PC Gaming Stuff

By Paul Rudoff on Jan. 1, 1999 at 9:23 PM in Miscellaneous

This is a list of various programs used for various purposes with different PC video games.

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MISCELLANEOUS
  • DDS Converter v2.1 (1.2 Mb) - A handy program to allow you to easily convert to/from DDS, BMP, PNG, JPG, JIF, PSD, and TGA image formats. The program is no longer under development; it has not been updated in many years. There are some bugs, and it's not the cleanest interface, but it gets the job done. On the positive side: Images can be converted in batch mode by selecting multiple images, and it remembers the last directory processed and settings used. If you hate the stupid transparency of the program window, set the slider in the lower left corner to 99, or edit the .ini file in Notepad and change the setting to "0" to disable it altogether.

  • Dragon UnPACKer - A game archive unpacking tool. It is plugin based, which makes it easier to add new archive file formats. It has a convert ability and a raw search function for known material (audio, video and pictures).
    NOTES
    • You can extract all files and folders by right-clicking on the root folder.

    • When right-clicking on folders in the folder tree, you will be presented with two extraction options. "Extract sub-directories..." extracts all files in the selected folder to the folder you select in the hard drive. "Extract sub-directories to [folder name]..." extracts all files AND the selected folder to the folder you select in the hard drive.

    • Tools -> Create Entry List is how you can extract a file list to text, html, or xml. This feature uses templates, which you can modify if you'd like to change the output. You can find the templates and how to make new ones in the utils\templates folder of Dragon Unpacker. The resulting UHT files must be placed in the data folder (not the utils\data folder) of Dragon Unpacker.

    • Highlight text in the log, right-click and select "copy log to clipboard" to copy the selected text to the clipboard. If you use that feature with no text selected, the entire log will be copied to the clipboard.

    • Zero byte files are not shown on the file list or the number of /media/tcp/entries when you right-click on the root folder. The correct number of files will only be displayed in the log when you open a file (so make sure you keep it visible at the bottom of the screen), where it will tell you the filenames of the missing files - but ONLY if you have the Options -> Basic -> Execution Log -> Verbose Level set to High. For example, Ghostbusters: The Video Game PC "language.pod" shows:
           Retrieving 514 entries...
           Skipped entry: world\en\whitebox_slimetest.txt (Size equal to 0)...
           Skipped entry: world\en\whitebox_enemyai.txt (Size equal to 0)...
           Skipped entry: world\en\aitest_ghostbuster.txt (Size equal to 0)...
           Skipped entry: world\en\0slimertest.txt (Size equal to 0)... 16ms
      This is why it says 514 entries/files in the log, but only 510 when you right-click on the root folder and/or extract all files.

  • Ghostbusters TEX Converter - A command-line program that converts the Ghostbusters: The Video Game .tex texture files to .dds format. In regards to how to use it, the author says, "Just put the exe somewhere and drop .tex files on it. The output will go into the same folder as the .tex file." As I'm usually converting a lot of files at once, I find it much easier to do the following: To batch convert an entire directory, put the .tex files and the two program files in the same directory and run this command:
             for %%f in (*.tex) do start/wait "Tex2DDS" "tex2dds.exe" "%%f"
    You can also add that line of text to a .bat Batch file, which will run the command when you double-click on it. This copy of the program that I'm providing on Spook Central has a readme file and a convert.bat file that I personally made. The original only came with the other two files. The reason I uploaded a copy to Spook Central is because the only site where the program can be found requires you to login to download it.
    • Note: There are a lot of .tex files out there for many games, but this is the only program I found that could read the Ghostbusters .tex files. However, I would have preferred that it was able to convert them into a common image format instead of .dds. Since we're forced to convert them into .dds, you'll have to use DDS Converter (listed above) to convert the .dds files into a common image format.

  • Vgmstream - Ver. r937 with all external dlls and a 'convert all smp' batch file (388 Kb) - A command line tool to convert various audio formats used in video games to wav files. Works perfectly on the Ghostbusters: The Video Game .smp files (PC version only, the PS2's .smp files don't convert). Requires libvorbis.dll, libmpg123-0.dll, and libg7221_decode.dll (259 Kb).

  • Xpadder - Allows you to use your controller to play PC games with poor or no joystick support (including DOS games in a Windows DOS box and Shockwave/Java internet games), by simulating keypresses and mouse movements using a gamepad. NOTE: Version 5.3 is the last freeware version. As of 4/29/2009, v5.4 is available for a fee, and v5.3 is no longer available for download on the official website.
    PROGRAM FILES
    • Ver. 5.3 (1/13/2009) (680 Kb) (with supposed relaxed Win2k check) - Contains program exe and 12 language files.
    • Controller Images & Game Profiles (10/19/2008) (9.8 Mb) - 125 images and 83 profiles.
    • Xpadder Unofficial Manual by Ronald D. Hillberg Jr. - Four PDF files which are useful for those uncertain about how to correctly set up Xpadder.
    • Full History Package (38 Mb, self-extracting 7zip) - Contains v5.3 program exe, 12 language files, 125 controller images, 83 game profiles, 92 background themes [background images for the program interface], and ALL 151 PREVIOUS COPIES OF THE PROGRAM EXE FROM v1.1 TO v5.3.

    MY PLAYSTATION 2 CONTROLLER GAME PROFILE FILES
    I have the EMS USB2 device, which lets me connect one or two PlayStation 1 or PlayStation 2 controllers into one of my computer's USB ports. The game profiles below were made using this setup, but they may work with other controllers that have the same button layout as the PlayStation 2 controller, or with PlayStation 2 controllers connected via other devices. These files are what I use, and I thought I'd share them with all of you. If you can use them... great! If you can't... oh well. Each file below contains the PlayStation 2 controller config file and the specific game profile file, along with a readme and a program screenshot showing what the config should look like on screen.
    • Ghostbusters: The Video Game (185 Kb)
    • Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime (185 Kb)
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GRAND THEFT AUTO

This is a list of my favorite mods and trainers for the 3-D "Grand Theft Auto" series of games for the PC. I will not cover the original top-down series of games. For anything relating to the PlayStation 2 series of games, go to the PlayStation 2 page. Being that I also run a Ghostbusters site, I am listing the Ghostbusters mods.

Let me make this perfectly clear. I am not the author of any of these mods, trainers, or patches. Do not e-mail me asking for help or support because I can't give you any. Check out the forums of any of the sites in the External Links section, as they could probably help you there. I take no responsibility should any of these mods mess up your game or your computer. I have tried to test out everything listed on this page, but what works for me, may not work for you. Always backup your game files before you modify anything. That way if the mod doesn't work, you can restore your original game files and have your game working as it did before.

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Utilities
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Grand Theft Auto III
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Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
  • Peter Venkman skin by PGV - Here are Venkman files (without proton pack). You have to rename the file peter.dff into player.dff and peter.txd into player.txd, then open gta3.img (.../GTA Vice City/models) using IMGTool, remove from there player.dff and player.txd and add the new ones. Put the bmp skin in the skins folder and when you open the game in the menu go and select the new skin for your player before starting game.
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Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
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External Links

Windows Software

By Paul Rudoff on Jan. 1, 1999 at 9:08 PM in Miscellaneous

Here are some useful Windows programs that are either no longer bring developed, or are needed for a guide I have on GameFaqs. I have archived the old programs here for all to enjoy. I have tested all of these programs in 64-bit Windows 7, so they should work in newer versions of Windows, too, but I make no guarantees. Registration information and patches is provided with the programs that were originally shareware in order to enable all features, as there would be no point in preserving this software otherwise. Some of these "registration patches" my trigger your anti-virus program, but that is a false positive. Everything here is clean of viruses.

Please note that I did not write any of the programs listed on this page, so please do not contact me for program support. Everything listed here is provided AS IS, with no support whatsoever. Many of the software developers are no longer in business.

• FileGrab - Ver. 1.0 (150 Kb) - When you drop files from Windows Explorer (or any other drag-and-drop capable app) onto the FileGrab window, you get a usable list of filenames rather than the files' contents. You can then save the list to disk, print it, or copy it into the clipboard for pasting into another application.

• Gallery Wizard - Ver. 2.0 (573 Kb) [Custom No Installer] - Lets you create html image galleries with thumbnails for your website.
* NOTE: The original installer version would not run in 64-bit Windows, so I zipped up the installed files from a 32-bit copy of Windows. That version runs fine in 64-bit Windows. For more information on the program, visit the archived copy of the official website.

• GlueIt - Ver. 1.06 (21 Kb) - It will take a series of single images and pastes them side-by-side as a single image. Great for taking an image split into parts and joining it back together as one image. Inputs PNG and BMP, outputs PNG, BMP, and JPG. Unfortunately, it can only assemble the images from left to right, and not top to bottom. (Requires Microsoft .Net 2.0)
* INSTRUCTIONS: Follow each of the four steps in order. The program will not auto-glue images. It only pieces them together when you press the big "GlueIt" button under Step 2. There are no scrollbars in the Preview window that pops up (also shown when you select "Preview - Preview Glued Image" from the menu), so you probably won't be able to see the entire glued image, rendering the preview rather useless. Ignore "Step 3 - Preview" as it doesn't really show you the glued image all that well. Do note that you can only piece together one image at a time. For more information on the program, visit the archived copy of the official website.

• JewlLinr - Ver. 2.6 (281 Kb) [Custom No Installer] - Prints and saves liners for CD Jewel boxes.
* NOTE: The original installer version would not run in 64-bit Windows, so I zipped up the installed files from a 32-bit copy of Windows. That version runs fine in 64-bit Windows. For more information on the program, visit the archived copy of the official website.

• L View Pro - Ver. 1.D2 (313 Kb) - View, edit and convert many picture formats inc: JPG, GIF, BMP, PCX and more. You can also acquire images from Twain compliant scanners and do batch conversions.

• Tile Merger - Ver. 1.1.0 (39 Kb) - This application takes a folder full of image files and merges them into a single tiled image. It can assemble the images from left to right, or from top to bottom, and you can set the number of tiles per row or column, depending on the tiling direction. The image size is automatically calculated based on the source images. Images are sorted by their filename, so it is suggested to use a numeric prefix naming scheme such as "lamp01.png", "lamp02.png", "lamp03.png", etc.; or "001 tree01.png", "002 table.png", "003 chair.png", etc., in order to predictably position images. (Requires Microsoft .Net 2.0) For more information on the program, visit the official website. (This program is still in production, so check the homepage for the latest version.)
* INSTRUCTIONS: Since it works on an entire folder of images, and assumes that all in that folder are part of the same image, a temporary folder needs to be created in which each set of image parts needs to be placed. After the program joins them, they can then be deleted (sent to the recycle bin) and the next set of image parts can be put into that temporary folder. Repeat until done.
* NOTE: This is better than GlueIt in that it can go from top to bottom, instead of just left to right.

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SEAMONKEY BROWSER EXTENSIONS


These are a few add-ons (aka extensions) for the SeaMonkey browser that I have had to modify so they could be installed with the current version of the browser.

• Linkification - v1.3.9 modified - This extension converts text links into genuine, clickable links.

• Open Multiple Locations - v0.5 modified - This extension adds a "File" menu option to open multiple locations at a time. Just input a list of urls and it'll open them all at once in separate tabs. (A not-quite-as-elegant alternative is to use this webpage to open multiple tabs.)

• User Agent Switcher - v0.7.3 modified - This extension adds a menu to switch the user agent of the browser. It is designed to provide functionality similar to the "Browser Identification" feature of Opera and allows configuration of the list of user agents to display in the menu. With this extention you can let a website think you're using another browser, which can be handy in some cases. (alt homepage)
NOTE: User Agent Switcher ver. 0.6.11 is the last version that will store its settings in the browser's prefs.js file. Later versions store their settings in a UserAgentSwitcher subfolder (in the browser's profile folder). Also note that the program *isn't* supposed to retain the user agent after closing - normally or forced. To retain the user agent, go into about:config and set useragentswitcher.reset.onclose to "false" (if not present, add as a new boolean item). It will stay set to a different user agent whether closed normally or forced/crash. Of course, this setting configuration is unsupported. You may experience a bug in SeaMonkey where it will keep the user agent even though the about:config settings is set to true. If you don't want the settings retained, switch it to false then back to true.

Miscellaneous Links

By Paul Rudoff on Jan. 1, 1999 at 9:00 PM in Miscellaneous

THESE LINKS ARE FOR MY OWN PERSONAL USE.
I DO NOT ACCEPT OR EXCHANGE LINKS.

COMPUTER RESOURCES
GREETING CARDS (ONLINE, FREE)
HOME VIDEO & AUDIO (VHS/DVD/BLU-RAY/CD)
JAVASCRIPT/DHTML ARCHIVES
LANGUAGE TRANSLATORS
  • Google Translate (has options for translating Text, Images, Documents, Websites)

MISCELLANEOUS
MOVIES
MUSIC
ONLINE TOOLS - MISCELLANEOUS
ONLINE TOOLS - FILE HOSTING
When using services like these, be sure to have an Ad Blocker installed in your browser, and always be aware of deceptive links to pay services. These sites like to hide the free ("slow") download links.
  • 1Fichier - no login needed, fast (500 KB/sec), files kept for 30 days after last time downloaded; UPLOADS: No upload progress bar.
  • SendSpace
  • DropBox (req. account) (2GB free) (recommended for permanent file hosting)
  • MediaFire (req. account) (10GB free) (recommended for permanent file hosting)

ONLINE TOOLS - IMAGE HOSTING
  • ImageBam
  • Imgur (use "New Post" to upload an image, convert video to animated gif, or make a meme)
  • Fotki (req. account)
  • ImageShack (req. account)

ONLINE TOOLS - PUBLIC/DISPOSABLE E-MAIL ADDRESSES
Public one-way e-mail addresses for when a website or a person wants your e-mail address, but you don't want to get any messages from them in your real mailbox. All mail sent to this address can be read on the website by ANYONE (so don't use it for personal information) who either knows that name or decides to use that name for their own SPAM prevention. Accounts are created when mail arrives for them. No signup, no personal information, and when you're done - you can walk away. The messages are automatically deleted for you after a few hours.

ONLINE TOOLS - URL SHORTENERS
Take a long webpage address and instantly turn it into a tiny one, perfect for posting on message boards or in e-mails. Since you can't edit the tiny addresses you create, this isn't suggested to use as a permanent way for people to access your own website (if you move your site, your tiny address would be useless and you'd have to create a new one).
  • Bit.ly (req. account, limited amount free, blocks .tk urls from being shortened)
  • TinyURL (***VERY GOOD***) (good because you can choose text to use in place of the random code)

SEARCH ENGINES
SHOPPING (ONLINE RETAILERS)
  • Amazon.com - Books, CDs/Cassettes, DVD/VHS, Video Games, Toys, etc. (Free Shipping [$35+])
  • Deep Discount - DVDs, CDs, Books, Video Games, and more. (No NY Tax, Free Shipping [$25+], PayPal Accepted)
  • eBay - Various items, ships individually from various sellers, auctions mostly. (Free Shipping [some sellers], PayPal Accepted - eBay now charges Tax, which goes to them NOT the seller)
  • Hamilton Book (Edward R. Hamilton Bookseller Company) - Books, Blu-rays, DVDs, and CDs at closeout prices. Most are the same titles I found in the past at Big Lots, Dollar Tree, and Rite Aid. ($4.00 Shipping Per Order, PayPal Accepted)
    • ITEM NOTE: Of the 33 Blu-rays and DVDs I ordered, only one DVD (Comic Relief) had a promo cut through the UPC code on the back. All items were brand new and sealed in plastic, though some may have been re-sealed (The Jeffersons box was a little dirty under the plastic).
    • PAYPAL NOTE: Orders are usually processed the next business day. When using PayPal, note that they set up a PayPal autopay, and bill PayPal the day the order is processed, with the money taken from your bank the next day. For safety reasons, I suggest deleting the PayPal autopay on PayPal's site after your order is processed. It will be recreated the next time you place an order.
  • Target - Various types of items. (Free Shipping [$25+], PayPal Accepted)
  • Walmart - Various types of items. (Free Shipping [$35+], PayPal Accepted)
    • PAYPAL NOTE: When using PayPal, note that they set up a PayPal autopay, and bill PayPal the day the order is processed, with the money taken from your bank the next day. For safety reasons, I suggest deleting the PayPal autopay on PayPal's site after your order is processed. It will be recreated the next time you place an order.
    • RETURN POLICY NOTE: If paying with PayPal, do NOT return the item to a physical Walmart store as they will try to give you a gift card instead of a Paypal or Cash refund (like Target does). Do a return through the mail, using their free pre-paid return label. The refund won't be instant, of course, but it's your only option if you want your money back and not "store credit". Ironically, this actually costs Walmart more since they have to pay for the return postage.
  • WRESTLING: Highspots - Autographed photos and other wrestling memorabilia. (No NY Tax, PayPal Accepted)
  • WRESTLING: Ringside Collectibles - Wrestling figures and other collectibles. Located in Freeport, New York, hence why they charge New York sales tax. (5% off with code FIGURES, Free Shipping [$60+ with code SHIPFREE60], PayPal Accepted)

SOFTWARE
TELEVISION
TRADING CARDS
VIDEO GAMES
WRESTLING

Calculators & Converters

By Paul Rudoff on Jan. 1, 1999 at 8:49 PM in Miscellaneous


JavaScript Percent Calculator
by Tom Richardson Jr.
What is  % of  ? Answer:
 is what percent of  ? Answer:  %
 is  % of what ? Answer:  %


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Standard Calculator

BetterCalculator 1.2



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Roman Numeral Bi-Directional Converter
by CSG Network


       

Our JavaScript Calculator has a limitation of the accuracy of your browser, usually 18 digits. The calculator will handle conversions from that number size to Roman Numerals, but the display would be as long as your desk. we suggest that you limit your decimal entry to 5 digits. The generally accepted maximum for display of a Roman Numeral is 4,999. We are not restricting you to that, but in the strictest acceptance of the guidlines of Roman Numerals, that is the cap. Enter a number (from 1 to unlimited?, such as 26) or a Roman Numeral (such as XXVI), and click the Convert button. You may clear the result field by clicking on Clear Result. You may also click on Convert another time and the result should be your initial entry.
1 ... 60 61 62 63 64 65 ...66 ...67 68 69 71