[General] Local files vs MPQ

[AL0NE]

[definition of local files: altering the model/blp files without having to change the mpq itself. Only requires folders in the warcraft 3 directory with the same path as the model/blp to alter it.]

Is there any difference between using local files and changing the mpq itself in terms of gameplay performance? I'm unsure of this because when i alter the background music by local files, it does have a very brief lag/spike before it starts to play. If i alter it directly in the mpq, the lag/spike seems to be eliminated.

p/s: To clear things out, yes, my desktop isn't very high in performance. my warcraft 3 settings isn't the highest settings possible to have an acceptable gameplay.

 

[rysnt11]

I prefer to use mpq editing, but it will requires you to copy the original mpq to avoid accidental file deletion

 

[Tirlititi]

Emulating Warcraft with wine under linux disable the use of local files. So I think it's not a trick Blizzard actually wanted to do : it's a benefic bug.
So maybe there are not the checks required to use the local files in an optimal way (since musics take a bit special place in the MPQ compression's algorithm).

 

[Troll-Brain]

Hmm i don't think that, or are you still allowed to use a customkey.txt with wine ?

 

[Tirlititi]

Hum... Now that you mention it, I can't use customkey.txt with wine, indeed. It must be wine's way to handle the directory arborescence the reason why I can't use local files.

Bha, just forget what I said .

 

[AL0NE]

I think only large files such as musics will have slight problems. other things such as models, sounds seems to be ok. looks like i might need to cancel the idea of custom background musics through local files. D:

 

[Troll-Brain]

Alternatively you can make/use a tool which is doing the annoying work for you.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Is there any difference between using local files and changing the mpq itself in terms of gameplay performance? I'm unsure of this because when i alter the background music by local files, it does have a very brief lag/spike before it starts to play. If i alter it directly in the mpq, the lag/spike seems to be eliminated.

This is probably due to caching. As a .mpq is a single file your OS might cache parts of it into memory which are not needed but are near where data is being loaded from that is needed. With enough memory it might even cache the whole .mpq archive into your memory so no more reads are needed. As such there is no seek and read delay which are extreemly slow opperations on mechanical hard disks.

When the music file is separate, the data will only be loaded into memory the instance it is needed (which causes the game engine to wait and thus appear frozen for a while). Ofcourse once it is loaded it will probably be cached meaning that subsiquent uses will be much faster (unless you run out of memory which will cause all caches to have to be flushed).

Caching, the reason why WC3 takes 10 odd seconds to start on my system but subsiquent starts take less than 1.

 

[Troll-Brain]

Preloading on map init could help.
(i can't believe that you would prefer a lag spike in game against a little longer loading time)

 

[AL0NE]

Thank you Dr Super Good. i was going to ask you but look's like you've replied here. Thx alot for the detailed explanation. =)

@Troll-Brain
The local file idea is not meant for a map i'm making. just a little experiment for something else.

 

[Troll-Brain]

I'm curious now, for what exactly ?

 

[Apheraz Lucent]

http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/miscellaneous-tutorials-456/customizing-your-warcraft-207843/