ghuess what is stored in the levels.dat file !

[Mator]

hi . i was wondering what are the files within the wo3\wipeout3\levels.dat file and i opened it with hex editor(like ultra edit 32)i thought there are all the games textures, meshes, etc.The file starts with "RIFF(ґWAVEfmt"- that way usually starts .WAV sound files(or cd songs).
i copied the first ~1mb of the file and saved it in new file with .WAV extension...I opened the new WAV with Winamp and what do you think ?It was the first seconds of Sasha - icaras . What the hell os going on !?!?! but thats not everything - there is second place in the levels.dat file that starts with "RIFF(ґWAVEfmt"- guess what - goteki 45!
86 megabytes Disk space filled with 2 copies of nice , uncompressed cd audio!!
where the hell is stored the game then!?!?
588mb -38mb(movies)
-1.41mb(ps-exe)
-521mb(music)
-86.2mb(levels.dat)
------------------
=10.01mb(the other files in wipeout3 directory)
i still cant believe it .......


P.S.To check if I am wright look how big are the songs(right click on the file>properties - look for "bytes used") - goteki45(Track08.wav)
and icaras(Track03.wav).then look how big is the "levels.dat" file . add the sums of the songs and compare them to the levels.dat size . Ha, what a coincidence....

[AmigoJack]

the LEVELS.DAT entry must not specify an own data array for its own. instead it could be just a reference pointing to the audio track of GO45. simple cdfs drivers allow to handle an audio-cd like a compilation of wav-files.

so it can be still more than 10MB of game data. unfortunatly i cannot check the disc myself (dont got one) but there are a couple of more things that may let you think the wrong way... it can be also a multimode-cd with more than the audio and data tracks...

(my $1/50)

[Mator]

I copied the file on my hard disk and then opened it . i think there is no way to be other data. Except that the 2 songs are within ONE file .But Im sure the files are compressed somehow- there is a way to be 10mb data ..

[Sven]

Actually, I just stuck the CD in a standard CD player and I could listen to all the music...I imported most of it to iTunes too, they're mp3's now.

[Lance]

.
yes, but mator and aj are talking about a completely separate file than the CDA files that CD players read. some of the data within the actual gamefiles appears to be music.
.

[Sven]

what's so different about them?

[Lance]

.
on the wo3 disc, only the first track contains gamedata, the rest of the tracks are standard CD audio tracks that may be played on a CD player. mator and aj are talking about the first track, that contains ship designs, circuit designs, gamephysics programming, etc. somehow, within this gamedata file track, there seems to be a reproduction of some of the music, but not in the standard CDA fileform of the 13 audio tracks. we're wondering what it is doing there since it isn't required to produce the music in the game.
.

[Sven]

oooooohhh, I see.

[Mator]

PSound :::


http://snailrush.online.fr/software/index.php

[Sven]

now we just need PS2sound...