification/
* https://github.com/open-watcom/open-watcom-v2/blob/master/bld/watcom/h/exeflat.h

== Notes ==

* Many specifications are old and for the LX variant, which was not used by DOS extenders. There are some slight differences when reading LE file compared to reading LX file, like page map entries being 32bit wide for LE but 64bit wide for LX). Open watcom as linked above is a good source to see those differences
* dos32a is an open source DOS extender which can also help with understanding the LE variant

== Modding ==

* [[Tutorial:Adding more space to Linear Executable DOS Games]] (Add room for new code, assets and text strings)
* [[Tutorial:Unbinding Games from DOS extenders with dos32a]]

Linear Executable (LX/LE) Format

2022-03-20T03:58:49Z

Yetmorecode: /* Specifications */ Added revision 8

{{Executable Infobox
| Interpreted = N
| Platform = MS-DOS
| Code = 16-bit (LX), 16/32bit mixed (LE)
| Hidden = Y
}}

The '''Linear Executable format''' is an executable format used by OS/2, many [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOS_extender DOS extenders] and Microsoft Windows VxD files. There are two main variants LX (16 bit only) and LE (16/32 bit mixed).

Many DOS games from the late 90s are 32-bit games shipped as LE executable together with a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOS_extender DOS extender]. The DOS extender will boot the CPU into 32-bit protected mode, extract the actual game from the game executable, load it into memory and run it. A popular choice at the time was [[wp:DOS/4G|DOS4G(W)]] that can be found along many games.

== History ==

The Linear Executable (LX/LE) Format is the direct successor of the [[New Executable (NE) Format]]. It was superseded by the [[Portable Executable (PE) Format]].

== Format Specifications ==

=== Signature ===

A Linear executable features a [[EXE Format|standard MZ header]], with the e_lfanew field at offset 0x3C pointing to an LX/LE header instead of an NE header. The LX/LE headers have a different magic value than the NE header, namely "LX" and "LE".

See the links below for further details on the format.

=== Specifications ===

* http://fileformats.archiveteam.org/wiki/Linear_Executable
* June 3, 1992: http://www.textfiles.com/programming/FORMATS/lxexe.txt
* June 30, 1994 (Revision 8): http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/ibm/pc/os2/OS2_OMF_and_LX_Object_Formats_Revision_8_199406.pdf
* https://github.com/open-watcom/open-watcom-v2/blob/master/bld/watcom/h/exeflat.h

== Notes ==

* Many specifications are old and for the LX variant, which was not used by DOS extenders. There are some slight differences when reading LE file compared to reading LX file, like page map entries being 32bit wide for LE but 64bit wide for LX). Open watcom as linked above is a good source to see those differences
* dos32a is an open source DOS extender which can also help with understanding the LE variant

== Modding ==

* [[Tutorial:Adding more space to Linear Executable DOS Games]] (Add room for new code, assets and text strings)
* [[Tutorial:Unbinding Games from DOS extenders with dos32a]]

User talk:Malvineous

2020-12-22T17:11:42Z

Yetmorecode: /* Scope of the wiki */

== Wolfenstein 3D -> Wolfenstein 3-D ==
I've corrected the infamous 3D tyop in the names of several Wolf3D-related pages; can you please delete the following ones?

[[:Category:Wolfenstein 3D]] -> Superseded by [[:Category:Wolfenstein 3-D]] 
[[:Image:Wolfenstein_3D.png]] -> Superseded by [[:Image:Wolfenstein_3-D.png]]

Thanks :) --De Zeurkous (zeurkous@zeurcomp.nichten.info), Thu Nov 22 08:18:42 UTC 2007

:Haha, you've certainly been busy. Don't forget that this wiki isn't meant to be an encyclopaedia of the games, its main purpose is documenting the file formats and editing tools that can be used with the games, as opposed to how the games behave without any mods, or what they might be called if you forget to change the title screen :-) -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 11:14, 22 November 2007 (GMT)

::Nah, I haven't forgotten. As we're reinventing the wheel for a semi-virgin wiki, the naming and something static like the cheats seemed like a good place to start :) --De Zeurkous (zeurkous@nichten.info), Thu Nov 22 12:20:04 UTC 2007

== Jill of the Jungle palette ==

Hi, I'm currently working on a level viewer for [[Jill of the Jungle]] (maybe an editor later on). Some of the information I found here has been very useful, but there's one thing I'm a bit stuck on. On the [[SHA Format]] page it says:
:''Each array item contains 4 unsigned bytes, representing CGA, EGA and VGA, respectivley, and then a null value. [...] Each byte maps to the index of a colour in the palette. If there are no colours required, the tile set uses the default colours.''
However, it doesn't say anywhere where the palette can be found. Is it stored in the EXE file? I hope you can help me on this :)

Regards, [[User:Spinal|Spinal]] 13:00, 2 March 2008 (GMT)

:Unfortunately I didn't write the JotJ SHA page, and I haven't yet had the time to figure this out. For Xargon I've taken the quick and dirty route and used a screenshot from within DOSBox as the source of the palette, until I can figure out where the palette is located. If you find this out, don't forget to update the page! :-) -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 22:02, 2 March 2008 (GMT)

::Hey Spinal, sorry, I wrote the [[SHA Format]] page, so that was probably my bad. I wasn't able to find the palette either. I assume it's in the .EXE, however I spent a fair bit of time manually mapping it using a Wombat tool (http://www.szevvy.com/node/3). I was also writing a level viewer (initally in XHTML which turned out to be too slow, so then I moved to Flash 9). I tried to email you my findings, but the email bounced. I'm not sure if they were 100% accurat, which is why I never added them to the documentation.

::Hey Malvineous, it seems the Jill - [[DMA Format]] page has been removed. Do you have a log of what happened to it? I'm sure it existed at some point.

::- [[User:dheim|Daniel]] 20:00, 5 March 2008

:::I don't ever remember seeing a DMA page - certainly there's nothing in the wiki logs about it being deleted or renamed. Maybe you started working on it but never got around to saving it? Or is it one of the Xargon pages that shares the same format as Jill? (by the way, you can type <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki> to automatically put in the signature in these messages.) -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 11:28, 5 March 2008 (GMT)

::::Sorry, it must have been the stuff in the [[SHA Format]] page that I was thinking of. I may have added the link to the [[DMA Format]] page, and never expanded on it. - [[User:Dheim|Daniel]] 02:46, 6 March 2008 (GMT)

:::::Hi guys. Sorry for the mistake, I mixed up the authors of the SHA and level formats. I've written a level viewer in PHP the last week, by using static images instead of getting them from the actual files. This causes some problems for episode 2, which uses a different palette, but besides that it works great :) When everything is done I'll upload the maps to my server and the tile/object lists to this wiki.
:::::@Daniel: strange that it bounced, I confirmed my address so it should be working fine... You can mail it to spinal -at- zanderz -dot- net. Also, I saw on your Wombat page that you "have a vague idea of how to do" [[Hocus Pocus]]. Could you share your findings on this wiki? I'd love to make maps, or even a level viewer/editor for that game :) -- [[User:Spinal|Spinal]] 00:32, 8 March 2008 (GMT)
:Okay, with help of [[User:Dheim|Daniel]] who send me the palette I found it! I'll put my findings on [[Jill of the Jungle palette]]. -- [[User:Spinal|Spinal]] 15:36, 13 March 2008 (GMT)

== Halloween Harry/Alien Carnage ==

Hi Malvineous. Thanks for your edits on the GMF article! I notice you mentioned there exist versions of the game which don't require exploding a BNK to get at the game data. What does the directory structure look like for the version you have? I'm working on a map viewer (which will become a map editor at some point) and would like it to be able to work on whatever versions are out there. Thanks for any info. -[[User:Duckthing|Duckthing]] 04:41, 11 December 2010 (GMT)

: Hi Duckthing - no worries, Halloween Harry has long been an interest of mine, but my map editor sadly needs a lot more work before I can begin reverse engineering more file formats so I'm glad you've made a start! AFAIK technically Halloween Harry has no compression, but for whatever reason (probably listed in the Apogee FAQ) they decided to swap episodes 1 and 3, compress the BNK file and then re-release it under the name Alien Carnage. You can download all available versions (including registered versions since the game was released as freeware in 2007) from [http://www.classicdosgames.com/game/Alien_Carnage.html RGB Classic Games]. BTW not sure if you noticed but I also posted a couple of things on the GMF article's talk/discussion page. -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 06:08, 11 December 2010 (GMT)

:: Thank you! Working with the uncompressed version will keep things less complicated. I did notice the GMF discussion you added, but haven't had a chance to really go through it yet. -- [[User:Duckthing|Duckthing]] 06:41, 11 December 2010 (GMT)

::: No worries. If you're running Linux or MacOSX you should be able to compile [[Camoto|libgamearchive]] which will let you copy files in and out of the BNK files. This is a library so it's also possible to use it in your own program for accessing and editing the map files while they're still inside the BNK, for instance. (BTW the 'minor' tickbox should only be used when the edit does not affect the information on the page - e.g. fixing a typo or a broken URL. If you are changing the actual content on a page it is never a minor edit!) -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 07:51, 11 December 2010 (GMT)

== Dangerous Dave ==

Working on this, does anyone have any info on the formats? The EGA graphics are 84KB and external, but CGA and VGA graphics unrelated to them are in the 174KB executable, apparently uncompressed, I don't know how this is possible. I've found the levels and partially reverse engineered the format (The first 1000 bytes, a 100x10 array of tiles.) but each level is followed by ~280 bytes of variable and unknown data I assume is sprites. I have a list of internal files in the executable, looks like most of it is non-game code. Any help would be appreciated. -[[User:Levellass|Endian? What are you on about?]] 06:03, 12 December 2010 (GMT)

: Hmm, interesting. All I can suggest for the levels is - as you're probably already familiar with - changing the values in a hex editor then loading the game to see what happens. I would suspect that all the graphics would be in a similar format, so if there are any headers or structures used in the EGA graphics files perhaps they're duplicated for CGA/VGA? Also John Romero seems pretty accessible, perhaps you could ask him directly? Failing that, randomly writing data into the .exe until the images change could be used as a last resort! -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 12:09, 12 December 2010 (GMT)

: Ha, that was easier than I expected - uncompressed VGA data is easy to find with a good hex editor ;-) [http://www.shikadi.net/pics/ddave-vga-hexdump.png This looks like it] -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 12:17, 12 December 2010 (GMT)

: Ok that was only the menu graphics. At offset 0xC629 there's some sort of offset table which looks very similar to the contents of EGADAVE.DAV but there are extra bytes dotted all over the place - perhaps it's RLE encoded? Actually just before that there's the number 0x6CAA. If you go a bit less than 0x6CAA bytes after this you end up with another table, which to me suggests that 0x6CAA is the decompressed size of that first table. -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 13:01, 12 December 2010 (GMT)

:If I remember it correctly, the VGA sprites and tiles are RLE compressed and it's not too hard to decompress them. The positions of the enemies in the levels on the other hand are still a mystery to me. [[User:Calvero|Calvero]] 20:43, 12 December 2010 (GMT)

: Looking at the levels, which directly follow the VGA palette, they seem to contain 256 bytes of header data, then the 100x10 tiles, then eight bytes of lead-out data. Then the next level's 256 bytes of header, 100x10 tiles, then eight bytes of lead-out. Although I say "level", the first "level" seems to contain both level 1 and 2, and this seems to be the way it works in the game - in some levels you can see through to others. I'm not sure what the 256 bytes of header data are for, but some levels have FF FF 00 00 repeated which seems to indicate two uint16 fields which are blanked out for those levels. -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 13:15, 13 December 2010 (GMT)

::First up, levels; where does level 1 start? It's possible I'm reading the start of a level as the previous level's end, I looked for the start of tile data, which I assumed, like Keen 1, would be the level start.

::Next, palette; I'm assuming, as you said, it is located just before the level data?

::There is VGA and CGA graphics in the executable, plus headers, but the bulk of graphics for CGA and VGA I haven't been able to locate. If the data is RLE compressed I should think it would use either Keen 1-3 fullscreen or Jazz Jackrabbit tile RLE, both of which I know well. I'll look into both of these options, cheers! -[[User:Levellass|Endian? What are you on about?]] 12:03, 20 December 2010 (GMT)

:::I've found the VGA and CGA data for the menu graphics. It looks like the CGA data is stored in a series of 1-bit-per-pixel (monochrome) images. Or it could be EGA data with the planes split out (e.g. red plane for all images, then green plane for all images, etc.) I think I found three planes which means it's probably EGA, as CGA would have a max of two planes. I've also found the font graphics, this looks like 4bpp/16 colour EGA data. Haven't seen level graphics yet. I've successfully modded the levels with a hex editor (putting the jetpack everywhere) so now I've finally looked at all the levels! The creatures are definitely not stored in the 100x10 tile data. Putting random bytes in there revealed that the values are indices into the image files, because if you put the value in for fire it will animate, and the following three or so values show up as still frames from the fire animation.

:::The VGA palette starts at 0x26B0A (I updated the main DDave page with this) + 768 bytes leads straight onto the start of level 1 at 0x26E0A. So at 0x26E0A there are 256 bytes of data, then 100x10 tiles, then 24 bytes of footer data. Some of this data (perhaps footer data) might be the level start coordinates, because Dave doesn't always start the level at the same place (e.g. the warp level when you climb the tree on level 5 and jump off the edge of the screen.) -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 12:24, 20 December 2010 (GMT)

:::I think I've found all the files so far, I've updated [[Dangerous Dave]] with the offsets of the files, including what appears to be CGA and VGA tiles. I'm not sure what sort of format they're in though, it looks like they might be compressed (and so the offsets in that list might be off by ~4, as I may have cut off the decompressed-size field.) I've also updated the map format page, I think it's pretty much fully reverse engineered now. -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 05:13, 21 December 2010 (GMT)

== Noahs Ark 3D and IMFs ==

Been poking around Noah's Ark 3D, an adaption of the Wolfenstein game and found a few interesting things which I'm hoping to confirm.

First, the game uses MID files, not IMF files for music, second, the MIDI files have an extra word at the start of the file giving the file length. Third, the code uses the first word of the midi file as the length of data to read from the file and put into memory to play. After poking around a bit in Wolfenstein and Keen I believe this is the same with IMF files, that is, ALL IMF files are type 0 as it were and the type 1s are read just like type 0s by the games (The first word is read as the amount of IMF data to copy into memory to play, this is then read as type 0.) I'm not quite sure what this does for the two types since type 1 is would essentially be a type 0 with a header and footer that are part of the AUDIO.xxx format, much like PC\adlib sounds can have the huffman lengths at the start. Are there any games that use 'individual' type 1 IMFs (Even if included as part of a group file. All I've seen are games like cosmo, where non-AUDIO IMFs are type 0.)

Should there be a Noah's Ark 3D page and should we add the midi note to the AUDIO format page? It seems that the format can hold any type of music file the game can read, not just IMFs. -- Levellass

: Yes it is known that the type-1 header might really be part of the AUDIO.xxx format but alas there were many type-1 files floating around the place (incorrectly extracted, you could argue) before this was realised, so the format variant is here to stay. It does have some advantages though (like tagging files with the song title) but I'm not sure whether anyone has figured out definitively whether the header (and footer, in the case of the Wolf3D files) belongs to the IMF or the AUDIO file. I guess you'd have to browse the game source code and see how the game uses the data to know for sure.

: As far as the MIDI goes, I believe the AUDIO.xxx file is just a container file like any other, capable of supporting any data at all. It's up to the game to decide how to use it. If anything this makes me think it would fit better if the AUDIO.xxx article was merely documenting the structure, with links to actual audio formats like PC SFX, Adlib SFX, IMF and MIDI and notes about which games make use of which formats.

: Oh and yes, by all means create a page for the new game. -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 08:41, 3 February 2011 (GMT)

== Sound Files category ==

I don’t know why there’s a Sound Files category and also an Audio Files category... it seems redundant. I left those categories the way they are though.

Also, the [[File format data types]] page needs some signed ints, but I didn’t know what naming convention you wanted to use. I described something as an [[INT16LE]] on [[BMC Format]]. [[User:Yellowantphil|Yellowantphil]] 20:12, 11 September 2011 (GMT)

: Not sure about the Sound vs Audio - I use the term 'audio' to mean both sound and music, but you're right, if there are separate sound and music categories we don't really need an audio one as well. Feel free to update. [[INT16LE]] is perfectly fine too! I added a note to the data types page. -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 22:30, 11 September 2011 (GMT)

== GamePage template ==

Should the GamePage template add the page to its own category? It seems a little odd that [[Wacky Wheels]] is not in the Wacky Wheels category. [[User:Yellowantphil|Yellowantphil]] 04:51, 16 September 2011 (GMT)
: I decided against this because there is a link to the game's page in the category intro at the top of the page. It seemed unnecessary having another link in amongst all the other pages. This was also because the game page was really only meant to be a summary, there wasn't supposed to be a huge amount of detail on it, only links to other pages with the detail (which then would appear in the category list.) I would imagine that, eventually, [[Wacky Wheels]] would be tweaked to move a lot of the content onto subpages. -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 12:58, 16 September 2011 (GMT)

== Scope of the wiki ==

I don’t know how extensive you want the information to be on ModdingWiki... I added a few lists of audio and graphics files a while ago, and there will probably be other information that I’ll find out that’s potentially helpful for level editing but not directly related to it. I can move some information to my website if it starts to become out of scope for your wiki. I also sometimes end up documenting everything imaginable... there’s some minutiae on my website and possibly on your wiki that I ought to go through and delete. [[User:Yellowantphil|Yellowantphil]] 05:28, 10 October 2011 (GMT)

:Hmm, that's a difficult one - I'm always in favour of documenting more rather than less. Generally speaking if it's related to a game and it would help either a programmer writing a utility or a someone trying to change a game manually then it should be documented. About the only thing that comes to mind that's over documenting is when some small calculation is expressed in a couple of different programming languages, but I've left that in so people can just copy it rather than trying to figure it out from the text. But the [[Wacky Wheels]] page is probably the gold standard for what all wiki pages should look like :-) Do you have anything in particular you're unsure of whether it would fit here? -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 10:07, 10 October 2011 (GMT)

::I was mainly thinking of the list of VOC files on [[Wacky Wheels Music and Sound Effects]] and the list of <tt>*.sp</tt> files on [[Wacky Wheels Graphics Formats]]. I have an expanded list of the <tt>*.sp</tt> files on my computer but it isn’t finished yet. I guess there isn’t all that much more Wacky Wheels information to be added to this wiki though. There is still some modding information on my website that ought to be moved over here, so that would take up another page or two. I’ve been lazy about doing Wacky Wheels stuff lately, but I might find some time for it this weekend.

::By the way, I guess that guy from Cascadia Games emailed you. It’s pretty interesting that WW might become an iPhone app. He told me that he was going to be using his own game engine, which sounds a lot easier than trying to get a hold of the WW source code and porting it. —[[User:Yellowantphil|Yellowantphil]] 16:46, 15 October 2011 (GMT)

::: I was going to say the list of VOCs might be overkill, but then the list of .sp files might be useful. To be honest, it's the sort of thing that you could probably omit if you were feeling lazy, but likewise I don't mind at all if you choose to include it, so since it's already there I'm happy to keep it.

::: Yes I did get an e-mail from Cascadia, I was going to pass along your details but it sounds like you're already aware of it! Using their own engine might make it a bit smoother than the original, as the jerkiness of turning is my only criticism of the game. -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 00:14, 16 October 2011 (GMT)

:I'd like to document not only the format of some game archives but also their contents. This would be quite long lists of basically images, sprites and some minor stuff. I'd also like to upload the actual images alongside but I'm not sure whether that fits the scope of the wiki or if I should just put it somewhere on github. Any advice highly welcome :) -- [[User:Yetmorecode|Yetmorecode]] 15:25, 22 December 2020

::That depends on what you mean with "their contents". Documenting the used file formats is obviously in the scope of this wiki, since there's not much point in being able to extract/replace the files in those archives if you can't actually view those files or make those replacements. But dumping the whole list of all existing files in a game into a wiki article is usually not very useful. An article could highlight some specific files with special functions in the game (stuff like the remap-defining PALETTE.CPS in Red Alert 1 comes to mind; [[Westwood CPS Format|cps]] is a very normal image format in these games, but that specific file controls all recolouring of sprites that change to their owner's colour), but a list of all sprites and sound files and all their exact usages in the game doesn't seem like it'd belong here; most of the time such things are pretty self-evident.
::PS: when you add something to a user talk page, use the signature code to give your note a clearly visible author and date stamp. There's a big red box on the top of the edit page telling you how to do that.
:: --[[User:Nyerguds|Nyerguds]] ([[User talk:Nyerguds|talk]]) 15:51, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

:::Alright that makes sense. Sorry about the signature I must have been blind. [[User:Yetmorecode|Yetmorecode]] ([[User talk:Yetmorecode|talk]]) 17:11, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

== Wacky Wheels ==

Basically all of the WW modding information from my website is here now. I moved one page when I realized it should probably be capitalized to match the rest of the pages on this site... you can delete the redirect at [[Wacky Wheels high score files]] if you want to.

Now, I need to remove most of the modding information from my website and refer people here. Then we’ll have reached the glorious future where all WW modding information is in one place. I’m going to keep those two text files of notes on my website though—the information in them is disorganized and I think not 100% accurate, but they might have some information that isn’t here yet.

By the way, how’s Camoto going? I’m planning to use it to make a new WW level, but I won’t have time for it for a few more months. —[[User:Yellowantphil|Yellowantphil]]

: Sounds good! Thanks for all the effort you've put in by moving it across. I think Wacky Wheels is now the most completely documented game on the wiki! Also can't hurt leaving your own info up - sometimes it's nice to go back to the original source if something is unclear. Camoto's going well, but unfortunately I haven't had much time to work on it over the last few weeks. You probably won't be able to make much of a level until I add in the ability to select a tile from the tileset, but that's in progress and hopefully will be ready by the time you are! Keep me posted when you do start your level(s?) -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 12:22, 2 February 2012 (GMT)

::Well, as I was reading some of the information on my website, I noticed that it isn’t written very well. I wrote those pages back when I had very little experience programming. Anyway, I’m planning to redesign my website soon, and this will save me from having to rewrite a few of those pages.

::The tile editor in Camoto as it is now is still certainly useful—I can add new tile types to a level using a binary editor and then move them around in Camoto. I think that it shouldn’t be too hard to make a new WW level using the Gimp and Camoto plus some binary editing. I recall having some problems with the route editor for the computer players, but I didn’t look into it at the time—I’ll let you know when I’m working with Camoto again, and I’ll try to come up with some useful bug reports or fixes if I run into problems. —[[User:Yellowantphil|Yellowantphil]] 14:06, 2 February 2012 (GMT)

== Catacomb ==

Hey [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]], do you know anyone who has properly read the [[Inverse_Frequency_Sound_format|Inverse Sound Frequency]] file format and got the sound playing? I'm struggling with some fine details in my game. Sounds play near what they should sound like, but the sound quality is all crackly and some sounds play totally incorrect. I followed a basic [http://web.archive.org/web/20000818033701/http://www.dd.chalmers.se/~f98anga/projects/keen/sounds2raw.c code sample] by Anders Gavare. Does your tool support this? Interested in helping me figure this out? My current code is available at [https://code.google.com/p/cataclone/source/browse/trunk/src/catacomb/catacomb_sound.c catacomb_sound.c] - [[User:Eros|Eros]] 11:57, 5 May 2012 (GMT)
: Should this be moved to my talk page? - [[User:Eros|Eros]] 11:59, 5 May 2012 (GMT)
:: Probably best to keep it on my talk page if you want me to respond in a timely manner :-) I based my old utility off Anders' one too, but it's been a long time since I looked at the code. My latest utility doesn't support sound effects yet. I know Levellass has written a few utilities to play and edit those sound files, so I think your best bet would probably be to post over at the [http://www.keenmodding.org Keen:Modding] forum. Do note that PC Speaker effects do sound crackly at the best of times, though! Also make sure you've got the right audio format (8-bit vs 16-bit, signed vs unsigned) - I remember some inconsistencies there causing some very distorted results for me. I love the name 'Cataclone' - does your code compile under Linux? -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 13:21, 5 May 2012 (GMT)
::: I currently compile the code using Code::Blocks with GCC 4.6 -std=gnu99. It *should* compile under Linux. But I haven't tested that out yet. [[Catacomb]] sounds also have flags attached to each one, It's not exactly the same specification as what it says @ the [[Inverse_Frequency_Sound_format|Inverse Sound Frequency]] format page. Perhaps the flags would make a difference to the sounds? I have the sound setup @ [https://code.google.com/p/cataclone/source/browse/trunk/src/sound_manager.c sound_manager.c] in the sound_manager_init() method. I use AUDIO_S16 (signed 16-bit) @ 22050 Hz with 2 channels. I have not added support for the priority of the sounds yet, I plan on doing that after I get them playing properly.
::: I found some information on the [[ROTT]] sound format here: [http://src.gnu-darwin.org/ports/games/rottdc/work/rottdc-1.0-2/rott/_rt_soun.h _rt_soun.h]. This format should be similar to Catacomb as ROTT was developed by [[Apogee]] using the [[Doom]] engine. Here are the flags for the sounds that they define:
#define SD_OVERWRITE 0x01
#define SD_WRITE 0x02
#define SD_LOOP 0x04
#define SD_PITCHSHIFTOFF 0x08
#define SD_PLAYONCE 0x10
::: There are also many other sound files for ROTT: [http://src.gnu-darwin.org/ports/games/rottdc/work/rottdc-1.0-2/rott/rt_sound.c], [http://src.gnu-darwin.org/ports/games/rottdc/work/rottdc-1.0-2/rott/rt_sound.h], [http://src.gnu-darwin.org/ports/games/rottdc/work/rottdc-1.0-2/rott/snd_reg.h], [http://src.gnu-darwin.org/ports/games/rottdc/work/rottdc-1.0-2/rott/snd_shar.h], [http://src.gnu-darwin.org/ports/games/rottdc/work/rottdc-1.0-2/rott/sndcards.h]
:::: I tried it last night and I was able to get it to compile (after a few changes, like using '/' instead of '\' in a couple of #includes) but all I got was a black window and a beep sound, then nothing. How far advanced is the project? Should I expect more than that? I would expect small variations in the file formats between games, but I would be surprised if the core sound data has changed over time. -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 02:38, 6 May 2012 (GMT)
::::: On Windows, you can run around the levels, collide with walls, collect items, etc... I still need to implement monsters, AI and power shots. However, that beep means that the sounds playing. (see line 71 in main.c: catacomb_sounds_play("foundsound");). I just committed the catacomb_data.h file. Update it accordingly, you should now see much more than a black screen.
:::::: Oh wow, that works really well now! I see what you mean by the sounds. You might have to output the PCM data to a .wav/.raw file and look at it in a sound editor to see what's going on. It sounds like there might be wrapping or something going on. Also some sounds (like being blocked by a door) play multiple times over the top of themselves. I guess this is what you meant by priority not being implemented (although maybe you wouldn't need to handle priority if you can play multiple sounds at the same time, unlike the real PC Speaker.) One suggestion - if you do decide to support Linux, abstract the calls that open files so that they search for filenames instead - that way you don't have to rename all the Catacomb files to be uppercase, since Linux has a case-sensitive filesystem and most filenames are usually all lowercase. -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 03:42, 6 May 2012 (GMT)
::::::: I have exported the raw data to a file, then imported the raw data into Audacity using various settings. All of them sound like they do in the game, crackly and sometimes distorted. I really think its some sort of post FX used by the flags. As for files, I'll code some sort of SafeFileOpen, SafeFileClose functions like the id codebase that open files regardless of case when i get around to implementing the Linux version. - [[User:Eros|Eros]] 03:54, 6 May 2012 (GMT)
:::::::: If you can e-mail me one of the files (preferably a 'quiet' one that's not supposed to be crackly) I can take a look if you like - malvineous@shikadi.net -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 03:57, 6 May 2012 (GMT)

== Merge ==

Is there a way to tag two pages such that it is clear that they should be merged?
For example, [[Crystal Caves Tileset Format]] describes the same format as [[Duke 1 Tileset Graphics]].[[User:Frenkel|Frenkel]] ([[User talk:Frenkel|talk]]) 21:00, 15 July 2013 (GMT)

: You can mention it on the talk page for one of the articles. Any suggestions as to what we should call the merged page? -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] ([[User talk:Malvineous|talk]]) 03:09, 20 July 2013 (GMT)

::Dark Ages is the first game that got released that uses this format, so ''Dark Ages Tileset Format'' could be the name, like all those formats that are named after Commander Keen 1-3.
::Or we name it after Duke Nukem 1, because that game is probably more popular than Dark Ages, Crystal Caves and Secret Agent, like [[Commander Keen 1-3 Level format]], although Slordax used it before Commander Keen 1-3 did.[[User:Frenkel|Frenkel]] ([[User talk:Frenkel|talk]]) 19:13, 20 July 2013 (GMT)

::: Yes I was thinking along the same lines, naming it after the first game that used the format. But then the release date doesn't necessarily indicate which game "invented" the format, if one game took longer to develop and was released late. I was wondering whether there is a common thread amongst all these games, such as the same programmer or company we could use instead. In many ways I would prefer a name like "Replogle tileset format" or "Apogee EGA tileset format". What do you think? -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] ([[User talk:Malvineous|talk]]) 23:36, 20 July 2013 (GMT)

:::: I've read the [http://www.3drealms.com/news/2006/04/the_apogee_legacy_15.html | Apogee Legacy interview with Peder Jungck] again today. He wrote the ProGraphx Toolbox.
:::: DN1.EXE contains the string ''Version 1.0 EGA/VGAProGraphx EGA/VGA Toolbox'',
:::: CC1.EXE contains the string ''Version 1.5 320x200 PAN EGA/VGAProGraphx EGA/VGA Toolbox'',
:::: SAM1.EXE contains the string ''ProGraphx EGA/VGA Toolbox Version 2.0 320x200 EGA/VGA Copyright 1991 by Peder Jungck'' and
:::: DA3.EXE contains the string ''Version 1.0 EGA/VGAProGraphx EGA/VGA Toolbox'' (DA1.EXE and DA2.exe contain gibberish).
:::: So I would suggest ''ProGraphx Toolbox tileset format''. Peder also wrote a book about the toolbox called ''Graphics Programming & Animation: Ultra-Fast Assembly Routines for EGA/VGA Graphics Animation''. Maybe that book has a better name for the file format. [[User:Frenkel|Frenkel]] ([[User talk:Frenkel|talk]]) 11:03, 21 July 2013 (GMT)

::::: So we know of three different versions of the ProGraphx Toolbox. Dark Ages and Duke Nukem 1 use version 1.0. Each tileset is 8064 bytes long and is in a separate file. Crystal Caves uses version 1.5 and each tileset is 8003 bytes long, but they are all in the same file. Secret Agent uses version 2.0 Each tileset is again 8064 bytes long, they are all in the same file and the file is encrypted. [[User:Frenkel|Frenkel]] ([[User talk:Frenkel|talk]]) 17:00, 28 July 2013 (GMT)

:::::: Thanks for figuring all that out. I've merged the pages and changed the name to [[ProGraphx Toolbox tileset format]] as suggested. Please feel free to correct anything I have missed. -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] ([[User talk:Malvineous|talk]]) 02:40, 4 August 2013 (GMT)

== Guidelines for proper Wiki Editing ==
Dear Malvineous! Could you post the guidelines (or guide) for proper editing of the Wiki? [[User:The coder|The coder]] ([[User talk:The coder|talk]])
: Hmm, there isn't really one, it's more about finding a similar page and matching the style found there! Copy and paste works well :-) There is [[ModdingWiki:Contributing]] but it's not very detailed. (BTW please put <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki> at the end of your messages, when you preview the page you will see this gets replaced with your name and the date automatically.) -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] ([[User talk:Malvineous|talk]]) 21:59, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

== VGFM Music Format ==

Hello, Malvineous!

I accidentally found that [[VGFM Music Format]] is absolutely similar to the [http://www.vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php?title=MUS_(AdLib) MUS (AdLib)] format which I finished researching yesterday.

And [[VGFM Instrument Format]] is similar to [http://www.vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php?title=SND_(AdLib) SND (AdLib)].

These formats were developed by Ad Lib Inc, I found the sources and documentation in the Ad Lib developer's manual downloaded from old BBS board site :) And these formats are used not only in [[Vinyl Goddess From Mars]] game.

--[[User:Binarymaster|Binarymaster]] ([[User talk:Binarymaster|talk]]) 02:05, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

: Oh wow, what an interesting discovery!! Do you have any links to the official documentation? I'd really like to see what else they have to say about the format. And yes, we should definitely rename the articles here. What do you think they should be called? "Ad Lib Music Format" is probably a bit generic given they have a few, like .ROL... -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] ([[User talk:Malvineous|talk]]) 09:45, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
:: Here it is: [http://files.mpoli.fi/software/programm/general/adlip.zip adlip.zip] - binaries and source code, probably from Ad Lib Programmer's Manual. MUS headers are described in CONVERT.C and CONVERT.H files. Fun fact that they also developed another similar format based on MIDI - [http://www.vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php?title=MDI MDI]. It has similar musical features but stores all data in one file in MIDI format.
:: Well, I have no idea how to name it better, I think "Ad Lib Music Format" should be suitable for it :) --[[User:Binarymaster|binarymaster]] ([[User talk:Binarymaster|talk]]) 10:30, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

::: Many thanks!! I've updated the article pages with the info I could gain from the source code. There are still a few unresolved issues (like what exactly the default percussion pitch is) but it has certainly answered a number of questions. I called it "AdLib MIDI Format" because that's the name they use in one place in the source code, although it's not a very descriptive title! Thanks again for letting me know about this excellent find :-) -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] ([[User talk:Malvineous|talk]]) 12:48, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

:::: That's good! I think maybe this format should be named as "AdLib MIDI Format v1.0", because there is also an improved version of it, probably v2.0 - [http://www.vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php?title=MDI MDI] (I made a typo in previous posted link), it uses a single file in MIDI format.
:::: And about [[AdLib Timbre Bank Format]] article - BNK format originally was created in the 1987 with the first release of the [http://www.vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php?title=AdLib_Visual_Composer AdLib Visual Composer], so actually Ad Lib Inc released its formats in this order:
:::: '''1)''' ROL & BNK (1987, with AdLib Visual Composer)
:::: '''2)''' MUS & SND/TIM (1988, with player and converter)
:::: '''3)''' MDI (1989, also with player and converter)
:::: Information about third format was placed [http://cd.textfiles.com/soundsensations/MISCPROG/AD-PROG/ here], though the link is not working now.
:::: --[[User:Binarymaster|binarymaster]] ([[User talk:Binarymaster|talk]]) 13:08, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

::::: Oh wow that's interesting too. I think the MUS/SND/TIM format should stay as "AdLib MIDI Format" with no version number, because that file format does have version fields so it's possible to have v1.0, v2.3, etc. within that format. The MDI article you linked to actually looks like conventional MIDI with some extra events for setting OPL instruments, so I think this belongs as one of the many backwards-compatible extensions of the [[MID Format]].

::::: With the instrument bank formats that's really unusual if BNK came first! It seems very odd for AdLib to produce the SND/TIM format if they already had the more efficient BNK format available. I was going from the dates in the text files from the programmer's guide you kindly posted, and bkformat.txt says in Jan 1989 they are in the process of converting their software to use BNK. Can you confirm there was BNK software earlier than this? I'm just thinking that Visual Composer may have come out in 1987, but maybe it didn't get BNK support added until later? -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] ([[User talk:Malvineous|talk]]) 01:30, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

:::::: Well, I'm sure that first version of Visual Composer was released with AdLib music card, but I don't know exactly about BNK support. It's really strange that Ad Lib downgraded the format (BNK is better in structure), but the known formats has converters which converts BNK to X format, but not from X to BNK - this makes sense that BNK was the first format. Also Visual Composer doesn't support other bank formats, only BNK.
:::::: BNK creation date 1987 was contributed by [http://www.vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php?title=User:TheAlmightyGuru Dean Tersigni], I'll ask him about it.

:::::: Update: I also read information from bkformat.txt, and it seems you're right :)
:::::: So actually it was:
:::::: '''1)''' ROL & INS (1987, with AdLib Visual Composer v1.0)
:::::: '''2)''' MUS & SND/TIM (1988, with player and converter)
:::::: '''3)''' BNK (1989, with AdLib Visual Composer v1.5)
:::::: '''4)''' MDI (1989, also with player and converter)
:::::: Wow, that feel when restored original order of events! :D --[[User:Binarymaster|binarymaster]] ([[User talk:Binarymaster|talk]]) 01:51, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

::::::: That seems to make the most logical sense - there's a clear improvement with each new format. I'm glad you agree! Note that when you say there's no conversion from "X to BNK" there is BANKMNG.EXE that comes with the programmer's manual which converts .ins files to .bnk. -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] ([[User talk:Malvineous|talk]]) 04:09, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

:::::::: True. I forgot about it :) Thanks! --[[User:Binarymaster|binarymaster]] ([[User talk:Binarymaster|talk]]) 12:02, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

== email ==

Hello! Can't send you e-mail. Got this:

This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.
A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its
recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:
malvineous@shikadi.net
host mail.shikadi.net [52.11.27.19]
SMTP error from remote mail server after RCPT TO:<malvineous@shikadi.net>:
550 invalid recipient

[[User:CTPAX-X Team|CTPAX-X Team]] ([[User talk:CTPAX-X Team|talk]]) 09:12, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

:Whoops, moved my e-mail service to AWS and missed a step for that address! Please resend, should work now :-) Thanks for letting me know! -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] ([[User talk:Malvineous|talk]]) 11:34, 11 March 2017 (UTC)
::Yes, e-mail goes through this time. Hope you receive it. [[User:CTPAX-X Team|CTPAX-X Team]] ([[User talk:CTPAX-X Team|talk]]) 15:41, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

== Duplicate RLE page ==

After some edits to the [[RLE Compression]] page, I noticed that this was not the page linked from the [[:Category:Compression algorithms]] page. It seems there are in fact two of them; one with an uppercase 'c', and [[RLE compression|one with a lowercase 'c']]. The latter seems to be the better-written one, but since the LZW page was apparently moved from "LZW compression" to "LZW Compression", I suggest the final name of the RLE page should likewise be the uppercase-'c' one.

I have merged anything I deemed useful into the lowercase-'c' version. Could you make sure the uppercase-'c' duplicate is removed, and the other one is moved to its name?

-[[User:Nyerguds|Nyerguds]] ([[User talk:Nyerguds|talk]]) 16:48, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

: Done, many thanks for the clean up! -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] ([[User talk:Malvineous|talk]]) 10:38, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

== Account rename? ==
Hi Malvineous,

I am wondering if it's much of a hassle to rename accounts on this wiki. I'd kind of like to have my account use the same handle I'm using just about everywhere else (ETTiNGRiNDER). Don't sweat it too much if this is onerous to do, though.

Thanks! - [[User:Mysterioso|Mysterioso]] ([[User talk:Mysterioso|talk]]) 20:42, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

: I'm not sure how it can be done. If you can find out a quick way to rename a MediaWiki account then let me know! At any rate all your comments would still be signed with your old name however. -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] ([[User talk:Malvineous|talk]]) 10:15, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
: P.S. the e-mail address in your account is bouncing -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] ([[User talk:Malvineous|talk]]) 10:17, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
:: Ah, right, it was still set to that old e-mail. Hushmail nuked that address on me years ago, I've changed it to one that's current. As for the renaming, I don't really know anything about wiki administration, though a quick search suggests that there's this thing: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Renameuser
::If that's a bit much then no biggie. -- [[User:Mysterioso|Mysterioso]] ([[User talk:Mysterioso|talk]]) 14:43, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

== Removal request ==

It seems I made a page that was unnecessary; the [[Westwood Palette]] I documented turned out to be a known common format (6-bit RGB) already covered in the standard [[VGA Palette]] page. I have changed all links to link to the older page, but I don't think I have the user rights required to delete the Westwood Palette page. Can you take care of it? -[[User:Nyerguds|Nyerguds]] ([[User talk:Nyerguds|talk]]) 14:56, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

: Done! I made you an admin too so you should have delete access now. Thanks for your contributions! -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] ([[User talk:Malvineous|talk]]) 00:03, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

== Hi-Octane ==

Hi!

I've figured out the MUSIC.DAT container and I was wondering if you could shed out some light on what these song formats are, now that we know how to unpack it ?

Thanks !!!

: Yep, they're listed on the [[Hi Octane]] page, in the file format box. -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] ([[User talk:Malvineous|talk]]) 10:57, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

== ReCaptcha v1 problem ==

It seems I can no longer add links in articles; the ReCaptcha test added when new links are detected uses ReCaptcha v1, which gives a warning that "reCAPTCHA 1 IS SHUTDOWN". It does not allow the check to pass, so the page can never be submitted.

The FAQ on the ReCaptcha docs (can't link to them, obviously) says that "'''Any calls to the v1 API will not work after March 31, 2018'''".

-[[User:Nyerguds|Nyerguds]] ([[User talk:Nyerguds|talk]]) 09:26, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

== Bio Menace patches ==

Hey, I'll have Bio Menace 1 patches for the freeware release. Most of them are status window-related, but there are others as well.
Question: Could you create several other sections in All Bio Menace patches cathegory? Because I cannot submit them anywhere right now. Thanks! --[[User:Szemigi|Szemigi]] ([[User talk:Szemigi|talk]]) 00:57, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

: The status window patches should go into [[:Category:Bio Menace interface patches]]. The others *should* fit into existing categories, but if you're not sure let me know! -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] ([[User talk:Malvineous|talk]]) 05:23, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

:: I'll need several categories from you as I checked there'll be other BM patch stuff as well. So I need the following categories: status screen, hostage, help menu, main menu, B800 screen (I even built the BIN file and I made patch for that!). And I'll even submit these for BM2 and 3. Please, create these. Oh, and I'll surely submit! --[[User:Szemigi|Szemigi]] ([[User talk:Szemigi|talk]]) 01:36, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

::: Status screen, hostage, help menu, main menu and B800 screen should all go into [[:Category:Bio Menace interface patches]] as they are all modifying the user interface. I would like to keep the number of patch categories fairly small otherwise it will get a little out of control! -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] ([[User talk:Malvineous|talk]]) 01:48, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

== Bio Menace patches on PCKF? ==

Hey, how can I post my Bio Menace 1-3 patches on PCKF or keenmodding.org? I very want them to submit one of the forums!--[[User:Szemigi|Szemigi]] ([[User talk:Szemigi|talk]]) 23:11, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

== Wombat File Reader updates! ==

I think [[Wombat]]'s title should be updated to show its full name, which now is "Wombat File Reader".

Also the supported games list has to be updated accordingly to the list on https://szevvy.com/ (the author's website, which was listed as "dead" in Wombat's info while the site is up and running again).

It's also not a dead program at all, since its latest version is very recent (11 October 2018), and it'd be a shame to have such old and deprecated information on this wiki of such a useful and powerful tool.

-[[User:Elia1995|Elìa1995]] ([[User_talk:Elia1995|talk]]) 07:38, 15 October 2018‎ (UTC)

: It's only just been updated recently after many years of no releases. It's a bit unfair to say the wiki has old information when it's only a couple of weeks out of date, and it relies on people such as yourself to keep things up to date! Please go ahead and correct as needed so we can keep the information current. We are all doing this in our spare time so we need lots of help to keep things up to date. Also, the page you link to lists it as "Wombat File Tools" rather than "Wombat File Reader". Everyone in the community refers to it as just "Wombat" however. -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] ([[User talk:Malvineous|talk]]) 23:27, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

:: I've only just gotten my account here approved, and only just made new builds of Wombat (actually a complete rewrite) after (as Malvineous said) many many years of no releases. It warms my heart to see people notice :) [[User:Szevvy|Szevvy]] ([[User talk:Szevvy|talk]]) 01:44, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

::: I just noticed the 1.0.4 update, I'll work on updating the supported games list on the page according to the one on Szevvy's site; by the way, thanks for telling me how to "sign" these posts, I had no idea. [[User:Elia1995|Elia1995]] ([[User talk:Elia1995|talk]]) 08:08, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

== e-mail (again) ==

Hello! Sent you e-mail 2019.02.19 about Prehistorik without any answer. Yesterday another e-mail was sent and since 24+ hours passed was forced to write here. Is there something wrong again with your e-mail account or spam filters (for mail.ru)? Thanks! [[User:CTPAX-X Team|CTPAX-X Team]] ([[User talk:CTPAX-X Team|talk]]) 15:10, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

== Content license ==

Is the content of this wiki governed by a specific license? I'd like to contribute information on "Nomad" file formats that I reverse engineered, which I'd previously published on my personal web site under [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ Creative Commons SA 4.0]. This wiki certainly seems to be in the spirit of the Creative Commons licensing structure so I'm guessing there would be no real conflict, but I just wanted to get some additional information on this. --[[User:Cmb|Cmb]] ([[User talk:Cmb|talk]]) 13:32, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
:Personally, I've just [[RLE Compression#Source_code|added the license under which code was released]] myself. Then again I release everything under [[wp:WTFPL|WTFPL]], because I honestly don't mind people using anything I write for research purposes in any way they please, so license compatibility is a bit of a non-issue for me. -[[User:Nyerguds|Nyerguds]] ([[User talk:Nyerguds|talk]]) 16:04, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
:That said, though, given the current online climate, I do agree this is an issue that should be clarified here on the wiki. -[[User:Nyerguds|Nyerguds]] ([[User talk:Nyerguds|talk]]) 16:06, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
:: There is a licence specified somewhere but the short answer is anything you put here is basically in the public domain - because if someone steals it we don't have the resources to chase them, so if it's that valuable to you that you can't handle someone copying it without giving you credit, then don't post it here. Having said that for "nice" users many of the pages ask for a mention if you find the content useful, but this is by no means a requirement. I suppose legally speaking you'll have to dual-licence your Creative Commons content because some CC versions have additional restrictions, like you can't copy the content without giving credit. The [https://creativecommons.org/choose/zero/ CC0 licence] pretty much covers it. Putting a specific licence on code is fine (although no licence at all would be best so it inherits the wiki's general content licence), noting that any licence enforcement will be on you, but the content itself is always going to be CC0/public domain. -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] ([[User talk:Malvineous|talk]]) 05:48, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Talk:Linear Executable (LX/LE) Format

2020-12-22T17:08:25Z

Yetmorecode: Created page with "There are currently no file format pages on executable formats. There is a lot of information spread around on those and I don't necessarily need to replicate all of it here,..."

There are currently no file format pages on executable formats. There is a lot of information spread around on those and I don't necessarily need to replicate all of it here, yet I think a general page should be handy. Especially LE here is some weirdo which is not as easily to approach as MZ or PE. I plan to add some tutorial style pages regarding modding LE executables later (WIP) [[User:Yetmorecode|Yetmorecode]] ([[User talk:Yetmorecode|talk]]) 17:08, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Linear Executable (LX/LE) Format

2020-12-22T17:00:54Z

Yetmorecode: Created page with "Category:All file formats Category:All executable formats Unknown}}} executable <div style="border-left: 1em solid white; float: right; clear: rig..."

[[Category:All file formats]]
[[Category:All executable formats]]
[[Category:{{{Type|Unknown}}} executable]]
<div style="border-left: 1em solid white; float: right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em;">
<div class="infobox" style="width: 330px; text-align: left; font-size: 90%; float: none; margin: 0px;">
<div style="text-align:center; font-size: 120%;">'''{{PAGENAME}}'''</div>
<table>
<tr><th style="min-width: 12em;">Format type</th><td style="vertical-align: middle;">Executable</td></tr>
<tr><th>Successor to</th><td style="vertical-align: middle;">New Executable (NE) format</td></tr>
<tr><th>Superseded by</th><td style="vertical-align: middle;">Portable Executable (PE) Format</td></tr>
<tr><th>Code</th><td style="vertical-align: middle;">16-bit (LX), 16/32bit mixed (LE)</td></tr>
<tr><th>Games</th><td style="vertical-align: middle; padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">[[F1 Manager Professional]]</td></tr>
</table>
</div></div>

The Linear Executable format is an executable format used by OS/2, many [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOS_extender DOS extenders] and Microsoft Windows VxD files. There are two main variants LX (16 bit only) and LE (16/32 bit mixed).

Many DOS games from the late 90s are 32-bit games shipped as LE executable together with a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOS_extender DOS extender]. The DOS extender will boot the CPU into 32-bit protected mode, extract the actual game from the game executable, load it into memory and run it. A popular choice at the time was [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOS/4G DOS4G(W)] (https://dos4gw.org/) that can be found along many games.

== History ==

The Linear Executable (LX/LE) Format is the direct successor of the [[New Executable (NE) Format]]. It was superseded by the [[Portable Executable (PE) Format]].

== Format Specifications ==

=== Signature ===

A Linear executable features a standard MZ Header, with the e_lfanew field pointing to an LX/LE header instead of an NE header. The LX/LE headers have a different magic value than the NE header, namely "LX" and "LE".

See the links below for further details on the format.

=== Specifications ===

* http://fileformats.archiveteam.org/wiki/Linear_Executable
* http://www.textfiles.com/programming/FORMATS/lxexe.txt
* https://github.com/open-watcom/open-watcom-v2/blob/master/bld/watcom/h/exeflat.h

== Notes ==

* Many specifications are old and for the LX variant, which was not used by DOS extenders. There are some slight differences when reading LE file compared to reading LX file, like page map entries being 32bit wide for LE but 64bit wide for LX). Open watcom as linked above is a good source to see those differences
* dos32a is an open source DOS extender which can also help with understanding the LE variant

== Modding ==

* [[Adding more space to Linear Executable DOS Games]] (Add room for new code, assets and text strings)
* [[Unbinding Games from DOS extenders with dos32a]]

F1 Manager Professional

2020-12-22T16:07:04Z

Yetmorecode:

CFG Format (F1 Manager Professional)

2020-12-22T15:37:52Z

Yetmorecode: /* File structure */

{{Playerdata Infobox
| Config = Yes
| Savegame = No
| Storing = Sound,Keys
| Games =
{{Game|F1 Manager Professional}}
}}

== File structure ==

Game settings are stored in the F1.CFG file. The file has the following structure without any signature or header:

{|class="wikitable"
!Offset!!Type!!Description
|-
|0||UINT32LE||Show controls
|-
|4||UINT32LE||Enable sound effects
|-
|8||UINT32LE||Enable race sound
|-
|12||UINT32LE||Enable game music
|-
|16||UINT32LE||Sound volume (0 to 100)
|-
|20||UINT32LE||Enable help
|-
|24||UINT32LE||Race texture quality (1 - low, 2 - middle, 3 - high)
|-
|}

CFG Format (F1 Manager Professional)

2020-12-22T15:36:49Z

Yetmorecode: Created page with "{{Playerdata Infobox | Config = Yes | Savegame = No | Storing = Sound,Keys | Games = {{Game|F1 Manager Professional}} }} == File structure == Game settings are stored in t..."

{{Playerdata Infobox
| Config = Yes
| Savegame = No
| Storing = Sound,Keys
| Games =
{{Game|F1 Manager Professional}}
}}

== File structure ==

Game settings are stored in the F1.CFG file. The file has the following structure without any signature or header:

{|class="wikitable"
!Offset!!Type!!Description
|-
|0||UINT32||Show controls
|-
|4||UINT32||Enable sound effects
|-
|8||UINT32||Enable race sound
|-
|12||UINT32||Enable game music
|-
|16||UINT32||Sound volume (0 to 100)
|-
|20||UINT32||Enable help
|-
|24||UINT32||Race texture quality (1 - low, 2 - middle, 3 - high)
|-
|}

F1 Manager Professional

2020-12-22T15:29:08Z

Yetmorecode: Added link to CFG Format

User talk:Malvineous

2020-12-22T15:25:39Z

Yetmorecode: /* Scope of the wiki */

== Wolfenstein 3D -> Wolfenstein 3-D ==
I've corrected the infamous 3D tyop in the names of several Wolf3D-related pages; can you please delete the following ones?

[[:Category:Wolfenstein 3D]] -> Superseded by [[:Category:Wolfenstein 3-D]] 
[[:Image:Wolfenstein_3D.png]] -> Superseded by [[:Image:Wolfenstein_3-D.png]]

Thanks :) --De Zeurkous (zeurkous@zeurcomp.nichten.info), Thu Nov 22 08:18:42 UTC 2007

:Haha, you've certainly been busy. Don't forget that this wiki isn't meant to be an encyclopaedia of the games, its main purpose is documenting the file formats and editing tools that can be used with the games, as opposed to how the games behave without any mods, or what they might be called if you forget to change the title screen :-) -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 11:14, 22 November 2007 (GMT)

::Nah, I haven't forgotten. As we're reinventing the wheel for a semi-virgin wiki, the naming and something static like the cheats seemed like a good place to start :) --De Zeurkous (zeurkous@nichten.info), Thu Nov 22 12:20:04 UTC 2007

== Jill of the Jungle palette ==

Hi, I'm currently working on a level viewer for [[Jill of the Jungle]] (maybe an editor later on). Some of the information I found here has been very useful, but there's one thing I'm a bit stuck on. On the [[SHA Format]] page it says:
:''Each array item contains 4 unsigned bytes, representing CGA, EGA and VGA, respectivley, and then a null value. [...] Each byte maps to the index of a colour in the palette. If there are no colours required, the tile set uses the default colours.''
However, it doesn't say anywhere where the palette can be found. Is it stored in the EXE file? I hope you can help me on this :)

Regards, [[User:Spinal|Spinal]] 13:00, 2 March 2008 (GMT)

:Unfortunately I didn't write the JotJ SHA page, and I haven't yet had the time to figure this out. For Xargon I've taken the quick and dirty route and used a screenshot from within DOSBox as the source of the palette, until I can figure out where the palette is located. If you find this out, don't forget to update the page! :-) -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 22:02, 2 March 2008 (GMT)

::Hey Spinal, sorry, I wrote the [[SHA Format]] page, so that was probably my bad. I wasn't able to find the palette either. I assume it's in the .EXE, however I spent a fair bit of time manually mapping it using a Wombat tool (http://www.szevvy.com/node/3). I was also writing a level viewer (initally in XHTML which turned out to be too slow, so then I moved to Flash 9). I tried to email you my findings, but the email bounced. I'm not sure if they were 100% accurat, which is why I never added them to the documentation.

::Hey Malvineous, it seems the Jill - [[DMA Format]] page has been removed. Do you have a log of what happened to it? I'm sure it existed at some point.

::- [[User:dheim|Daniel]] 20:00, 5 March 2008

:::I don't ever remember seeing a DMA page - certainly there's nothing in the wiki logs about it being deleted or renamed. Maybe you started working on it but never got around to saving it? Or is it one of the Xargon pages that shares the same format as Jill? (by the way, you can type <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki> to automatically put in the signature in these messages.) -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 11:28, 5 March 2008 (GMT)

::::Sorry, it must have been the stuff in the [[SHA Format]] page that I was thinking of. I may have added the link to the [[DMA Format]] page, and never expanded on it. - [[User:Dheim|Daniel]] 02:46, 6 March 2008 (GMT)

:::::Hi guys. Sorry for the mistake, I mixed up the authors of the SHA and level formats. I've written a level viewer in PHP the last week, by using static images instead of getting them from the actual files. This causes some problems for episode 2, which uses a different palette, but besides that it works great :) When everything is done I'll upload the maps to my server and the tile/object lists to this wiki.
:::::@Daniel: strange that it bounced, I confirmed my address so it should be working fine... You can mail it to spinal -at- zanderz -dot- net. Also, I saw on your Wombat page that you "have a vague idea of how to do" [[Hocus Pocus]]. Could you share your findings on this wiki? I'd love to make maps, or even a level viewer/editor for that game :) -- [[User:Spinal|Spinal]] 00:32, 8 March 2008 (GMT)
:Okay, with help of [[User:Dheim|Daniel]] who send me the palette I found it! I'll put my findings on [[Jill of the Jungle palette]]. -- [[User:Spinal|Spinal]] 15:36, 13 March 2008 (GMT)

== Halloween Harry/Alien Carnage ==

Hi Malvineous. Thanks for your edits on the GMF article! I notice you mentioned there exist versions of the game which don't require exploding a BNK to get at the game data. What does the directory structure look like for the version you have? I'm working on a map viewer (which will become a map editor at some point) and would like it to be able to work on whatever versions are out there. Thanks for any info. -[[User:Duckthing|Duckthing]] 04:41, 11 December 2010 (GMT)

: Hi Duckthing - no worries, Halloween Harry has long been an interest of mine, but my map editor sadly needs a lot more work before I can begin reverse engineering more file formats so I'm glad you've made a start! AFAIK technically Halloween Harry has no compression, but for whatever reason (probably listed in the Apogee FAQ) they decided to swap episodes 1 and 3, compress the BNK file and then re-release it under the name Alien Carnage. You can download all available versions (including registered versions since the game was released as freeware in 2007) from [http://www.classicdosgames.com/game/Alien_Carnage.html RGB Classic Games]. BTW not sure if you noticed but I also posted a couple of things on the GMF article's talk/discussion page. -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 06:08, 11 December 2010 (GMT)

:: Thank you! Working with the uncompressed version will keep things less complicated. I did notice the GMF discussion you added, but haven't had a chance to really go through it yet. -- [[User:Duckthing|Duckthing]] 06:41, 11 December 2010 (GMT)

::: No worries. If you're running Linux or MacOSX you should be able to compile [[Camoto|libgamearchive]] which will let you copy files in and out of the BNK files. This is a library so it's also possible to use it in your own program for accessing and editing the map files while they're still inside the BNK, for instance. (BTW the 'minor' tickbox should only be used when the edit does not affect the information on the page - e.g. fixing a typo or a broken URL. If you are changing the actual content on a page it is never a minor edit!) -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 07:51, 11 December 2010 (GMT)

== Dangerous Dave ==

Working on this, does anyone have any info on the formats? The EGA graphics are 84KB and external, but CGA and VGA graphics unrelated to them are in the 174KB executable, apparently uncompressed, I don't know how this is possible. I've found the levels and partially reverse engineered the format (The first 1000 bytes, a 100x10 array of tiles.) but each level is followed by ~280 bytes of variable and unknown data I assume is sprites. I have a list of internal files in the executable, looks like most of it is non-game code. Any help would be appreciated. -[[User:Levellass|Endian? What are you on about?]] 06:03, 12 December 2010 (GMT)

: Hmm, interesting. All I can suggest for the levels is - as you're probably already familiar with - changing the values in a hex editor then loading the game to see what happens. I would suspect that all the graphics would be in a similar format, so if there are any headers or structures used in the EGA graphics files perhaps they're duplicated for CGA/VGA? Also John Romero seems pretty accessible, perhaps you could ask him directly? Failing that, randomly writing data into the .exe until the images change could be used as a last resort! -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 12:09, 12 December 2010 (GMT)

: Ha, that was easier than I expected - uncompressed VGA data is easy to find with a good hex editor ;-) [http://www.shikadi.net/pics/ddave-vga-hexdump.png This looks like it] -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 12:17, 12 December 2010 (GMT)

: Ok that was only the menu graphics. At offset 0xC629 there's some sort of offset table which looks very similar to the contents of EGADAVE.DAV but there are extra bytes dotted all over the place - perhaps it's RLE encoded? Actually just before that there's the number 0x6CAA. If you go a bit less than 0x6CAA bytes after this you end up with another table, which to me suggests that 0x6CAA is the decompressed size of that first table. -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 13:01, 12 December 2010 (GMT)

:If I remember it correctly, the VGA sprites and tiles are RLE compressed and it's not too hard to decompress them. The positions of the enemies in the levels on the other hand are still a mystery to me. [[User:Calvero|Calvero]] 20:43, 12 December 2010 (GMT)

: Looking at the levels, which directly follow the VGA palette, they seem to contain 256 bytes of header data, then the 100x10 tiles, then eight bytes of lead-out data. Then the next level's 256 bytes of header, 100x10 tiles, then eight bytes of lead-out. Although I say "level", the first "level" seems to contain both level 1 and 2, and this seems to be the way it works in the game - in some levels you can see through to others. I'm not sure what the 256 bytes of header data are for, but some levels have FF FF 00 00 repeated which seems to indicate two uint16 fields which are blanked out for those levels. -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 13:15, 13 December 2010 (GMT)

::First up, levels; where does level 1 start? It's possible I'm reading the start of a level as the previous level's end, I looked for the start of tile data, which I assumed, like Keen 1, would be the level start.

::Next, palette; I'm assuming, as you said, it is located just before the level data?

::There is VGA and CGA graphics in the executable, plus headers, but the bulk of graphics for CGA and VGA I haven't been able to locate. If the data is RLE compressed I should think it would use either Keen 1-3 fullscreen or Jazz Jackrabbit tile RLE, both of which I know well. I'll look into both of these options, cheers! -[[User:Levellass|Endian? What are you on about?]] 12:03, 20 December 2010 (GMT)

:::I've found the VGA and CGA data for the menu graphics. It looks like the CGA data is stored in a series of 1-bit-per-pixel (monochrome) images. Or it could be EGA data with the planes split out (e.g. red plane for all images, then green plane for all images, etc.) I think I found three planes which means it's probably EGA, as CGA would have a max of two planes. I've also found the font graphics, this looks like 4bpp/16 colour EGA data. Haven't seen level graphics yet. I've successfully modded the levels with a hex editor (putting the jetpack everywhere) so now I've finally looked at all the levels! The creatures are definitely not stored in the 100x10 tile data. Putting random bytes in there revealed that the values are indices into the image files, because if you put the value in for fire it will animate, and the following three or so values show up as still frames from the fire animation.

:::The VGA palette starts at 0x26B0A (I updated the main DDave page with this) + 768 bytes leads straight onto the start of level 1 at 0x26E0A. So at 0x26E0A there are 256 bytes of data, then 100x10 tiles, then 24 bytes of footer data. Some of this data (perhaps footer data) might be the level start coordinates, because Dave doesn't always start the level at the same place (e.g. the warp level when you climb the tree on level 5 and jump off the edge of the screen.) -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 12:24, 20 December 2010 (GMT)

:::I think I've found all the files so far, I've updated [[Dangerous Dave]] with the offsets of the files, including what appears to be CGA and VGA tiles. I'm not sure what sort of format they're in though, it looks like they might be compressed (and so the offsets in that list might be off by ~4, as I may have cut off the decompressed-size field.) I've also updated the map format page, I think it's pretty much fully reverse engineered now. -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 05:13, 21 December 2010 (GMT)

== Noahs Ark 3D and IMFs ==

Been poking around Noah's Ark 3D, an adaption of the Wolfenstein game and found a few interesting things which I'm hoping to confirm.

First, the game uses MID files, not IMF files for music, second, the MIDI files have an extra word at the start of the file giving the file length. Third, the code uses the first word of the midi file as the length of data to read from the file and put into memory to play. After poking around a bit in Wolfenstein and Keen I believe this is the same with IMF files, that is, ALL IMF files are type 0 as it were and the type 1s are read just like type 0s by the games (The first word is read as the amount of IMF data to copy into memory to play, this is then read as type 0.) I'm not quite sure what this does for the two types since type 1 is would essentially be a type 0 with a header and footer that are part of the AUDIO.xxx format, much like PC\adlib sounds can have the huffman lengths at the start. Are there any games that use 'individual' type 1 IMFs (Even if included as part of a group file. All I've seen are games like cosmo, where non-AUDIO IMFs are type 0.)

Should there be a Noah's Ark 3D page and should we add the midi note to the AUDIO format page? It seems that the format can hold any type of music file the game can read, not just IMFs. -- Levellass

: Yes it is known that the type-1 header might really be part of the AUDIO.xxx format but alas there were many type-1 files floating around the place (incorrectly extracted, you could argue) before this was realised, so the format variant is here to stay. It does have some advantages though (like tagging files with the song title) but I'm not sure whether anyone has figured out definitively whether the header (and footer, in the case of the Wolf3D files) belongs to the IMF or the AUDIO file. I guess you'd have to browse the game source code and see how the game uses the data to know for sure.

: As far as the MIDI goes, I believe the AUDIO.xxx file is just a container file like any other, capable of supporting any data at all. It's up to the game to decide how to use it. If anything this makes me think it would fit better if the AUDIO.xxx article was merely documenting the structure, with links to actual audio formats like PC SFX, Adlib SFX, IMF and MIDI and notes about which games make use of which formats.

: Oh and yes, by all means create a page for the new game. -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 08:41, 3 February 2011 (GMT)

== Sound Files category ==

I don’t know why there’s a Sound Files category and also an Audio Files category... it seems redundant. I left those categories the way they are though.

Also, the [[File format data types]] page needs some signed ints, but I didn’t know what naming convention you wanted to use. I described something as an [[INT16LE]] on [[BMC Format]]. [[User:Yellowantphil|Yellowantphil]] 20:12, 11 September 2011 (GMT)

: Not sure about the Sound vs Audio - I use the term 'audio' to mean both sound and music, but you're right, if there are separate sound and music categories we don't really need an audio one as well. Feel free to update. [[INT16LE]] is perfectly fine too! I added a note to the data types page. -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 22:30, 11 September 2011 (GMT)

== GamePage template ==

Should the GamePage template add the page to its own category? It seems a little odd that [[Wacky Wheels]] is not in the Wacky Wheels category. [[User:Yellowantphil|Yellowantphil]] 04:51, 16 September 2011 (GMT)
: I decided against this because there is a link to the game's page in the category intro at the top of the page. It seemed unnecessary having another link in amongst all the other pages. This was also because the game page was really only meant to be a summary, there wasn't supposed to be a huge amount of detail on it, only links to other pages with the detail (which then would appear in the category list.) I would imagine that, eventually, [[Wacky Wheels]] would be tweaked to move a lot of the content onto subpages. -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 12:58, 16 September 2011 (GMT)

== Scope of the wiki ==

I don’t know how extensive you want the information to be on ModdingWiki... I added a few lists of audio and graphics files a while ago, and there will probably be other information that I’ll find out that’s potentially helpful for level editing but not directly related to it. I can move some information to my website if it starts to become out of scope for your wiki. I also sometimes end up documenting everything imaginable... there’s some minutiae on my website and possibly on your wiki that I ought to go through and delete. [[User:Yellowantphil|Yellowantphil]] 05:28, 10 October 2011 (GMT)

:Hmm, that's a difficult one - I'm always in favour of documenting more rather than less. Generally speaking if it's related to a game and it would help either a programmer writing a utility or a someone trying to change a game manually then it should be documented. About the only thing that comes to mind that's over documenting is when some small calculation is expressed in a couple of different programming languages, but I've left that in so people can just copy it rather than trying to figure it out from the text. But the [[Wacky Wheels]] page is probably the gold standard for what all wiki pages should look like :-) Do you have anything in particular you're unsure of whether it would fit here? -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 10:07, 10 October 2011 (GMT)

::I was mainly thinking of the list of VOC files on [[Wacky Wheels Music and Sound Effects]] and the list of <tt>*.sp</tt> files on [[Wacky Wheels Graphics Formats]]. I have an expanded list of the <tt>*.sp</tt> files on my computer but it isn’t finished yet. I guess there isn’t all that much more Wacky Wheels information to be added to this wiki though. There is still some modding information on my website that ought to be moved over here, so that would take up another page or two. I’ve been lazy about doing Wacky Wheels stuff lately, but I might find some time for it this weekend.

::By the way, I guess that guy from Cascadia Games emailed you. It’s pretty interesting that WW might become an iPhone app. He told me that he was going to be using his own game engine, which sounds a lot easier than trying to get a hold of the WW source code and porting it. —[[User:Yellowantphil|Yellowantphil]] 16:46, 15 October 2011 (GMT)

::: I was going to say the list of VOCs might be overkill, but then the list of .sp files might be useful. To be honest, it's the sort of thing that you could probably omit if you were feeling lazy, but likewise I don't mind at all if you choose to include it, so since it's already there I'm happy to keep it.

::: Yes I did get an e-mail from Cascadia, I was going to pass along your details but it sounds like you're already aware of it! Using their own engine might make it a bit smoother than the original, as the jerkiness of turning is my only criticism of the game. -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 00:14, 16 October 2011 (GMT)

:I'd like to document not only the format of some game archives but also their contents. This would be quite long lists of basically images, sprites and some minor stuff. I'd also like to upload the actual images alongside but I'm not sure whether that fits the scope of the wiki or if I should just put it somewhere on github. Any advice highly welcome :)

== Wacky Wheels ==

Basically all of the WW modding information from my website is here now. I moved one page when I realized it should probably be capitalized to match the rest of the pages on this site... you can delete the redirect at [[Wacky Wheels high score files]] if you want to.

Now, I need to remove most of the modding information from my website and refer people here. Then we’ll have reached the glorious future where all WW modding information is in one place. I’m going to keep those two text files of notes on my website though—the information in them is disorganized and I think not 100% accurate, but they might have some information that isn’t here yet.

By the way, how’s Camoto going? I’m planning to use it to make a new WW level, but I won’t have time for it for a few more months. —[[User:Yellowantphil|Yellowantphil]]

: Sounds good! Thanks for all the effort you've put in by moving it across. I think Wacky Wheels is now the most completely documented game on the wiki! Also can't hurt leaving your own info up - sometimes it's nice to go back to the original source if something is unclear. Camoto's going well, but unfortunately I haven't had much time to work on it over the last few weeks. You probably won't be able to make much of a level until I add in the ability to select a tile from the tileset, but that's in progress and hopefully will be ready by the time you are! Keep me posted when you do start your level(s?) -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 12:22, 2 February 2012 (GMT)

::Well, as I was reading some of the information on my website, I noticed that it isn’t written very well. I wrote those pages back when I had very little experience programming. Anyway, I’m planning to redesign my website soon, and this will save me from having to rewrite a few of those pages.

::The tile editor in Camoto as it is now is still certainly useful—I can add new tile types to a level using a binary editor and then move them around in Camoto. I think that it shouldn’t be too hard to make a new WW level using the Gimp and Camoto plus some binary editing. I recall having some problems with the route editor for the computer players, but I didn’t look into it at the time—I’ll let you know when I’m working with Camoto again, and I’ll try to come up with some useful bug reports or fixes if I run into problems. —[[User:Yellowantphil|Yellowantphil]] 14:06, 2 February 2012 (GMT)

== Catacomb ==

Hey [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]], do you know anyone who has properly read the [[Inverse_Frequency_Sound_format|Inverse Sound Frequency]] file format and got the sound playing? I'm struggling with some fine details in my game. Sounds play near what they should sound like, but the sound quality is all crackly and some sounds play totally incorrect. I followed a basic [http://web.archive.org/web/20000818033701/http://www.dd.chalmers.se/~f98anga/projects/keen/sounds2raw.c code sample] by Anders Gavare. Does your tool support this? Interested in helping me figure this out? My current code is available at [https://code.google.com/p/cataclone/source/browse/trunk/src/catacomb/catacomb_sound.c catacomb_sound.c] - [[User:Eros|Eros]] 11:57, 5 May 2012 (GMT)
: Should this be moved to my talk page? - [[User:Eros|Eros]] 11:59, 5 May 2012 (GMT)
:: Probably best to keep it on my talk page if you want me to respond in a timely manner :-) I based my old utility off Anders' one too, but it's been a long time since I looked at the code. My latest utility doesn't support sound effects yet. I know Levellass has written a few utilities to play and edit those sound files, so I think your best bet would probably be to post over at the [http://www.keenmodding.org Keen:Modding] forum. Do note that PC Speaker effects do sound crackly at the best of times, though! Also make sure you've got the right audio format (8-bit vs 16-bit, signed vs unsigned) - I remember some inconsistencies there causing some very distorted results for me. I love the name 'Cataclone' - does your code compile under Linux? -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 13:21, 5 May 2012 (GMT)
::: I currently compile the code using Code::Blocks with GCC 4.6 -std=gnu99. It *should* compile under Linux. But I haven't tested that out yet. [[Catacomb]] sounds also have flags attached to each one, It's not exactly the same specification as what it says @ the [[Inverse_Frequency_Sound_format|Inverse Sound Frequency]] format page. Perhaps the flags would make a difference to the sounds? I have the sound setup @ [https://code.google.com/p/cataclone/source/browse/trunk/src/sound_manager.c sound_manager.c] in the sound_manager_init() method. I use AUDIO_S16 (signed 16-bit) @ 22050 Hz with 2 channels. I have not added support for the priority of the sounds yet, I plan on doing that after I get them playing properly.
::: I found some information on the [[ROTT]] sound format here: [http://src.gnu-darwin.org/ports/games/rottdc/work/rottdc-1.0-2/rott/_rt_soun.h _rt_soun.h]. This format should be similar to Catacomb as ROTT was developed by [[Apogee]] using the [[Doom]] engine. Here are the flags for the sounds that they define:
#define SD_OVERWRITE 0x01
#define SD_WRITE 0x02
#define SD_LOOP 0x04
#define SD_PITCHSHIFTOFF 0x08
#define SD_PLAYONCE 0x10
::: There are also many other sound files for ROTT: [http://src.gnu-darwin.org/ports/games/rottdc/work/rottdc-1.0-2/rott/rt_sound.c], [http://src.gnu-darwin.org/ports/games/rottdc/work/rottdc-1.0-2/rott/rt_sound.h], [http://src.gnu-darwin.org/ports/games/rottdc/work/rottdc-1.0-2/rott/snd_reg.h], [http://src.gnu-darwin.org/ports/games/rottdc/work/rottdc-1.0-2/rott/snd_shar.h], [http://src.gnu-darwin.org/ports/games/rottdc/work/rottdc-1.0-2/rott/sndcards.h]
:::: I tried it last night and I was able to get it to compile (after a few changes, like using '/' instead of '\' in a couple of #includes) but all I got was a black window and a beep sound, then nothing. How far advanced is the project? Should I expect more than that? I would expect small variations in the file formats between games, but I would be surprised if the core sound data has changed over time. -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 02:38, 6 May 2012 (GMT)
::::: On Windows, you can run around the levels, collide with walls, collect items, etc... I still need to implement monsters, AI and power shots. However, that beep means that the sounds playing. (see line 71 in main.c: catacomb_sounds_play("foundsound");). I just committed the catacomb_data.h file. Update it accordingly, you should now see much more than a black screen.
:::::: Oh wow, that works really well now! I see what you mean by the sounds. You might have to output the PCM data to a .wav/.raw file and look at it in a sound editor to see what's going on. It sounds like there might be wrapping or something going on. Also some sounds (like being blocked by a door) play multiple times over the top of themselves. I guess this is what you meant by priority not being implemented (although maybe you wouldn't need to handle priority if you can play multiple sounds at the same time, unlike the real PC Speaker.) One suggestion - if you do decide to support Linux, abstract the calls that open files so that they search for filenames instead - that way you don't have to rename all the Catacomb files to be uppercase, since Linux has a case-sensitive filesystem and most filenames are usually all lowercase. -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 03:42, 6 May 2012 (GMT)
::::::: I have exported the raw data to a file, then imported the raw data into Audacity using various settings. All of them sound like they do in the game, crackly and sometimes distorted. I really think its some sort of post FX used by the flags. As for files, I'll code some sort of SafeFileOpen, SafeFileClose functions like the id codebase that open files regardless of case when i get around to implementing the Linux version. - [[User:Eros|Eros]] 03:54, 6 May 2012 (GMT)
:::::::: If you can e-mail me one of the files (preferably a 'quiet' one that's not supposed to be crackly) I can take a look if you like - malvineous@shikadi.net -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 03:57, 6 May 2012 (GMT)

== Merge ==

Is there a way to tag two pages such that it is clear that they should be merged?
For example, [[Crystal Caves Tileset Format]] describes the same format as [[Duke 1 Tileset Graphics]].[[User:Frenkel|Frenkel]] ([[User talk:Frenkel|talk]]) 21:00, 15 July 2013 (GMT)

: You can mention it on the talk page for one of the articles. Any suggestions as to what we should call the merged page? -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] ([[User talk:Malvineous|talk]]) 03:09, 20 July 2013 (GMT)

::Dark Ages is the first game that got released that uses this format, so ''Dark Ages Tileset Format'' could be the name, like all those formats that are named after Commander Keen 1-3.
::Or we name it after Duke Nukem 1, because that game is probably more popular than Dark Ages, Crystal Caves and Secret Agent, like [[Commander Keen 1-3 Level format]], although Slordax used it before Commander Keen 1-3 did.[[User:Frenkel|Frenkel]] ([[User talk:Frenkel|talk]]) 19:13, 20 July 2013 (GMT)

::: Yes I was thinking along the same lines, naming it after the first game that used the format. But then the release date doesn't necessarily indicate which game "invented" the format, if one game took longer to develop and was released late. I was wondering whether there is a common thread amongst all these games, such as the same programmer or company we could use instead. In many ways I would prefer a name like "Replogle tileset format" or "Apogee EGA tileset format". What do you think? -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] ([[User talk:Malvineous|talk]]) 23:36, 20 July 2013 (GMT)

:::: I've read the [http://www.3drealms.com/news/2006/04/the_apogee_legacy_15.html | Apogee Legacy interview with Peder Jungck] again today. He wrote the ProGraphx Toolbox.
:::: DN1.EXE contains the string ''Version 1.0 EGA/VGAProGraphx EGA/VGA Toolbox'',
:::: CC1.EXE contains the string ''Version 1.5 320x200 PAN EGA/VGAProGraphx EGA/VGA Toolbox'',
:::: SAM1.EXE contains the string ''ProGraphx EGA/VGA Toolbox Version 2.0 320x200 EGA/VGA Copyright 1991 by Peder Jungck'' and
:::: DA3.EXE contains the string ''Version 1.0 EGA/VGAProGraphx EGA/VGA Toolbox'' (DA1.EXE and DA2.exe contain gibberish).
:::: So I would suggest ''ProGraphx Toolbox tileset format''. Peder also wrote a book about the toolbox called ''Graphics Programming & Animation: Ultra-Fast Assembly Routines for EGA/VGA Graphics Animation''. Maybe that book has a better name for the file format. [[User:Frenkel|Frenkel]] ([[User talk:Frenkel|talk]]) 11:03, 21 July 2013 (GMT)

::::: So we know of three different versions of the ProGraphx Toolbox. Dark Ages and Duke Nukem 1 use version 1.0. Each tileset is 8064 bytes long and is in a separate file. Crystal Caves uses version 1.5 and each tileset is 8003 bytes long, but they are all in the same file. Secret Agent uses version 2.0 Each tileset is again 8064 bytes long, they are all in the same file and the file is encrypted. [[User:Frenkel|Frenkel]] ([[User talk:Frenkel|talk]]) 17:00, 28 July 2013 (GMT)

:::::: Thanks for figuring all that out. I've merged the pages and changed the name to [[ProGraphx Toolbox tileset format]] as suggested. Please feel free to correct anything I have missed. -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] ([[User talk:Malvineous|talk]]) 02:40, 4 August 2013 (GMT)

== Guidelines for proper Wiki Editing ==
Dear Malvineous! Could you post the guidelines (or guide) for proper editing of the Wiki? [[User:The coder|The coder]] ([[User talk:The coder|talk]])
: Hmm, there isn't really one, it's more about finding a similar page and matching the style found there! Copy and paste works well :-) There is [[ModdingWiki:Contributing]] but it's not very detailed. (BTW please put <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki> at the end of your messages, when you preview the page you will see this gets replaced with your name and the date automatically.) -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] ([[User talk:Malvineous|talk]]) 21:59, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

== VGFM Music Format ==

Hello, Malvineous!

I accidentally found that [[VGFM Music Format]] is absolutely similar to the [http://www.vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php?title=MUS_(AdLib) MUS (AdLib)] format which I finished researching yesterday.

And [[VGFM Instrument Format]] is similar to [http://www.vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php?title=SND_(AdLib) SND (AdLib)].

These formats were developed by Ad Lib Inc, I found the sources and documentation in the Ad Lib developer's manual downloaded from old BBS board site :) And these formats are used not only in [[Vinyl Goddess From Mars]] game.

--[[User:Binarymaster|Binarymaster]] ([[User talk:Binarymaster|talk]]) 02:05, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

: Oh wow, what an interesting discovery!! Do you have any links to the official documentation? I'd really like to see what else they have to say about the format. And yes, we should definitely rename the articles here. What do you think they should be called? "Ad Lib Music Format" is probably a bit generic given they have a few, like .ROL... -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] ([[User talk:Malvineous|talk]]) 09:45, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
:: Here it is: [http://files.mpoli.fi/software/programm/general/adlip.zip adlip.zip] - binaries and source code, probably from Ad Lib Programmer's Manual. MUS headers are described in CONVERT.C and CONVERT.H files. Fun fact that they also developed another similar format based on MIDI - [http://www.vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php?title=MDI MDI]. It has similar musical features but stores all data in one file in MIDI format.
:: Well, I have no idea how to name it better, I think "Ad Lib Music Format" should be suitable for it :) --[[User:Binarymaster|binarymaster]] ([[User talk:Binarymaster|talk]]) 10:30, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

::: Many thanks!! I've updated the article pages with the info I could gain from the source code. There are still a few unresolved issues (like what exactly the default percussion pitch is) but it has certainly answered a number of questions. I called it "AdLib MIDI Format" because that's the name they use in one place in the source code, although it's not a very descriptive title! Thanks again for letting me know about this excellent find :-) -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] ([[User talk:Malvineous|talk]]) 12:48, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

:::: That's good! I think maybe this format should be named as "AdLib MIDI Format v1.0", because there is also an improved version of it, probably v2.0 - [http://www.vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php?title=MDI MDI] (I made a typo in previous posted link), it uses a single file in MIDI format.
:::: And about [[AdLib Timbre Bank Format]] article - BNK format originally was created in the 1987 with the first release of the [http://www.vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php?title=AdLib_Visual_Composer AdLib Visual Composer], so actually Ad Lib Inc released its formats in this order:
:::: '''1)''' ROL & BNK (1987, with AdLib Visual Composer)
:::: '''2)''' MUS & SND/TIM (1988, with player and converter)
:::: '''3)''' MDI (1989, also with player and converter)
:::: Information about third format was placed [http://cd.textfiles.com/soundsensations/MISCPROG/AD-PROG/ here], though the link is not working now.
:::: --[[User:Binarymaster|binarymaster]] ([[User talk:Binarymaster|talk]]) 13:08, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

::::: Oh wow that's interesting too. I think the MUS/SND/TIM format should stay as "AdLib MIDI Format" with no version number, because that file format does have version fields so it's possible to have v1.0, v2.3, etc. within that format. The MDI article you linked to actually looks like conventional MIDI with some extra events for setting OPL instruments, so I think this belongs as one of the many backwards-compatible extensions of the [[MID Format]].

::::: With the instrument bank formats that's really unusual if BNK came first! It seems very odd for AdLib to produce the SND/TIM format if they already had the more efficient BNK format available. I was going from the dates in the text files from the programmer's guide you kindly posted, and bkformat.txt says in Jan 1989 they are in the process of converting their software to use BNK. Can you confirm there was BNK software earlier than this? I'm just thinking that Visual Composer may have come out in 1987, but maybe it didn't get BNK support added until later? -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] ([[User talk:Malvineous|talk]]) 01:30, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

:::::: Well, I'm sure that first version of Visual Composer was released with AdLib music card, but I don't know exactly about BNK support. It's really strange that Ad Lib downgraded the format (BNK is better in structure), but the known formats has converters which converts BNK to X format, but not from X to BNK - this makes sense that BNK was the first format. Also Visual Composer doesn't support other bank formats, only BNK.
:::::: BNK creation date 1987 was contributed by [http://www.vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php?title=User:TheAlmightyGuru Dean Tersigni], I'll ask him about it.

:::::: Update: I also read information from bkformat.txt, and it seems you're right :)
:::::: So actually it was:
:::::: '''1)''' ROL & INS (1987, with AdLib Visual Composer v1.0)
:::::: '''2)''' MUS & SND/TIM (1988, with player and converter)
:::::: '''3)''' BNK (1989, with AdLib Visual Composer v1.5)
:::::: '''4)''' MDI (1989, also with player and converter)
:::::: Wow, that feel when restored original order of events! :D --[[User:Binarymaster|binarymaster]] ([[User talk:Binarymaster|talk]]) 01:51, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

::::::: That seems to make the most logical sense - there's a clear improvement with each new format. I'm glad you agree! Note that when you say there's no conversion from "X to BNK" there is BANKMNG.EXE that comes with the programmer's manual which converts .ins files to .bnk. -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] ([[User talk:Malvineous|talk]]) 04:09, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

:::::::: True. I forgot about it :) Thanks! --[[User:Binarymaster|binarymaster]] ([[User talk:Binarymaster|talk]]) 12:02, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

== email ==

Hello! Can't send you e-mail. Got this:

This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.
A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its
recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:
malvineous@shikadi.net
host mail.shikadi.net [52.11.27.19]
SMTP error from remote mail server after RCPT TO:<malvineous@shikadi.net>:
550 invalid recipient

[[User:CTPAX-X Team|CTPAX-X Team]] ([[User talk:CTPAX-X Team|talk]]) 09:12, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

:Whoops, moved my e-mail service to AWS and missed a step for that address! Please resend, should work now :-) Thanks for letting me know! -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] ([[User talk:Malvineous|talk]]) 11:34, 11 March 2017 (UTC)
::Yes, e-mail goes through this time. Hope you receive it. [[User:CTPAX-X Team|CTPAX-X Team]] ([[User talk:CTPAX-X Team|talk]]) 15:41, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

== Duplicate RLE page ==

After some edits to the [[RLE Compression]] page, I noticed that this was not the page linked from the [[:Category:Compression algorithms]] page. It seems there are in fact two of them; one with an uppercase 'c', and [[RLE compression|one with a lowercase 'c']]. The latter seems to be the better-written one, but since the LZW page was apparently moved from "LZW compression" to "LZW Compression", I suggest the final name of the RLE page should likewise be the uppercase-'c' one.

I have merged anything I deemed useful into the lowercase-'c' version. Could you make sure the uppercase-'c' duplicate is removed, and the other one is moved to its name?

-[[User:Nyerguds|Nyerguds]] ([[User talk:Nyerguds|talk]]) 16:48, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

: Done, many thanks for the clean up! -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] ([[User talk:Malvineous|talk]]) 10:38, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

== Account rename? ==
Hi Malvineous,

I am wondering if it's much of a hassle to rename accounts on this wiki. I'd kind of like to have my account use the same handle I'm using just about everywhere else (ETTiNGRiNDER). Don't sweat it too much if this is onerous to do, though.

Thanks! - [[User:Mysterioso|Mysterioso]] ([[User talk:Mysterioso|talk]]) 20:42, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

: I'm not sure how it can be done. If you can find out a quick way to rename a MediaWiki account then let me know! At any rate all your comments would still be signed with your old name however. -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] ([[User talk:Malvineous|talk]]) 10:15, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
: P.S. the e-mail address in your account is bouncing -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] ([[User talk:Malvineous|talk]]) 10:17, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
:: Ah, right, it was still set to that old e-mail. Hushmail nuked that address on me years ago, I've changed it to one that's current. As for the renaming, I don't really know anything about wiki administration, though a quick search suggests that there's this thing: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Renameuser
::If that's a bit much then no biggie. -- [[User:Mysterioso|Mysterioso]] ([[User talk:Mysterioso|talk]]) 14:43, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

== Removal request ==

It seems I made a page that was unnecessary; the [[Westwood Palette]] I documented turned out to be a known common format (6-bit RGB) already covered in the standard [[VGA Palette]] page. I have changed all links to link to the older page, but I don't think I have the user rights required to delete the Westwood Palette page. Can you take care of it? -[[User:Nyerguds|Nyerguds]] ([[User talk:Nyerguds|talk]]) 14:56, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

: Done! I made you an admin too so you should have delete access now. Thanks for your contributions! -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] ([[User talk:Malvineous|talk]]) 00:03, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

== Hi-Octane ==

Hi!

I've figured out the MUSIC.DAT container and I was wondering if you could shed out some light on what these song formats are, now that we know how to unpack it ?

Thanks !!!

: Yep, they're listed on the [[Hi Octane]] page, in the file format box. -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] ([[User talk:Malvineous|talk]]) 10:57, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

== ReCaptcha v1 problem ==

It seems I can no longer add links in articles; the ReCaptcha test added when new links are detected uses ReCaptcha v1, which gives a warning that "reCAPTCHA 1 IS SHUTDOWN". It does not allow the check to pass, so the page can never be submitted.

The FAQ on the ReCaptcha docs (can't link to them, obviously) says that "'''Any calls to the v1 API will not work after March 31, 2018'''".

-[[User:Nyerguds|Nyerguds]] ([[User talk:Nyerguds|talk]]) 09:26, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

== Bio Menace patches ==

Hey, I'll have Bio Menace 1 patches for the freeware release. Most of them are status window-related, but there are others as well.
Question: Could you create several other sections in All Bio Menace patches cathegory? Because I cannot submit them anywhere right now. Thanks! --[[User:Szemigi|Szemigi]] ([[User talk:Szemigi|talk]]) 00:57, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

: The status window patches should go into [[:Category:Bio Menace interface patches]]. The others *should* fit into existing categories, but if you're not sure let me know! -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] ([[User talk:Malvineous|talk]]) 05:23, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

:: I'll need several categories from you as I checked there'll be other BM patch stuff as well. So I need the following categories: status screen, hostage, help menu, main menu, B800 screen (I even built the BIN file and I made patch for that!). And I'll even submit these for BM2 and 3. Please, create these. Oh, and I'll surely submit! --[[User:Szemigi|Szemigi]] ([[User talk:Szemigi|talk]]) 01:36, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

::: Status screen, hostage, help menu, main menu and B800 screen should all go into [[:Category:Bio Menace interface patches]] as they are all modifying the user interface. I would like to keep the number of patch categories fairly small otherwise it will get a little out of control! -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] ([[User talk:Malvineous|talk]]) 01:48, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

== Bio Menace patches on PCKF? ==

Hey, how can I post my Bio Menace 1-3 patches on PCKF or keenmodding.org? I very want them to submit one of the forums!--[[User:Szemigi|Szemigi]] ([[User talk:Szemigi|talk]]) 23:11, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

== Wombat File Reader updates! ==

I think [[Wombat]]'s title should be updated to show its full name, which now is "Wombat File Reader".

Also the supported games list has to be updated accordingly to the list on https://szevvy.com/ (the author's website, which was listed as "dead" in Wombat's info while the site is up and running again).

It's also not a dead program at all, since its latest version is very recent (11 October 2018), and it'd be a shame to have such old and deprecated information on this wiki of such a useful and powerful tool.

-[[User:Elia1995|Elìa1995]] ([[User_talk:Elia1995|talk]]) 07:38, 15 October 2018‎ (UTC)

: It's only just been updated recently after many years of no releases. It's a bit unfair to say the wiki has old information when it's only a couple of weeks out of date, and it relies on people such as yourself to keep things up to date! Please go ahead and correct as needed so we can keep the information current. We are all doing this in our spare time so we need lots of help to keep things up to date. Also, the page you link to lists it as "Wombat File Tools" rather than "Wombat File Reader". Everyone in the community refers to it as just "Wombat" however. -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] ([[User talk:Malvineous|talk]]) 23:27, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

:: I've only just gotten my account here approved, and only just made new builds of Wombat (actually a complete rewrite) after (as Malvineous said) many many years of no releases. It warms my heart to see people notice :) [[User:Szevvy|Szevvy]] ([[User talk:Szevvy|talk]]) 01:44, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

::: I just noticed the 1.0.4 update, I'll work on updating the supported games list on the page according to the one on Szevvy's site; by the way, thanks for telling me how to "sign" these posts, I had no idea. [[User:Elia1995|Elia1995]] ([[User talk:Elia1995|talk]]) 08:08, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

== e-mail (again) ==

Hello! Sent you e-mail 2019.02.19 about Prehistorik without any answer. Yesterday another e-mail was sent and since 24+ hours passed was forced to write here. Is there something wrong again with your e-mail account or spam filters (for mail.ru)? Thanks! [[User:CTPAX-X Team|CTPAX-X Team]] ([[User talk:CTPAX-X Team|talk]]) 15:10, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

== Content license ==

Is the content of this wiki governed by a specific license? I'd like to contribute information on "Nomad" file formats that I reverse engineered, which I'd previously published on my personal web site under [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ Creative Commons SA 4.0]. This wiki certainly seems to be in the spirit of the Creative Commons licensing structure so I'm guessing there would be no real conflict, but I just wanted to get some additional information on this. --[[User:Cmb|Cmb]] ([[User talk:Cmb|talk]]) 13:32, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
:Personally, I've just [[RLE Compression#Source_code|added the license under which code was released]] myself. Then again I release everything under [[wp:WTFPL|WTFPL]], because I honestly don't mind people using anything I write for research purposes in any way they please, so license compatibility is a bit of a non-issue for me. -[[User:Nyerguds|Nyerguds]] ([[User talk:Nyerguds|talk]]) 16:04, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
:That said, though, given the current online climate, I do agree this is an issue that should be clarified here on the wiki. -[[User:Nyerguds|Nyerguds]] ([[User talk:Nyerguds|talk]]) 16:06, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
:: There is a licence specified somewhere but the short answer is anything you put here is basically in the public domain - because if someone steals it we don't have the resources to chase them, so if it's that valuable to you that you can't handle someone copying it without giving you credit, then don't post it here. Having said that for "nice" users many of the pages ask for a mention if you find the content useful, but this is by no means a requirement. I suppose legally speaking you'll have to dual-licence your Creative Commons content because some CC versions have additional restrictions, like you can't copy the content without giving credit. The [https://creativecommons.org/choose/zero/ CC0 licence] pretty much covers it. Putting a specific licence on code is fine (although no licence at all would be best so it inherits the wiki's general content licence), noting that any licence enforcement will be on you, but the content itself is always going to be CC0/public domain. -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] ([[User talk:Malvineous|talk]]) 05:48, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

F1 Manager Professional/Mods

2020-12-21T01:30:03Z

Yetmorecode: Created page with "{|class="wikitable sortable" border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" style="font-size: 90%; border:1px solid gray; border-collapse: collapse; text-align: center; width: 100..."

{|class="wikitable sortable" border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" style="font-size: 90%; border:1px solid gray; border-collapse: collapse; text-align: center; width: 100%;"
|-
! Title
! Download(s)
! Release date
! Modder(s)
! Notes
|-
| 2020 Season Mod
| [https://f1managerprofessional.wordpress.com/download/ F1 2020 Mod]
| 2020
| https://f1managerprofessional.wordpress.com
| Updated drivers, teams, engineers, engines, etc. Balance tweaks to sponsors and facilities. Start year 2020 season and more.
|-
|}

[[Category:Mods by game]]

F1 Manager Professional

2020-12-21T01:11:28Z

Yetmorecode: Added note about text string modifications

F1 Manager Professional

2020-12-21T01:08:43Z

Yetmorecode: Added point-system editor to list of tools

{{NeedMoreInfo}}
{{Game Infobox
| Title = F1 Manager Professional.jpg
| Levels = No
| Tiles = No
| Sprites = No
| Fullscreen = No
| Sound = No
| Music = No
| Text = No
| Story = No
| Interface = No
}}

[[F1 Manager Professional]] is a 1997 F1 management simulation by Software 2000. It is the successor to the 1996 german-only title [F1 Manager 96].

== Obtaining the game ==

The full version of this game [https://www.myabandonware.com/game/f1-manager-professional-bjp can be downloaded as abandonware]. There is also a [https://f1managerprofessional.wordpress.com/ modded version] with updated game data for up to the 2020 F1 season.

== Tools ==

{{BeginFileFormatTools|Type=game}}
{{FileFormatTool
| Name = [https://ghidra-sre.org/ Ghidra] [https://github.com/yetmorecode/ghidra-lx-loader LE-Loader] [https://github.com/oshogbo/ghidra-lx-loader Another LE-Loader]
| Platform = Java
| grp = No
| map = No
| gfx = No
| mus = No
| sfx = No
| txt = No
| sav = No
| exe = Read
| notes = Ghidra with a custom loader can make sense of the LE packed game
}}
{{FileFormatTool
| Name = [https://github.com/yetmorecode/proline-resource-editor Proline Resource Editor]
| Platform = Java
| grp = No
| map = No
| gfx = Read
| mus = No
| sfx = No
| txt = No
| sav = No
| exe = No
| notes = Decodes and shows various sprites and PCX backgrounds found in f1_e.rsc (WIP)
}}
{{FileFormatTool
| Name = [https://github.com/yetmorecode/f1mp-point-system Point-System editor]
| Platform = Java
| grp = No
| map = No
| gfx = No
| mus = No
| sfx = No
| txt = No
| sav = No
| exe = Edit
| notes = Can change the awarded points for each race position
}}
{{EndFileFormatTools}}

{{BeginGameFileList}}
{{GameFile
| Name = F1.exe
| Format = [[16/32-bit mixed LE executable]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Game executable
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = F1.CFG
| Format =
| KnownFormat = No
| Desc = Game settings
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = NOTIZEN*.TMP
| Format =
| KnownFormat = No
| Desc = In-game notes as taken by players on drivers, tracks, etc.
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = F1_e.rsc
| Format = [[Proline Resource File]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Archive containing color palettes, PCX images and sprites
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = USER_E.RSC
| Format = [[Proline Resource File]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Archive containing color palettes, PCX images and sprites
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = 3D.RSC
| Format = [[Proline Resource File]]
| KnownFormat = No
| Desc = Supposedly BRender track and car models
}}

{{GameFile
| Name = FAHRER.DAT
| Format = [[F1 Manager Professional Driver File]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Static driver data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = INGS.DAT
| Format = [[F1 Manager Professional Engineers File]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Static engineers data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = MOTOREN.DAT
| Format = [[F1 Manager Professional Engines File]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Static car engines data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = SPONSOR.DAT
| Format = [[F1 Manager Professional Sponsors File]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Static sponsors data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = STRECKEN.DAT
| Format = [[F1 Manager Professional Track File]]
| KnownFormat = No
| Desc = Static track data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = STRINFO.DAT
| Format = [[F1 Manager Professional Track Information File]]
| KnownFormat = No
| Desc = Static track information data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = TEAMS.DAT
| Format = [[F1 Manager Professional Teams File]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Static teams data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{EndGameFileList}}

== Notes ==

* The dos4gw [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOS_extender DOS Extender] is used to enble 32-bit protected mode and then load the actual 32-bit game
* dos4gw can safely be replaced with [https://dos32a.narechk.net/index_en.html dos32a], which has sources available and makes it considerably easier stepping past the initial loader stage in a debugger

[[Category:Software 2000]]
[[Category:F1 Manager Professional]]
[[Category:Management Simulation]]
[[Category:Abandonware]]

Category:Software 2000

2020-12-20T12:14:02Z

Yetmorecode: Created page with "300px [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_2000 Software 2000] was a video game developer and publisher. The company was formed in 1987 and..."

[[File:Logo_Software2000.jpg|300px]]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_2000 Software 2000] was a video game developer and publisher. The company was formed in 1987 and went bankrupt in 2002. In this time Software 2000 published over 40 games.

This page lists all the games in this wiki that were developed or published by Software 2000.

[[Category:Game Company]]

File:Logo Software2000.jpg

2020-12-20T12:08:28Z

Yetmorecode: Logo of game developer and publisher Software 2000

Logo of game developer and publisher Software 2000

PCX Format

2020-12-20T11:58:07Z

Yetmorecode: Added F1 Manager Professional to list of games that use PCX

{{Image Infobox
| Hardware1 = CGA
| Hardware2 = EGA
| Hardware3 = VGA
| Depth = Multiple
| MinSize = 0×0
| MaxSize = 65536×65536 
| Palette = Internal (optional)
| NumPlanes = 1-255
| HasTransparency = No
| HasHitmap = No

| Games =
{{Game|Bubble Bobble featuring Rainbow Islands}}
{{Game|Crystal Caves}}
{{Game|F1 Manager Professional}}
{{Game|Halloween Harry}}
{{Game|Hocus Pocus}}
{{Game|Hugo's House of Horrors}}
{{Game|Hugo II, Whodunit?}}
{{Game|Hugo III, Jungle of Doom!}}
{{Game|Math Rescue}}
{{Game|Wacky Wheels}}
{{Game|Word Rescue}}
}}
The [[PCX Format]] is an image format used by many games, usually to store full screen (320x200) 16-colour EGA, and later 256-colour VGA (mode 13h), graphics. It was, for a time, also a general picture format like .bmp or .png, and was the primary format used by PC Paintbrush. It declined in popularity after support for 24-bit true colour images was added too late, by which time many people had switched to competing formats like .png and JPEG (the latter offering far better compression for photos.) It also lacks support for transparency, which resulted in it losing some ground to the GIF format which otherwise provided a similar feature set.

== Header ==

The PCX file is composed of two parts, the header and the image data, which is usually compressed. The header is as follows:

{|class="wikitable"
! Data type !! Name !! Description
|-
| [[UINT8]] || Manufacturer || Always 0x0A
|-
| [[UINT8]] || Version || PC Paintbrush version. Acts as file format version. 0 = v2.5 2 = v2.8 with palette 3 = v2.8 without palette 4 = Paintbrush for Windows 5 = v3.0 or higher
|-
| [[UINT8]] || Encoding || Should be 0x01 0 = uncompressed image (not officially allowed, but some software supports it) 1 = PCX run length encoding
|-
| [[UINT8]] || BitsPerPlane || Number of bits per pixel in each entry of the colour planes (1, 2, 4, 8, 24)
|-
| [[UINT16LE]] || WindowXmin ||rowspan=4| Window (image dimensions): ImageWidth = <tt>Xmax - Xmin + 1</tt> ImageHeight = <tt>Ymax - Ymin + 1</tt> Normally <tt>Xmin</tt> and <tt>Ymin</tt> should be set to zero. Note that these field values are valid rows and columns, which is why you have to add one to get the actual dimension (so a 200 pixel high image would have Ymin=0 and Ymax=199, or Ymin=100 and Ymax=299, etc.)
|-
| [[UINT16LE]] || WindowYmin
|-
| [[UINT16LE]] || WindowXmax
|-
| [[UINT16LE]] || WindowYmax
|-
| [[UINT16LE]] || VertDPI ||rowspan=2| This is supposed to specify the image's vertical and horizontal resolution in DPI (dots per inch), but it is rarely reliable. It often contains the image dimensions, or nothing at all.
|-
| [[UINT16LE]] || HorzDPI
|-
| [[UINT8]] || Palette[48] || Palette for 16 colors or less, in three-byte RGB entries. Padded with 0x00 to 48 bytes in total length. See below for more details on palette handling.
|-
| [[UINT8]] || Reserved || Should be set to 0, but can sometimes contain junk.
|-
| [[UINT8]] || ColorPlanes || Number of colour planes. Multiply by <tt>BitsPerPlane</tt> to get the actual colour depth.
|-
| [[UINT16LE]] || BytesPerPlaneLine || Number of bytes to read for a single plane's scanline, i.e. at least <tt>ImageWidth</tt> ÷ 8 bits per byte × <tt>BitsPerPlane</tt>. Must be an even number. Do '''not''' calculate from Xmax-Xmin. Normally a multiple of the machine's native word length (2 or 4)
|-
| [[UINT16LE]] || PaletteInfo || How to interpret palette: 1 = Color/BW 2 = Grayscale (ignored in PC Paintbrush IV and later)
|-
| [[UINT16LE]] || HorScrSize ||rowspan=2| Only supported by PC Paintbrush IV or higher; deals with scrolling. Best to just ignore it.
|-
| [[UINT16LE]] || VerScrSize
|-
| [[BYTE]][54] || Padding || Filler to bring header up to 128 bytes total. Can contain junk.
|}

== Image Data ==

Image data comes after the header (starting at offset 0x80 in a PCX file), and will be RLE compressed if the header indicated so. The way the data is stored depends on how many colour planes are specified. Each row has its color planes stored sequentially, similar to [[raw EGA data]].

For one plane of eight bits (256-colour), each byte will represent one pixel. For one plane of four bits (16-colour), each byte will represent two pixels. The bits within the byte are in big-endian order, so the most significant bit belongs to the left-most pixel. In other words, in two bits per pixel mode, a byte of value 0xE4 (binary 11 10 01 00) will have left-to-right pixel values of 3, 2, 1, 0.

EGA 16-colour images are often stored with four colour planes instead of one, with each plane being one-bit-per-pixel (think of four black and white images, one each for red, green, blue and intensity.) The planes are stored sequentially for each line (see [[Raw EGA data#Row-planar EGA data|Row-planar EGA data]] for the exact details), thus a 320x200 EGA image will store at least 40 bytes for each scanline's colour plane (320 pixels ÷ 8 bits per byte × 1 bit per pixel), with each scanline being at least 160 bytes long (320 pixels ÷ 8 bits per byte × 1 bit per pixel × 4 planes). Note that the scanline length can be larger than expected (40 bytes in this example), especially for images whose width is not a multiple of four. This is because each scanline in a plane is padded to a multiple of two or four bytes, depending on the architecture of the machine used to create the file. The actual size is stored in the <tt>BytesPerPlaneLine</tt> field in the header, which should always be used instead of calculating the value from the other image attributes.

True colour PCX files are not common, and could be either three planes (R, G and B) of eight bits each (24-bit RGB) or one plane of 24-bits. Technically, the same is applicable for alpha-capable 32-bit images (with four planes in planar mode), though no official format specs ever included such a thing.

The split into planes is generally governed by what is most convenient for the game at the time, which in turn depends on which video mode is being used to display the image. Since EGA video memory is split into planes, 16-colour PCX files are frequently split into matching planes so that no processing is required when loading an image directly into video memory.

=== RLE Compression ===

The PCX format uses a form of [[RLE Compression]] that is rather unique. It compresses on the byte level and uses a flag system, where the flag is the two highest bits of a byte. If this flag is set (i.e. the two upper bits are set, or in other words the value is >= 192) then the lower six bits are the number of times to repeat the following byte.

Thus, for a byte pair <tt>C7 28</tt>, the 0xC7 can be decomposed into the flag value 192 (128 + 64) plus 7, meaning the full byte pair means '7 bytes of 0x28'. So to get the amount, you subtract 192 from the flag, or, using faster logic operations, you can do <code>byte & 0x3F</code> to retain only the lowest six bits.

This means that the six-bit length values have a maximum of 63. It also means that any value larger than 191 ''must'' be stored as a length/value pair, which can actually ''increase'' the size of the file in some cases. For instance, if you have a single byte of color 192, then it must be represented by two bytes - one of 193 (C1, a repeat of one time) followed by one of 192 (C0, color byte 192).

It is also worth noting that the byte value C0 does not have a clearly defined effect. Depending on the implementation in the decoding program, this could do any of the following:

* treat <tt>C0</tt> as a literal byte.
* ignore <tt>C0</tt> and continue with the following byte.
* 'repeat the following byte zero times', effectively ignoring any byte following <tt>C0</tt>. This could conceivably be used to embed non-image data in the PCX file which would be ignored by any program displaying the image.
* 'repeat the following byte 65536 times', which is basically a bugged implementation using a "<tt>while (--count != 0)</tt>" style loop with a 16 bit variable/CPU register.

At any rate, the best way to handle a <tt>C0</tt> when encoding (compressing) is to write the sequence <tt>C1 C0</tt>. When decoding (decompressing), a value of <tt>C0</tt> almost always indicates an error in the file.

Note that each scanline is compressed independently - an RLE sequence may span multiple planes, but it will never span more than one row of pixels. Thus when decompressing an image, the RLE algorithm will produce at most <tt>BytesPerPlaneLine</tt> bytes at a time. Even where the RLE coding could have continued over to the next scanline, it will stop and start again fresh for each line.<ref>[http://www.drdobbs.com/pcx-graphics/184402396#01ED_0105 PCX Graphics | Dr Dobb's]</ref> For example, if the input image is 8×4 pixels EGA 16-colour, and the first two lines of pixels are black (color 0) and the last two are white (color 15), they must be compressed as <tt>C4 00 | C4 00 | C4 FF | C4 FF</tt> and not as <tt>C8 00 | C8 FF</tt>.

=== Palettes ===

Most of the game's supported formats are indexed, and thus require a colour palette. There are, however, three distinct ways of handling those palettes; CGA, EGA and VGA. For images with 16 colours or less, the palette is stored in the header. For images with more colours (i.e. 256-colour images) the header palette is ignored, and the 768-byte palette is stored after the image data. Some sources seem to indicate that there are formats where even the smaller palettes are added behind the image, so it is best to always check for it there. To determine if this is the case, check if the decompressed image data is followed by a <tt>0C</tt> byte, and if there is enough data left in the file behind that for the palette data.

As a general rule, the palettes are lists of 3-byte blocks. These blocks normally contain 8-bit RGB data, but even if they are used differently (as is the case for CGA palettes), they will still retain the 3-byte block structure.

It is difficult to correctly determine the palette for 1-bit and 2-bit images, since they can be stored either as CGA or as VGA, and there is no real way to identify which method to use. Some sources suggest checking for 640x200 dimensions on 1-bit images, or 320x200 on 2-bit, since those are standard CGA sizes for respectively its monochrome and 4-colour mode, but 320x200 is a very common size for non-CGA images as well, and there has most likely never been anything preventing people on CGA hardware from saving PCX images in different sizes than a full screen. It is also suggested, for two bit per pixel images, that those with a single 2-bit plane would use a CGA palette, while those with two 1-bit planes would use VGA<ref>[http://www.fysnet.net/pcxfile.htm PCX graphics files explained] - section "Interpretation of the PCX data"</ref>. All of this makes fully automatic identification for these image types very difficult.

==== CGA palette ====

CGA palette handling is a bit peculiar. As with other colour palettes, the data is seen as blocks of three bytes. However, in CGA mode, these blocks do not contain normal RGB colour data.

The first triplet contains the background colour to be put on palette index #0. Only the highest four bits of the first byte are used, meaning the actual colour value can be found by taking that byte and shifting it four bits to the right. The result is a value from 0..15, which matches [[EGA Palette|one of the standard CGA/EGA text-mode colours]].

For monochrome CGA images, the other entry is filled in with black (EGA palette entry #0), and the palette is complete.

For actual 4-colour palettes, three status bits are normally fed into the CGA hardware to determine the rest of the palette:

{|class="wikitable"
! Name !! Description
|-
| ColorBurst || Technically indicates the presence of colour on the palette, but disabling the bit actually causes a switch to Mode 5, which, on colour monitors, gives access to the extra unofficial '''palette 2'''.
|-
| Palette || Choice between '''palette 0''' and ''' palette 1'''. If <tt>ColorBurst</tt> is disabled, this bit is ignored.
|-
| Intensity || Choice between '''dark''' (0) or '''bright''' (1) version of the palette.
|}

The default palettes are comprised of the following indices on the [[EGA Palette|standard EGA palette]]. The Intensity modifier simply increases all indices by 8 to get the bright equivalents of these colours.

{|class="wikitable"
! Palette # !! Dark colours !! Bright colours !! Description
|-
| 0 || [2,4,6] || [10,12,14]|| Mode 4, palette 0
|-
| 1 || [3,5,7] || [11,13,15]|| Mode 4, palette 1
|-
| 2 || [3,4,7] || [11,12,15]|| The unofficial Mode 5 palette, accessed by disabling <tt>ColorBurst</tt>.
|}

However, the way these three bits are determined changed in PC Paintbrush version IV, and this change is not reflected in a change in the <tt>Version</tt> value in the header. The only decent way to distinguish the files from before and after version IV is to check the <tt>PaletteInfo</tt> byte in the header, which is 0 on files using the old method, and filled in (with 1 or 2) on files using the new method.

===== Older method =====

In the original way the status bits were saved, the second palette entry's first byte (byte 3) contains the three status bits.<ref name="fileformat">[https://www.fileformat.info/format/pcx/egff.htm PCX specs on fileformat.info]</ref> They can be extracted by taking the highest three bits of that byte.

* Bit 8 (<tt>10000000</tt>) is <tt>ColorBurst</tt>.
* Bit 7 (<tt>01000000</tt>) is the <tt>Palette</tt>.
* Bit 6 (<tt>00100000</tt>) is the <tt>Intensity</tt>.

===== Newer method =====

For the newer files, with the <tt>PaletteInfo</tt> byte filled in, the following<ref>[https://github.com/samuel/go-pcx/blob/d9c017170db4e016377181263f7e4cbb6bf1d8cc/pcx/decoder.go#L299 PCX image encoder and decoder for Go] - ''PC Paintbush 4.0 encodes the CGA palettes differently than 3.0.''</ref><ref>[https://github.com/wjaguar/mtPaint/blob/3884b6d6ebc18511df7bf1485a19fe774dd61dcf/src/png.c#L5416 Mark Tyler's Painting Program] - ''CGA palette is evil: what the PCX spec describes is the way it was handled by PC Paintbrush 3.0, while 4.0 was using an entirely different, undocumented encoding for palette selection.''</ref> should be done to determine the palette:

* Take the green and blue values of the second palette entry. These are the bytes at index 4 and 5 in the palette data.
* If the green value is strictly-greater than the blue value, take Palette 0, otherwise take Palette 1.
* If the largest of these two values is greater than 200, the Intensity bit is enabled.

The new method seemed to have been intended to convert a fully-saved colour palette back to CGA status bits. Sadly, it seems people figured out exactly what it checked, and started writing PCX files which contained only exactly enough data to derive those bits instead of saving an actual full palette.

As a side effect of this, there is no real check for the color burst, meaning it is always considered to be enabled, and there is no support for palette 2. If an actual palette is saved in the file, such support ''could'' be added. A viable check for detecting palette 2 (meaning, a disabled colour burst bit) would be that the original logic matches palette 1, and the third entry's red value is greater than its blue value.

==== EGA palette ====

EGA images are those with eight or sixteen colours. Typically, they have <tt>BitsPerPlane</tt> set to 1 and <tt>ColorPlanes</tt> set to 3 or 4, though variations like two 2-bit planes or one 4-bit plane are possible as well. For these images, there are two ways of handling the colours:

* If the version in the header is 0 or 3, then the [[EGA Palette|standard EGA palette]] is used, since version 0 does not support a modified palette, and version 3 specifically indicates that no palette information is present in the file.<ref name="fileformat" />
* In any other version, the palette is read from the header. The data is structured the same way as [[VGA Palette#The_.22Modern.22_format|8-bit VGA palettes]], except that it's less long.

Most EGA images will be 4 bits per pixel, meaning the palette will be 16 colours long, but 3 bit per pixel planar format is supported as well. In that case, only 8 entries are read, or if it uses the default EGA palette, only the darker first eight colours will be available. 2 bit per pixel images could use EGA palette handling as well, but these are hard to distinguish from the CGA ones.

Note that technically, EGA images are limited to 2 bit colour components, meaning every component would need to be rounded to the nearest multiple of <tt>0x55</tt>, though, practically, there is little reason to not let the images retain the more accurate colours as they are specified in the palette.

==== VGA palette ====

For 8-bit images, the 256-colour palette can be found behind the image data. It is a [[VGA Palette#The_.22Modern.22_format|standard VGA palette in 8-bit RGB format]]. A single signature byte of <tt>0C</tt> is included before the palette data begins.

Some PCX readers simplify the start offset of the 256-colour palette to <code>EndOfFile - 768</code>, though technically, the correct way to find it is to take the offset you end up at after decompressing the image, checking for the <tt>0C</tt> byte after that, and then reading the 768-byte palette.

== Source Code ==

=== ASM ===

<source lang="asm">
EXTERN kbdin, dosxit ; LIB291 functions

SEGMENT ScratchSeg
ScratchPad resb 65535

SEGMENT stkseg STACK
resb 64*8
stacktop:
resb 0

SEGMENT code

PCX1 db 'my_pcx1.pcx', 0 ; Filenames
PCX2 db 'my_pcx2.pcx', 0 ; (Must end with 0 byte)

..start:
mov ax, cs ; Set up data and stack segments
mov ds, ax
mov ax, stkseg
mov ss, ax
mov sp, stacktop

MAIN:
; Sets up mode 13h and clears screen
mov ax, 0013h
int 10h

mov dx, pcx1 ; Filename to display
call ShowPCX ; Display PCX file to screen

; Wait for keypress
call kbdin

; Go back to text mode
mov ax, 0003h
int 10h

; Return to DOS
call dosxit

;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
; ShowPCX procedure by Brandon Long,
; modified by Eric Meidel and Nathan Jachimiec,
; converted to NASM, cleaned up, and better commented by Peter Johnson
; Inputs: DX has the offset of PCX filename to show.
; Output: PCX file displayed (all registers unchanged)
; Notes: Assumes PCX file is 320x200x256.
; Uses ScratchSeg for temporary storage.
; The PCX file must be in the same directory as this executable.
;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
ShowPCX
push ax ; Save registers
push bx
push cx
push si
push di
push es

mov ax, 3D00h
int 21h ; Open file
jc .error ; Exit if open failed

mov bx, ax ; File handle
mov cx, 65535 ; Number of bytes to read
mov ax, ScratchSeg ; DS:DX -> buffer for data
mov ds, ax
mov dx, ScratchPad
mov si, dx
mov ah, 3Fh
int 21h ; Read from file

mov ax, 0A000h ; Start writing to upper-left corner
mov es, ax ; of graphics display
xor di, di

add si, 128 ; Skip header information

xor ch, ch ; Clear high part of CX for string copies

.nextbyte:
mov cl, [si] ; Get next byte
cmp cl, 0C0h ; Is it a length byte?
jb .normal ; No, just copy it
and cl, 3Fh ; Strip upper two bits from length byte
inc si ; Advance to next byte - color byte
lodsb ; Get color byte into AL from [SI]
rep stosb ; Store to [ES:DI] and inc DI, CX times
jmp short .tst

.normal:
movsb ; Copy color value from [SI] to [ES:DI]

.tst:
cmp di, 320*200 ; End of file? (written 320x200 bytes)
jb .nextbyte

mov cl, [si]
cmp cl, 0Ch ; Palette available?
jne .close

; Set palette using port I/O
mov dx, 3C8h
mov al, 0
out dx, al
inc dx ; Port 3C9h
mov cx, 256*3 ; Copy 256 entries, 3 bytes (RGB) apiece
inc si ; Skip past padding byte

.palette:
lodsb
shr al, 1 ; PCX stores color values as 0-255
shr al, 1 ; but VGA DAC is only 0-63
out dx, al
dec cx
jnz .palette

.close:
mov ah, 3Eh
int 21h ; Close file

.error:
pop es ; Restore registers
pop di
pop si
pop cx
pop bx
pop ax
ret
</source>

== Tools ==

PCX files can be read, and occasionally converted by several programs, notably, the Microsoft Photo Editor included in Windows XP can do so.

{{BeginFileFormatTools|Type=image}}
{{FileFormatTool
| Name = [http://www.xnview.com XnView]
| Platform = Windows/MacOSX/Linux
| canView = Yes
| canExport = Yes
| canImport = Yes
| editHidden = N/A
| editMetadata = N/A
| notes = Freeware for private non-commercial or educational use.
}}
{{FileFormatTool
| Name = [http://www.imagemagick.com ImageMagick]
| Platform = Cross-platform
| canView = Yes
| canExport = Yes
| canImport = Yes
| editHidden = N/A
| editMetadata = N/A
| notes = Is unable to correctly write 16-colour PCX files.
}}
{{FileFormatTool
| Name = [http://www.gimp.org GNU Image Manipulation Program]
| Platform = Cross-platform
| canView = Yes
| canExport = Yes
| canImport = Yes
| editHidden = N/A
| editMetadata = N/A
| notes = Does not handle CGA or default-palette EGA images correctly.
}}
{{FileFormatTool
| Name = [[Engie File Converter]]
| Platform = Windows
| canView = Yes
| canExport = No
| canImport = Yes
| editHidden = N/A
| editMetadata = N/A
| notes = Relies on common image dimensions for CGA detection.
}}
{{EndFileFormatTools}}

== Useful links ==

* [http://bespin.org/~qz/pc-gpe/pcx.txt Official PCX documentation]
* [http://web.archive.org/web/20030111010058/http://www.nist.fss.ru/hr/doc/spec/pcx.htm Official PCX documentation in HTML (archived version)]
* [http://www.fileformat.info/format/pcx/egff.htm PCX at the File Format Encyclopaedia] - very detailed
* [http://fileformats.archiveteam.org/wiki/PCX PCX on the 'Just Solve the File Format Problem' wiki] - includes useful sample files.

== References ==
<references/>

F1 Manager Professional

2020-12-20T11:48:38Z

Yetmorecode: /* Notes */

{{NeedMoreInfo}}
{{Game Infobox
| Title = F1 Manager Professional.jpg
| Levels = No
| Tiles = No
| Sprites = No
| Fullscreen = No
| Sound = No
| Music = No
| Text = No
| Story = No
| Interface = No
}}

[[F1 Manager Professional]] is a 1997 F1 management simulation by Software 2000. It is the successor to the 1996 german-only title [F1 Manager 96].

== Obtaining the game ==

The full version of this game [https://www.myabandonware.com/game/f1-manager-professional-bjp can be downloaded as abandonware]. There is also a [https://f1managerprofessional.wordpress.com/ modded version] with updated game data for up to the 2020 F1 season.

== Tools ==

{{BeginFileFormatTools|Type=game}}
{{FileFormatTool
| Name = [https://ghidra-sre.org/ Ghidra] [https://github.com/yetmorecode/ghidra-lx-loader LE-Loader] [https://github.com/oshogbo/ghidra-lx-loader Another LE-Loader]
| Platform = Java
| grp = No
| map = No
| gfx = No
| mus = No
| sfx = No
| txt = No
| sav = No
| exe = Read
}}
{{FileFormatTool
| Name = [https://github.com/yetmorecode/proline-resource-editor Proline Resource Editor (WIP)]
| Platform = Java
| grp = No
| map = No
| gfx = Read
| mus = No
| sfx = No
| txt = No
| sav = No
| exe = No
}}
{{EndFileFormatTools}}

{{BeginGameFileList}}
{{GameFile
| Name = F1.exe
| Format = [[16/32-bit mixed LE executable]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Game executable
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = F1.CFG
| Format =
| KnownFormat = No
| Desc = Game settings
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = NOTIZEN*.TMP
| Format =
| KnownFormat = No
| Desc = In-game notes as taken by players on drivers, tracks, etc.
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = F1_e.rsc
| Format = [[Proline Resource File]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Archive containing color palettes, PCX images and sprites
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = USER_E.RSC
| Format = [[Proline Resource File]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Archive containing color palettes, PCX images and sprites
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = 3D.RSC
| Format = [[Proline Resource File]]
| KnownFormat = No
| Desc = Supposedly BRender track and car models
}}

{{GameFile
| Name = FAHRER.DAT
| Format = [[F1 Manager Professional Driver File]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Static driver data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = INGS.DAT
| Format = [[F1 Manager Professional Engineers File]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Static engineers data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = MOTOREN.DAT
| Format = [[F1 Manager Professional Engines File]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Static car engines data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = SPONSOR.DAT
| Format = [[F1 Manager Professional Sponsors File]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Static sponsors data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = STRECKEN.DAT
| Format = [[F1 Manager Professional Track File]]
| KnownFormat = No
| Desc = Static track data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = STRINFO.DAT
| Format = [[F1 Manager Professional Track Information File]]
| KnownFormat = No
| Desc = Static track information data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = TEAMS.DAT
| Format = [[F1 Manager Professional Teams File]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Static teams data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{EndGameFileList}}

== Notes ==

* The dos4gw [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOS_extender DOS Extender] is used to enble 32-bit protected mode and then load the actual 32-bit game
* dos4gw can safely be replaced with [https://dos32a.narechk.net/index_en.html dos32a], which has sources available and makes it considerably easier stepping past the initial loader stage in a debugger

[[Category:Software 2000]]
[[Category:F1 Manager Professional]]
[[Category:Management Simulation]]
[[Category:Abandonware]]

F1 Manager Professional

2020-12-20T01:49:26Z

Yetmorecode:

{{NeedMoreInfo}}
{{Game Infobox
| Title = F1 Manager Professional.jpg
| Levels = No
| Tiles = No
| Sprites = No
| Fullscreen = No
| Sound = No
| Music = No
| Text = No
| Story = No
| Interface = No
}}

[[F1 Manager Professional]] is a 1997 F1 management simulation by Software 2000. It is the successor to the 1996 german-only title [F1 Manager 96].

== Obtaining the game ==

The full version of this game [https://www.myabandonware.com/game/f1-manager-professional-bjp can be downloaded as abandonware]. There is also a [https://f1managerprofessional.wordpress.com/ modded version] with updated game data for up to the 2020 F1 season.

== Tools ==

{{BeginFileFormatTools|Type=game}}
{{FileFormatTool
| Name = [https://ghidra-sre.org/ Ghidra] [https://github.com/yetmorecode/ghidra-lx-loader LE-Loader] [https://github.com/oshogbo/ghidra-lx-loader Another LE-Loader]
| Platform = Java
| grp = No
| map = No
| gfx = No
| mus = No
| sfx = No
| txt = No
| sav = No
| exe = Read
}}
{{FileFormatTool
| Name = [https://github.com/yetmorecode/proline-resource-editor Proline Resource Editor (WIP)]
| Platform = Java
| grp = No
| map = No
| gfx = Read
| mus = No
| sfx = No
| txt = No
| sav = No
| exe = No
}}
{{EndFileFormatTools}}

{{BeginGameFileList}}
{{GameFile
| Name = F1.exe
| Format = [[16/32-bit mixed LE executable]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Game executable
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = F1.CFG
| Format =
| KnownFormat = No
| Desc = Game settings
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = NOTIZEN*.TMP
| Format =
| KnownFormat = No
| Desc = In-game notes as taken by players on drivers, tracks, etc.
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = F1_e.rsc
| Format = [[Proline Resource File]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Archive containing color palettes, PCX images and sprites
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = USER_E.RSC
| Format = [[Proline Resource File]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Archive containing color palettes, PCX images and sprites
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = 3D.RSC
| Format = [[Proline Resource File]]
| KnownFormat = No
| Desc = Supposedly BRender track and car models
}}

{{GameFile
| Name = FAHRER.DAT
| Format = [[F1 Manager Professional Driver File]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Static driver data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = INGS.DAT
| Format = [[F1 Manager Professional Engineers File]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Static engineers data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = MOTOREN.DAT
| Format = [[F1 Manager Professional Engines File]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Static car engines data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = SPONSOR.DAT
| Format = [[F1 Manager Professional Sponsors File]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Static sponsors data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = STRECKEN.DAT
| Format = [[F1 Manager Professional Track File]]
| KnownFormat = No
| Desc = Static track data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = STRINFO.DAT
| Format = [[F1 Manager Professional Track Information File]]
| KnownFormat = No
| Desc = Static track information data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = TEAMS.DAT
| Format = [[F1 Manager Professional Teams File]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Static teams data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{EndGameFileList}}

== Notes ==

[[Category:Software 2000]]
[[Category:F1 Manager Professional]]
[[Category:Management Simulation]]
[[Category:Abandonware]]

F1 Manager Professional

2020-12-20T00:13:46Z

Yetmorecode:

{{NeedMoreInfo}}
{{Game Infobox
| Title = F1 Manager Professional.jpg
| Levels = No
| Tiles = No
| Sprites = No
| Fullscreen = No
| Sound = No
| Music = No
| Text = No
| Story = No
| Interface = No
}}

[[F1 Manager Professional]] is a 1997 F1 management simulation by Software 2000. It is the successor to the 1996 german-only title [F1 Manager 96].

== Obtaining the game ==

The full version of this game [https://www.myabandonware.com/game/f1-manager-professional-bjp can be downloaded as abandonware]. There is also a [https://f1managerprofessional.wordpress.com/ modded version] with updated game data for up to the 2020 F1 season.

== Tools ==

{{BeginFileFormatTools|Type=game}}
{{FileFormatTool
| Name = [https://ghidra-sre.org/ Ghidra] [https://github.com/yetmorecode/ghidra-lx-loader LE-Loader] [https://github.com/oshogbo/ghidra-lx-loader Another LE-Loader]
| Platform = Java
| grp = No
| map = No
| gfx = No
| mus = No
| sfx = No
| txt = No
| sav = No
| exe = Read
}}
{{FileFormatTool
| Name = [https://github.com/yetmorecode/proline-resource-editor Proline Resource Editor (WIP)]
| Platform = Java
| grp = No
| map = No
| gfx = Read
| mus = No
| sfx = No
| txt = No
| sav = No
| exe = No
}}
{{EndFileFormatTools}}

{{BeginGameFileList}}
{{GameFile
| Name = F1.exe
| Format = [[16/32-bit mixed LE executable]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Game executable
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = F1.CFG
| Format =
| KnownFormat = No
| Desc = Game settings
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = NOTIZEN*.TMP
| Format =
| KnownFormat = No
| Desc = In-game notes as taken by players on drivers, tracks, etc.
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = F1_e.rsc
| Format = [[Proline Resource File]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Archive containing color palettes, PCX images and sprites
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = USER_E.RSC
| Format = [[Proline Resource File]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Archive containing color palettes, PCX images and sprites
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = 3D.RSC
| Format = [[Proline Resource File]]
| KnownFormat = No
| Desc = Supposedly BRender track and car models
}}

{{GameFile
| Name = FAHRER.DAT
| Format = [[F1 Manager Professional Driver File]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Static driver data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = INGS.DAT
| Format = [[F1 Manager Professional Engineers File]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Static engineers data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = MOTOREN.DAT
| Format = [[F1 Manager Professional Engines File]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Static car engines data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = SPONSOR.DAT
| Format = [[F1 Manager Professional Sponsors File]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Static sponsors data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = STRECKEN.DAT
| Format = [[F1 Manager Professional Track File]]
| KnownFormat = No
| Desc = Static track data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = STRINFO.DAT
| Format = [[F1 Manager Professional Track Information File]]
| KnownFormat = No
| Desc = Static track information data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = TEAMS.DAT
| Format = [[F1 Manager Professional Teams File]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Static teams data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{EndGameFileList}}

== Notes ==

[[Category:Software 2000]]
[[Category:Management Simulation]]
[[Category:Abandonware]]

File:F1 Manager Professional.jpg

2020-12-20T00:05:59Z

Yetmorecode:

F1 Manager Professional

2020-12-19T20:45:31Z

Yetmorecode: Created page with "{{NeedMoreInfo}} {{Game Infobox | Levels = No | Tiles = No | Sprites = No | Fullscreen = No | Sound = No | Music = No | Text = No | Story = No | Interface = No }} ..."

{{NeedMoreInfo}}
{{Game Infobox
| Levels = No
| Tiles = No
| Sprites = No
| Fullscreen = No
| Sound = No
| Music = No
| Text = No
| Story = No
| Interface = No
}}

[[F1 Manager Professional]] is a 1997 F1 management simulation by Software 2000. It is the successor to the 1996 german-only title [F1 Manager 96].

== Obtaining the game ==

The full version of this game [https://www.myabandonware.com/game/f1-manager-professional-bjp can be downloaded as abandonware]. There is also a [https://f1managerprofessional.wordpress.com/ modded version] with updated game data for up to the 2020 F1 season.

== Tools ==

{{BeginFileFormatTools|Type=game}}
{{FileFormatTool
| Name = [https://ghidra-sre.org/ Ghidra] [https://github.com/yetmorecode/ghidra-lx-loader LE-Loader] [https://github.com/oshogbo/ghidra-lx-loader Another LE-Loader]
| Platform = Java
| grp = No
| map = No
| gfx = No
| mus = No
| sfx = No
| txt = No
| sav = No
| exe = Read
}}
{{FileFormatTool
| Name = [https://github.com/yetmorecode/proline-resource-editor Proline Resource Editor (WIP)]
| Platform = Java
| grp = No
| map = No
| gfx = Read
| mus = No
| sfx = No
| txt = No
| sav = No
| exe = No
}}
{{EndFileFormatTools}}

{{BeginGameFileList}}
{{GameFile
| Name = F1.exe
| Format = [[16/32-bit mixed LE executable]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Game executable
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = F1.CFG
| Format =
| KnownFormat = No
| Desc = Game settings
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = NOTIZEN*.TMP
| Format =
| KnownFormat = No
| Desc = In-game notes as taken by players on drivers, tracks, etc.
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = F1_e.rsc
| Format = [[Proline Resource File]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Archive containing color palettes, PCX images and sprites
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = USER_E.RSC
| Format = [[Proline Resource File]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Archive containing color palettes, PCX images and sprites
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = 3D.RSC
| Format = [[Proline Resource File]]
| KnownFormat = No
| Desc = Supposedly BRender track and car models
}}

{{GameFile
| Name = FAHRER.DAT
| Format = [[F1 Manager Professional Driver File]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Static driver data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = INGS.DAT
| Format = [[F1 Manager Professional Engineers File]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Static engineers data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = MOTOREN.DAT
| Format = [[F1 Manager Professional Engines File]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Static car engines data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = SPONSOR.DAT
| Format = [[F1 Manager Professional Sponsors File]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Static sponsors data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = STRECKEN.DAT
| Format = [[F1 Manager Professional Track File]]
| KnownFormat = No
| Desc = Static track data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = STRINFO.DAT
| Format = [[F1 Manager Professional Track Information File]]
| KnownFormat = No
| Desc = Static track information data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{GameFile
| Name = TEAMS.DAT
| Format = [[F1 Manager Professional Teams File]]
| KnownFormat = Yes
| Desc = Static teams data (directly loaded into memory by the game)
}}
{{EndGameFileList}}

== Notes ==

[[Category:Software 2000]]
[[Category:Management Simulation]]
[[Category:Abandonware]]