Author Topic: Q-Gears 0.13 Windows Installer is here!  (Read 16764 times)

halkun

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Q-Gears 0.13 Windows Installer is here!
« on: 2007-05-24 03:11:12 »
Ok,
I worked on this for like three days, and now I'm done with the stupid thing. Think of this as the 0.13a release. The current installer requires a FF7 PSX disk to work. (It will ask you to put it in the drive.)

bugs:
1. It doesn't extract the movies yet
2. I tweaked some final things without testing them.
3. I've never ran it on any other computer, so I don't know how well it will work on yours.

Other than that, you can grab it here...
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=165417

I'll upload it to the proper Sourceforge location pretty quick here...

Have fun.

==EDIT==

The package is now on the proper Sourceforge download page. Any bug reports for the installer should go in this thread.
« Last Edit: 2007-05-24 03:49:51 by halkun »

gigaherz

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Re: Q-Gears 0.13 Windows Installer is here!
« Reply #1 on: 2007-05-24 08:19:31 »
I tried the installer in my pc (WinXP SP2) and it installed and uninstalled fine., and I could play through the implemented script right. So I suppose that means it works. :p

nope

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Re: Q-Gears 0.13 Windows Installer is here!
« Reply #2 on: 2007-05-24 08:34:04 »
the installer looks really nice, good job halkun :-)

halkun

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Re: Q-Gears 0.13 Windows Installer is here!
« Reply #3 on: 2007-05-24 09:11:57 »
For fun, try and select different directories when it asks for the PSX disk. It should try and detect the disk and not allow you to pass unless it's in the drive.... (I'm proud of that part)

Also, sorry about the long PSX install. I really don't need to install the whole disk, but I'm trying to make it "future proof" so I only have to code the script once. I'm working with bitrock so that you will at least get a dialog with some kind of progrss bar.

Funny thing I also learned about Windows.... Check this out...

Turn on the ability to see file extentions in windows if you haven't done so.

right click on the backgound and create new -> text document

press enter to make the new document called "New documemt.txt" (or whatever, give it it's default name)

right click the text document and select "rename"

rename it to "system.cnf"

LOOK! The .cnf disappears! Even though you have "Show hidden file extentions" off! Try and rename it again. It's stuck as a perm .cnf file. Even take a look in properties...

Wierd huh?



RixPox

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Re: Q-Gears 0.13 Windows Installer is here!
« Reply #4 on: 2007-05-24 13:22:49 »
For fun, try and select different directories when it asks for the PSX disk. It should try and detect the disk and not allow you to pass unless it's in the drive.... (I'm proud of that part)

Also, sorry about the long PSX install. I really don't need to install the whole disk, but I'm trying to make it "future proof" so I only have to code the script once. I'm working with bitrock so that you will at least get a dialog with some kind of progrss bar.

Funny thing I also learned about Windows.... Check this out...

Turn on the ability to see file extentions in windows if you haven't done so.

right click on the backgound and create new -> text document

press enter to make the new document called "New documemt.txt" (or whatever, give it it's default name)

right click the text document and select "rename"

rename it to "system.cnf"

LOOK! The .cnf disappears! Even though you have "Show hidden file extentions" off! Try and rename it again. It's stuck as a perm .cnf file. Even take a look in properties...

Wierd huh?




You missed one option in there:
'Hide Protected Operating System Files' :P

Guspaz

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Re: Q-Gears 0.13 Windows Installer is here!
« Reply #5 on: 2007-05-25 05:51:06 »
For fun, try and select different directories when it asks for the PSX disk. It should try and detect the disk and not allow you to pass unless it's in the drive.... (I'm proud of that part)

I managed to trick the installer into extracting data from an arbitrary folder on my computer. Since you wanted us to report flaws in your disc check, here we go:

Here's how I managed to get Q-Gears to extract from an image:

1) I extracted the contents of the CCD image of disc one using a disc image utility (the Q-Gears installer couldn't directly extract off the mounted image)
2) I stuck those files into c:\temp
3) I shared c:\temp as \\laptintosh\temp
4) I mounted \\localhost\temp to drive Z (Z:\)
5) Ran the Q-Gears installer, it extracted the files from disk and ran just fine.

So in conclusion, the PSX disc protection can be foiled by simply mounting a folder (through network, or maybe a junction link or similar method) as a drive letter. The installer won't know better, even though it's possible to check what type of drive a drive is.

Possible methods to prevent it? Check if the drive letter being provided is a network mounted drive, and check if there's a junction link present. If there is, it's not an FF7 disc!

So yeah, being able to mount any folder as a drive letter and pass that to the installer means that you can get the installer to extract from anywhere :P

halkun

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Re: Q-Gears 0.13 Windows Installer is here!
« Reply #6 on: 2007-05-25 06:39:31 »
The PSX disk check isn't a form of copy protection, it just verifies that there is a source to copy the data from. I was thinking of putting in "copy protection", but that was kind of silly because I'm trying to copy the disk in the first place!  I was going to have the installer check the directory tree as the first test, then copy over "system.cnf" and check to see if it's hidden as a second test, and then attempt to copy over a .mov file as a 3rd test. If the system file copies over, but the .mov copy fails that means that the disk is an original. This was, however, way too involved when all I wanted to do is copy the disk to a /data directory.

Right now all the installer does is check for "system.cnf" in the directory that you select, and then proceeds to copy the ENTIRE DRIVE after that point into ${installdir}/data. The only thing it doesn't copy  is what is listed in ${installdir}/excludes.txt so that the movies aren't copied (They will crash the installer if it tries to)

If you make a file named "system.cnf" on the root of your C: drive, run the installer, and select the c: drive as the PSX disk, the installer will copy the entire hard drive into the /data directory ^_^

You can also put the the "system.cnf" file in a subdir and point the installer to that. You can also copy the contents of the PSX disk into a subdir and point the installer to that. I don't see why you would, because the point of the installer is to do that for you anyway.

Now that I think about it, if you put in any other disk than disk one, you will most definitly crash the installer as it will try and copy over the movies. I need to put the movie files for disk 2 and 3 into excludes.txt. I will probably do that when I get the install utility to convert and copy of movies over properly.
« Last Edit: 2007-05-25 07:00:18 by halkun »

gigaherz

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Re: Q-Gears 0.13 Windows Installer is here!
« Reply #7 on: 2007-05-25 18:48:52 »
Quote
If the system file copies over, but the .mov copy fails that means that the disk is an original.

How does that make it an original? The disc "protection" in the PSX discs is a region code that can't be read or written in a pc drive (I don't know the exact way it works), so you can't use that to check if it's an original disc. The 'problem' with the movies is only they use a special sector format, andthat format CAN be copied perfectly (else you wouldn't be able to create VideoCDs with your burner!).
We simply can't detect if a disc is original or not... we can't even detect if it's a real disc or a raw image mounted in a virtual drive... so we can just add the restriction to the usage license that only original discs (or legal backups of originals) can be used with it, and trust no one uses it illegally.

Cyberman

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Re: Q-Gears 0.13 Windows Installer is here!
« Reply #8 on: 2007-05-26 16:13:43 »
Knowing  a bit about the ISO file system (unfortunately). The PC does nasty things that are out of ISO specs.  This in particular is with handling Mode 2 information (which the entire PS1 disks are often filled with) annoyingly.  If you find a Mode 2 mode 1 sector you should just check the subheader's audio/video bits to see how big the sector is.  If these aren't set well it's just regular data, if they are then it's the extended sector data.  That's all there is to the PS1 CD mystery problem, unfortunately windows CD-ROM drivers do not inspect the subheader and assume that there is 2048 bytes there, then copy cheerfully only part of the data. :)

I still think using PS1 plugins (they are very easy too use) would be a good solution to Q-gears media reading issues with the PS1 media.  PC media has yet to be gotten too, though I don't think that is as much of an issue really.

Cyb

Chrisu

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Re: Q-Gears 0.13 Windows Installer is here!
« Reply #9 on: 2007-05-26 18:39:13 »
Cool that you made the installer, unfortunately i dont have my FF7 PSX Discs at the moment. Will Q-Gears be compatible with the PC-Files sometime or just with PSX Discs?

Terra

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Re: Q-Gears 0.13 Windows Installer is here!
« Reply #10 on: 2007-05-27 17:56:49 »
When playing through, which are the default keyes? I can move about, but I get stuck when there's text. (can't find a default "okay" key)

gigaherz

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Re: Q-Gears 0.13 Windows Installer is here!
« Reply #11 on: 2007-05-28 18:08:43 »
z=back/cancel
x=ok

Rixorster

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Re: Q-Gears 0.13 Windows Installer is here!
« Reply #12 on: 2007-05-30 14:48:43 »
Didn't work on Windows Vista, said something about '/EXCLUDE:exclude.txt' and 'C:/Program Files/Q-Qears/something /I /H /something' :/.

Guspaz

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Re: Q-Gears 0.13 Windows Installer is here!
« Reply #13 on: 2007-05-30 22:23:43 »
Didn't work on Windows Vista, said something about '/EXCLUDE:exclude.txt' and 'C:/Program Files/Q-Qears/something /I /H /something' :/.

I had a similar error attempting to extract with one specific virtual drive program, but not another. Are you trying to use a real disc, or an image?

The game itself works properly on Vista, although it's incredibly slow even on powerful hardware.

Rixorster

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Re: Q-Gears 0.13 Windows Installer is here!
« Reply #14 on: 2007-05-31 08:34:40 »
Didn't work on Windows Vista, said something about '/EXCLUDE:exclude.txt' and 'C:/Program Files/Q-Qears/something /I /H /something' :/.

I had a similar error attempting to extract with one specific virtual drive program, but not another. Are you trying to use a real disc, or an image?

The game itself works properly on Vista, although it's incredibly slow even on powerful hardware.

It's an original disc, bought from store, so what's the problem?
Oh ye, the normal PC version of FFVII works just fine for me.

halkun

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Re: Q-Gears 0.13 Windows Installer is here!
« Reply #15 on: 2007-05-31 09:34:14 »
I don't think Vista has the XCOPY command...

Rixorster

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Re: Q-Gears 0.13 Windows Installer is here!
« Reply #16 on: 2007-05-31 11:07:39 »
I don't think Vista has the XCOPY command...


You're wrong at that:
Quote
C:\Users\RixPox>xcopy
Invalid number of parameters
0 File(s) copied

Guspaz

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Re: Q-Gears 0.13 Windows Installer is here!
« Reply #17 on: 2007-06-01 07:54:48 »
Yeah, I can confirm that Vista ships with xcopy by default. It just doesn't seem to like dealing with the mixed mode disc in certain circumstances. I was unable to get it to copy directly from the image at all, no matter what virtual drive app I tried. I wish I had a PSX disc handy instead of a PC disc, because I suspect that a real disc wouldn't work either...

I should note that CloneCD VirtualDrive didn't return the error, but still failed to copy properly. As in, it stalled.

As I mentioned before, I ended up having to extract the files manually using an app that could read CCD images, and then xcopy was perfectly happy to copy the data from a network share.

It's been suggested before, but what about a custom extraction app that used the disc DLL or SO component from a cross-platform PSX emulator? Those interfaces are usually standardized and documented. Although I'd imagine that they'd work on a lower level than exposing the filesystem to the PSX game (or whatever app), but I know nothing about that.

Vista also seems to have a commandline app named "robocopy" for "Robust Copy". Here's the /? from it:

Code: [Select]
C:\Users\gus>robocopy /?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   ROBOCOPY     ::     Robust File Copy for Windows

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Started : Fri Jun 01 03:51:07 2007

              Usage :: ROBOCOPY source destination [file [file]...] [options]

             source :: Source Directory (drive:\path or \\server\share\path).
        destination :: Destination Dir  (drive:\path or \\server\share\path).
               file :: File(s) to copy  (names/wildcards: default is "*.*").

::
:: Copy options :
::
                 /S :: copy Subdirectories, but not empty ones.
                 /E :: copy subdirectories, including Empty ones.
             /LEV:n :: only copy the top n LEVels of the source directory tree.

                 /Z :: copy files in restartable mode.
                 /B :: copy files in Backup mode.
                /ZB :: use restartable mode; if access denied use Backup mode.
            /EFSRAW :: copy all encrypted files in EFS RAW mode.

  /COPY:copyflag[s] :: what to COPY for files (default is /COPY:DAT).
                       (copyflags : D=Data, A=Attributes, T=Timestamps).
                       (S=Security=NTFS ACLs, O=Owner info, U=aUditing info).

           /DCOPY:T :: COPY Directory Timestamps.

               /SEC :: copy files with SECurity (equivalent to /COPY:DATS).
           /COPYALL :: COPY ALL file info (equivalent to /COPY:DATSOU).
            /NOCOPY :: COPY NO file info (useful with /PURGE).

            /SECFIX :: FIX file SECurity on all files, even skipped files.
            /TIMFIX :: FIX file TIMes on all files, even skipped files.

             /PURGE :: delete dest files/dirs that no longer exist in source.
               /MIR :: MIRror a directory tree (equivalent to /E plus /PURGE).

               /MOV :: MOVe files (delete from source after copying).
              /MOVE :: MOVE files AND dirs (delete from source after copying).

     /A+:[RASHCNET] :: add the given Attributes to copied files.
     /A-:[RASHCNET] :: remove the given Attributes from copied files.

            /CREATE :: CREATE directory tree and zero-length files only.
               /FAT :: create destination files using 8.3 FAT file names only.
               /256 :: turn off very long path (> 256 characters) support.

             /MON:n :: MONitor source; run again when more than n changes seen.
             /MOT:m :: MOnitor source; run again in m minutes Time, if changed.

      /RH:hhmm-hhmm :: Run Hours - times when new copies may be started.
                /PF :: check run hours on a Per File (not per pass) basis.

             /IPG:n :: Inter-Packet Gap (ms), to free bandwidth on slow lines.

::
:: File Selection Options :
::
                 /A :: copy only files with the Archive attribute set.
                 /M :: copy only files with the Archive attribute and reset it.
    /IA:[RASHCNETO] :: Include only files with any of the given Attributes set.
    /XA:[RASHCNETO] :: eXclude files with any of the given Attributes set.

 /XF file [file]... :: eXclude Files matching given names/paths/wildcards.
 /XD dirs [dirs]... :: eXclude Directories matching given names/paths.

                /XC :: eXclude Changed files.
                /XN :: eXclude Newer files.
                /XO :: eXclude Older files.
                /XX :: eXclude eXtra files and directories.
                /XL :: eXclude Lonely files and directories.
                /IS :: Include Same files.
                /IT :: Include Tweaked files.

             /MAX:n :: MAXimum file size - exclude files bigger than n bytes.
             /MIN:n :: MINimum file size - exclude files smaller than n bytes.

          /MAXAGE:n :: MAXimum file AGE - exclude files older than n days/date.
          /MINAGE:n :: MINimum file AGE - exclude files newer than n days/date.
          /MAXLAD:n :: MAXimum Last Access Date - exclude files unused since n.
          /MINLAD:n :: MINimum Last Access Date - exclude files used since n.
                       (If n < 1900 then n = n days, else n = YYYYMMDD date).

                /XJ :: eXclude Junction points. (normally included by default).

               /FFT :: assume FAT File Times (2-second granularity).
               /DST :: compensate for one-hour DST time differences.

               /XJD :: eXclude Junction points for Directories.
               /XJF :: eXclude Junction points for Files.

::
:: Retry Options :
::
               /R:n :: number of Retries on failed copies: default 1 million.
               /W:n :: Wait time between retries: default is 30 seconds.

               /REG :: Save /R:n and /W:n in the Registry as default settings.

               /TBD :: wait for sharenames To Be Defined (retry error 67).

::
:: Logging Options :
::
                 /L :: List only - don't copy, timestamp or delete any files.
                 /X :: report all eXtra files, not just those selected.
                 /V :: produce Verbose output, showing skipped files.
                /TS :: include source file Time Stamps in the output.
                /FP :: include Full Pathname of files in the output.
             /BYTES :: Print sizes as bytes.

                /NS :: No Size - don't log file sizes.
                /NC :: No Class - don't log file classes.
               /NFL :: No File List - don't log file names.
               /NDL :: No Directory List - don't log directory names.

                /NP :: No Progress - don't display % copied.
               /ETA :: show Estimated Time of Arrival of copied files.

          /LOG:file :: output status to LOG file (overwrite existing log).
         /LOG+:file :: output status to LOG file (append to existing log).

       /UNILOG:file :: output status to LOG file as UNICODE (overwrite existing
log).
      /UNILOG+:file :: output status to LOG file as UNICODE (append to existing
log).

               /TEE :: output to console window, as well as the log file.

               /NJH :: No Job Header.
               /NJS :: No Job Summary.

           /UNICODE :: output status as UNICODE.

::
:: Job Options :
::
       /JOB:jobname :: take parameters from the named JOB file.
      /SAVE:jobname :: SAVE parameters to the named job file
              /QUIT :: QUIT after processing command line (to view parameters).

              /NOSD :: NO Source Directory is specified.
              /NODD :: NO Destination Directory is specified.
                /IF :: Include the following Files.

halkun

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Re: Q-Gears 0.13 Windows Installer is here!
« Reply #18 on: 2007-06-01 14:28:48 »
The installer is kind of a stopgap so we we not distributing the FF7 files anymore. The installer, at least in the windows version, is scriptable. If some enterprising young programmer wants to write a program to properly extract/transfer the files off the disk, more power too them. I'll include it with the installer in the next release.

Actually, I'll make a new thread about this...

DaVince

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Re: Q-Gears 0.13 Windows Installer is here!
« Reply #19 on: 2007-06-12 19:42:06 »
The installer tells me to watch a (very specific) movie, yet the disk was copied/converted in 10-15 minutes. Must be a very short movie... ;)

halkun

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Re: Q-Gears 0.13 Windows Installer is here!
« Reply #20 on: 2007-06-13 05:54:54 »
No, Just a really awesome one.

Izban

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Re: Q-Gears 0.13 Windows Installer is here!
« Reply #21 on: 2007-06-19 13:34:55 »
I was just wondering how long till we get an installer for those of us unlucky people who only have the pc version are going to have to wait, because i for one would really like to give it a go

halkun

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Re: Q-Gears 0.13 Windows Installer is here!
« Reply #22 on: 2007-06-19 18:01:16 »
Q-gears doesn't support the PC version at all. Most likely the PC support will start with the PSX version is almost done.

Izban

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Re: Q-Gears 0.13 Windows Installer is here!
« Reply #23 on: 2007-06-20 03:36:52 »
looks like its time i renew my search for a PSX copy then thanks for the quick reply

Prince Lex

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Re: Q-Gears 0.13 Windows Installer is here!
« Reply #24 on: 2007-06-20 17:00:40 »
I tried installing Q-Gears using the original PSX discs on Vista with no joy, I've just swithced back to XP MCE so I'll see how it goes now. Does region matter? Will the installer work with PAL discs or NTSC? I'm from the UK.

EDIT: It works! And the install was actually a lot quicker than I thought it would be. The actual "getting of the files from disc" part of the installation just wouldn't go anywhere with vista... literally it would just stick at that part. But it took about a minute on XP!



« Last Edit: 2007-06-20 17:18:58 by Prince Lex »