To many pk3 files in baseoa folder

[qwerty]

Hi.
I'm using OpenArena 0.8.5 on Windows (Seven x64 Pro).
I play on defrag mod. When baseoa folder have ~ 500 pk3 files open arenca write something like: "Can't write on q3history" or something like this (i write from my memory). Sometimes cause crash OA. I'm not alone in this problem - other players have the same.

[RMF]

What about deleting some pk3's?
I think it goes over the allocated memory, like it does with 'too many cvar' errors, crash when you add too many bots, etc etc.

[Cacatoes]

A workaround could be to make one PK3 from several. It's just a zip file. Problem is, new files would still be autodownloaded from the server while you already have the files (under another form). You can always try.

[qwerty]

When i delete some pk3 files it's help until game download other pk3 and again will be ~500 pk3).
I will try pack to one zip file, but what select compression level, method, dictionary size and word size (I use 7-zip)?

[Graion Dilach]

Use deflated, others don't matter. Advanced compression isn't supported by the engine.

And check your resulted file, I once got a zip which had all bmps in deflated and all pngs in LZMA.

If you use Windows and have Total Commander, use that for compression, that doesn't ask and the results will work.

[Cacatoes]

Even the simple windows zip manager can produce the right archives.
7-zip is a good tool, you should be able to produce simple Zip files with (not 7Z, not LZMA), no matter how other parameters are set, leave them default.

Sago could clarify, the pk3 number limit probably is tied to a limit in the engine source code.
This issue might already have been discussed on this forum, but I can't remember nor find it.
You might give the latest binaries a try: http://openarena.ws/board/index.php?topic=1933.0 ; maybe some modif brought a little up that limit, but I doubt.
When you have such problemit's usually a good idea to give the latest development version a try, in any case that update shouldn't harm.

Good luck.

[fromhell]

Harekiet made a really neat pk3 merging tool that also merges shader files into one big shader too, as well as arenas. forgot what it's called though, heck it might not even be available anymore. I might still have it somewhere, it's better than that old cpma focused repack GUI tool. It's made for DefraG instead since all those courses get obtained in high quantities by defraggers

but i'd not recommend any merging unless you play on unpure servers or by yourself. I know I had myself a big 2gb pk3 file full of maps from the year 2000 I used to randomly play with UIEnhanced's random map pick/bot pick feature.

*cough*OA needs instantaction command*cough*

[qwerty]

Ok now i have other problem. I select pk3 files (unpack) and pack again (to new pk3 file). OA see maps (I have mini picture, and load map on local host) but when I connect ro server OA download map.

[Cacatoes]

@qwerty, yes, that's what I fear, this wasn't a good workaround... Some other possibility would be to find where that pk3 limit is, and re-compile the program. Otherwise you'll have to stick to this limit and manage your pk3s accordingly.

[Gig]

Maybe that could be a good thing to do for all OpenArena users, and not only for him.
If that limit is in the engine (and not in the game logic code), maybe one should ask to the ioquake3 team?

[Cacatoes]

ioquake3 avoids changing policies which were present in Quake3, considering you already approached them I thought you were aware of their kind of conservatism. Only formal code changes, not values (which makes sense development-wise: you don't solve a problem by uppering some limit, you rather take a new approach where the problem is gone for good). If necessary, it's up to derived projects to do it, though OA would tend to follow the same logic than IOQ3. So finally it's up to end-users to make the choice.

[Gig]

I understand they don't want to change many things.... but I guess that simply making a such technical-only limit (without any influence on gameplay, game look, game feel...) higher (to 1000? 1500? 2000?) should not be a problem... Anyway I haven't asked to them this kind of change yet, so I don't have first person feedback about their behavior in these cases.

Anyway, "asking is allowed, replying is courtesy" or "trying does not harm", as we say in Italy.
But, before asking, it would be good to know where this limit is and what's its exact value (and what's the exact error message when this limit is reached), to give more info to them.

[fromhell]

We already up limits of all sorts; what would make it different in this case?

oh wait i think it has much much to do with the network protocol on bytes being sent about loaded pk3s. there's probably not much you can do about that.

all the more reason for a 'cache' folder for downloaded pk3s so they don't need to be loaded from baseoa all the time but being loaded if the server demands it

[Gig]

Wait, let me understand... I'm a bit confused: with that sentence about the "cache folder", do you mean that this ~500 limit applies to installation folder\baseoa only, and not to homepath folder\baseoa? And what about mod folders?

Or did you mean the engine works differently, like that the data under the installation folder is always loaded and data under the homepath folder only if needed by the server? That would sound strange... (I have not understood if the error happens only when playing offline or also playing online on pure servers...)

Another question: do you think that a temporary workaround could be to divide his pk3 files, putting half of them under the installation folder, and half of them under the homepath folder? (Is that limit for a single folder or for the entire game?)

In short... how does that limit work exactly?

[Cacatoes]

Asking is allowed, replying is courtesy. You should get a bunch or two more of swaggerall to deal with to make you change your mind.
The thing is: you can get knowledge by yourself with a bit of effort. Asking further won't change the fact the people you ask don't necessarily have much more knowledge to share than what they previously shared with you. It's true some people answer the quick, lazy and incomplete way, and if you ask them the proper way they may tell you more, but they'll often hope you'll get the idea without necessarily make you the full lesson. I'd encourage you to act where you can act, and leave people who can act where you can't act, act instead of you. There is a pragmatical approach in knowledge acquisition, and there are times where full understanding of a subject doesn't look like to be necessary. We don't get knowledge by reading full explanation, instead you can take the same shortcuts other people did to acquire that knowledge (i.e: digging into the code to learn how OA acts). Meta-knowledge will allow you to naturally get the details, whereas asking for details looks like to be useless, because these are things you naturally get when you turn your interest into more important things. I can be wrong, I just invented all that.

Edit: I can't even understand all your questions and I didn't have the courage to read them. What fromhell said was: This PK3 limit could be due to the nature of the network protocol which can't be easily changed or extended (as it would provoke incompatibilities). The list of pk3s has to be exchanged over the network. I really don't know how you ended up making suppositions about mods, data installation folders, and other stuff.

Edit2: about the cache (now I get a clue of why you talk about mods etc...), check sago's post about his thoughts of rewriting the pk3 loading and handling code.

Edit3: @fromhell, nothing different, my intent was to make an echo to this post.

[Gig]

Cacatoes, my friend, I don't understand why today you take my every single post in a bad way....

Anyway, Fromhell is the project leader and has got a wide knowledge about idTech3 and ioquake3, what's the matter about sharing knowledge? Few seconds (minutes, if she has to check the source code, knowing where and what to search for) for her, days for me, that don't even know C language... If she does not want to answer to me, it's okay, but let her say that.

I'm just trying to figure out if there could be some workarounds or fixes for Qwerty's problem, but I have not the time to learn C and OA programming.... hoping that some suggestions may be somehow of some help. I know that my contribute to OA will never be like the one of Fromhell or Sago (and not even like those very good guys that make wonderful maps, create beautiful textures and create fixes to improve Q3 stuff compatibilty -all people to which I say "thank you"-), please don't be angry with me if I don't have the courage to start a such thing...

PS: I like sharing knowledge... e.g. when I learn something about OA and think it may be useful for other users, I write it on the wiki.

[Cacatoes]

Again, don't worry, I don't take these things in a so bad way. Problem also is I didn't use smileys and you missed a bit of my humour attempts... (and because that's right I didn't take these posts so positively either, but don't worry, no problem).

The problem is, even if you try to help, you being an intermediate makes solving the problem a long long task, as it requires others to explain you all the parts of the process.
The problem is not sharing knowledge, the problem is about efficiency, maybe pragmatism as I tried to explain in my previous post, and maybe mostly about lazyness (from the side of people who should answer you).
Lazyness is a problem, since it sometimes requires a very little time to fix the issue, but people don't do it ... so why should they take their time to explain you deeply when they don't even take the time to fix little issues ? Acts are sometimes better than long talks, and it's often true in the case of software development.
You have your particular way to deal with problems, along your posts, and this is why I permit myself to answer you about it.
I don't even pretend I'm right, but I try to explain, and we simply discuss. I've often discussed your methods (bringing considerations between the wiki and the forum content, and other stuff) and I do this since the first day you registered (I don't pretend either being registered prior to you gives me any authority), I thought you would have been a bit accustomed to it.
You may be right to think I didn't take much cautions to write my answers today, but the fact I did take time to explain myself is more a proof of respect than of anger.

[Gig]

@Cacatoes: You don't know how many times I would like to being able to fix the game by myself (there are various DO NOT LINK[/b]) h t t p s : / / openarena . wikia . com/wiki/Bugs]bugs that have been pointed out and not fixed after a year or so)... but how much time would take, starting from scratch, to learn to figure out, for example, if a particular change would break compatibility with something or not? That's not so easy... And I know that in the future my life will change and I will have extremely little time to spend around OA...
It's about 10-15 years I don't write a "real" program... and I used some arcaic languages like Cobol, Pascal and Clipper... and now I have forgotten almost everything about them. I can only do very (very) simple HTML changes, very simple scripts using AutoIt, and some SQL.[/size]

@Everyone: Let's come back to this particular case... Fromhell mentioned that probably this would break network compatibility... but she was not sure...
It would be good to understand if and what it would break. I do not know what kind of protocol changes would accept the guys at ioquake3 (by instinct, I would say "nothing", but if I think that they added IPv6 support, it's unlikely that they did not change networking protocol - Note: I haven't yet understood if one can use ioquake3 to connect to "classic" quake3 servers or only to ioquake3 servers (their help page does not say anything about it) - .... and if they do not do a such thing... well OA already uses a different protocol version, right? Maybe Fromhell could let this change "parked" somewhere and apply it to OA in the future, only when (and if) the OA networking protocol will be changed again for some other reason (meaning: once you will decide to change the networking protocol again, e.g. in OA 0.9, you may put in various updates prepared though time). But I don't know what changes would be acceptable anyway... breaking mod compatibility is not an option (but -since it has been changed before- networking protocol should not be a problem for them, right?), the main question would be about compatibilty with third-party tools, like external server browsers, statistics tools, demo tools, etc, I suppose.

It's a long time I wanted to ask about this... I wanted to open a thread in the "Idea pit" about making higher another networking-related limit (the maximum space for variables marked as "server" with "sets" command -those that can be used to give precious info about the server, like the DO NOT LINK[/b]) h t t p s : / / openarena . wikia . com/wiki/Special_game_options]special game options used, that now are almost impossible to know for the end user - I don't know its exact limit, but I did some tests time ago and it seemed "short" to me, related to the maximum length of a single variable)... but I wanted to know if it would be possible to "park" such changes until the networking protocol is updated with some major program update (and what effects it would have on external server browsers, etc.... well, this part would simply be a guess, I suppose, since we cannot know the degree of "internal" flexibility of many third-party softwares)...

[Cacatoes]

@Gig, guys here can already do the reasonning. It's about programming and putting in practice, if you can't help with this, I fear you will barely help with words. Programmers do code what they feel they want and need. Sorry for insisting.