DID.DAT files and their contents

[mikew]

The dats I have are all slightly different in size, 'modified' date. It's just that they are all identical for the parameters I've looked at so far, which led me to make sure I wasn't loading the same file all the time due to some coding incompetence.
No doubt the mystery will be explained when I compare the individual files.

[Krishty]

Can’t you just extract every dat to its own directory and have us use WinMerge to diff them? 😜

[mikew]

Can’t you just extract every dat to its own directory...

Yes, that's what I did yesterday. But then I zipped up those 6 directories into one file to make the data easier to handle on a USB stick. I don't do things very efficiently as I need to swap between PCs with different OS in various locations.

...and have us use WinMerge to diff them?

That looks like a good tool although I am unfamiliar with it. Some IT expert could probably do this with a one line Perl command.

Anyway, I've been able to produce some quick stats to see the scale of what we're dealing with.
Of the 11711 known files, only 6935 are identical across the 6 dat files, although 10639 are the same length.

[Krishty]

But then I zipped up those 6 directories into one file to make the data easier to handle on a USB stick.

… or on a webforum? 😉

[mikew]

I can upload the 6 extracted datasets here if you want. It's a 188MB file.
I haven't yet put all the identical files off to one side, but will try to ratrionalize things as time permits.

[Krishty]

Yes please! To keep the forum’s kharma in balance (and its backups compact), I will delete my earlier uploads of various did.dats …

[mikew]

Well, here you go...
There's some pictures I haven't seen before in the 'unknown' sections, but many, if not most, are irrelevant to the game

[Krishty]

The Italian version is FUBAR. red1000.ini, for example, is just zeros. Guess we have a bad CD-ROM here … 🙁

[Krishty]

There's some pictures I haven't seen before in the 'unknown' sections, but many, if not most, are irrelevant to the game

Indeed. However, I would love to bring back “Campaign” and “Custom Air To Air” (which is probably TAW’s “Custom Combat”) from 95022a5a:

image.png (174.02 KiB) Viewed 4380 times

[mikew]

Ah.yes. There's a lot of zeroes in the Italian did.dat.
Removing it from my comparison gives 10619 identical files in the other 5 sets.

Looks like they had some of TAW in place when ADF was released....

[Krishty]

Planned, at least. Hence these icons:

image.png (8.01 KiB) Viewed 4376 times

[mikew]

Ah, yes. The presence of the icon doesn't necessarily mean the feature is complete.

In my last post; i hadn't totally expunged the Italian did.dat from my calculations.
Having done that now, we have 11646 identical files, only leaving 65 that have some difference between the 5 reamaining sets.

[Krishty]

The “odd” dataset is also interesting. It seems to contain lots of single-bit changes (e.g. 0x36 instead of 0x32).

[mikew]

Some more analysis, but the next step is probbaly going to be manual

Code: Select all

The following files have different lengths across the 5 datasets

almost_ger  adf_eng  adf_ger  adf_odd  adf_patched   name
11587   11587   11587   11587   11512   f22data/spanish/option.gdd
1171   1171   1166   1171   1166   f22data/spanish/mphelp.gdd
1034   1034   994   1034   994   briefing/spanish/sim11a.txt
769   769   748   769   748   briefing/spanish/sim13c.txt
717   717   717   717   715   briefing/spanish/sim14b.txt
852   852   852   852   851   briefing/spanish/sim14c.txt
1304   1304   1304   1304   1305   briefing/spanish/sim15a.txt
1200   1200   1200   1200   1183   briefing/spanish/sim24b.txt
3292   3292   3290   3292   3290   f22data/spanish/mp_new.gdd
982   982   982   982   985   briefing/french/sim11a.txt
677   677   677   677   678   briefing/french/sim12b.txt
5450   5450   5418   5450   5418   f22data/spanish/options.cfg
3385   3385   3258   3385   3258   briefing/spanish/sim7elcf.txt
4781   4781   4781   4781   4951   f22data/spanish/mltidbrf.gdd
7072   7072   7072   7072   7073   f22data/italian/simultor.txt
1033   1033   1028   1033   1028   f22data/spanish/exitawac.gdd
4683   4683   4673   4683   4673   f22data/italian/mltidbrf.gdd
5881   5881   5880   5881   5880   f22data/italian/mp_detls.gdd
5890   5890   5886   5890   5886   f22data/german/mp_detls.gdd
3894   3894   3894   3894   3884   f22data/french/acmifull.gdd
5966   5966   5960   5966   5960   f22data/spanish/mp_detls.gdd
3868   3868   3856   3868   3856   f22data/spanish/acmifull.gdd
7712   7712   7745   7712   7745   briefing/credits1.txt
3350   3350   3216   3350   3210   briefing/spanish/sim7hydf.txt
2017   2017   2019   2017   2011   briefing/spanish/sim6engf.txt
5979   5979   5974   5979   5974   f22data/french/mp_detls.gdd
6977   6977   6977   6977   6981   f22data/french/simultor.txt
5193   5193   5185   5193   5185   f22data/spanish/acmicont.gdd
7164   7164   7096   7164   7096   f22data/spanish/simultor.txt
5144   5144   5144   5144   5134   f22data/italian/dbrf.gdd
636   636   636   636   621   briefing/spanish/sim1.txt
614   614   614   614   597   briefing/spanish/sim3.txt
602   602   602   602   588   briefing/spanish/sim4.txt
643   643   643   643   629   briefing/spanish/sim5.txt
4239   4239   4224   4239   4224   f22data/spanish/acmi.gdd
1411   1411   1411   1411   1409   briefing/spanish/sim6a.txt
3068   3068   3069   3068   3063   briefing/spanish/sim7a.txt
1908   1908   1907   1908   1901   briefing/spanish/sim8a.txt
4230   4230   4212   4230   4212   f22data/spanish/brief.gdd
9830   9830   9777   9830   9777   f22data/spanish/awacs.gdd
1376   1376   1376   1376   1378   briefing/french/sim6a.txt
1640   1640   1641   1640   1635   briefing/spanish/sim26.txt
1622   1622   1626   1622   1620   briefing/spanish/sim27.txt
622   622   622   622   608   briefing/spanish/sim30.txt
1350   1350   1350   1350   1344   briefing/spanish/sim35.txt

The following files are the same size but have some byte difference

f22data/french/option.gdd
f22data/spanish/quick0.gdd
f22data/french/quick0.gdd
f22data/german/quick0.gdd
red1800/trg_14.tm
red1400/trg_14.tm
f22data/italian/quick0.gdd
red2200/cam2_26.tm
red0200/scrf_spc.tm
f22data/mltidbrf.gdd
red1400/scrf_spc.tm
lev/clds0600.4e2
f22data/spanish/simultor.gdd
red2200/scrf_spc.tm
briefing/spanish/qc.txt
f22data/german/tour.gdd
f22data/french/awacs.gdd
hardware.tm/trg_2.tm
pcx/gamemap/plate.pcx
f22data/italian/multi.gdd

[mikew]

Hola! Which of these is the best?

winm.png (112.29 KiB) Viewed 4361 times

[Krishty]

Regarding a few unknown files:

ad7b6b93
Seems like a mission description for a *huge* (800 KiB!) conflict above Norway.

7498fe09
A list with descriptions of more than 1100 airbases?

81002051
Just wind sound. Like wind.wav, and also pretty large.

91e8ab16
Unknown format. Seems like some kind of bitmap(?) that is related to animations?!

87b6790a
A copy of newmap.lbm.

907d93e8, 9116fae8, a10c3e6a, 972c7f5a, 95022a5a
ADF beta menu backgrounds.

a7d53b6a, a8ac456a
TAW beta menu backgrounds.

75ba680d, 99a13868
A menu background that never made it into the final design.

99c8aa58
Copy of the splash screen.

a5de17ab
A beta menu background.

a9ae4f6a
Another beta menu background.

93d98d51, 93e75d52, 93d95951
Beta background for AWACS or dynamic campaign?

75ba340d
Copy of bg02.lbm.

88dc270a
A moving map … with snow?!
I also just noticed that redsea, arcade, and all cloud* terrains are also provided as .4ev/.4e2 pair in addition to .env – i.e., in EF2000’s level format. Could be the beta versions. It would be really interesting to bring those back!
(We may have talked about it before. Mike, you’re better than me at remembering those things.)

a04f41a1, a1e823a9, ad9d9ea9, a9531ea9, a25700a9
An overview map of the Red Sea at different times of day. Cozy.

[Krishty]

Hola! Which of these is the best?
winm.png

Check which one made it into the patches!

[mikew]

Check which one made it into the patches!

Yes, not much point in dealing with these files until we look at the patch dats, but just trying out Winmerge (thanks for the tip!) on the first in the list to make sure there actually was a difference.

Of the 1131 unknown files, 31 have some differences:

Code: Select all

The following files have different lengths across the 5 datasets

almost_ger   adf_eng   adf_ger   adf_odd   adf_patched   name
1898   1898   1895   1898   1895   81e4e546
1831   1831   1828   1831   1828   81e51946
981   981   980   981   980   8fb51046
742   742   740   742   740   8fb54446
1108   1108   1107   1108   1107   6f731e11
922   922   921   922   921   6f735211
844   844   843   844   843   6f738611
820   820   819   820   819   6f73ba11
696   696   695   696   695   6f73ee11
1221   1221   1220   1221   1220   735fe021
622   622   621   622   621   73601423
860   860   859   860   859   73604823
1014   1014   1013   1014   1013   73607c23
997   997   996   997   996   7360b023
886   886   885   886   885   73614c23
948   948   945   948   945   73618023
915   915   913   915   913   736a3c21
2273   2273   2271   2273   2271   736a7021
1253   1253   1250   1253   1250   736aa421
1763   1763   1762   1763   1762   736ad823
1441   1441   1440   1441   1440   736b0c23
1095   1095   1094   1095   1094   736b4023
1171   1171   1170   1171   1170   736b7423
1411   1411   1410   1411   1410   736c1023
1450   1450   1447   1450   1447   7374cc21
703   703   702   703   702   739e7022
764   764   763   764   763   739ea422
896   896   895   896   895   73b39022
1190   1190   1187   1190   1187   73b3c422
819   819   817   819   817   73b3f822

The following files are the same size but have some byte difference

ae6707aa

I was hoping not to have to consider the contents of the unknown files right now, but it's hard to resist.

By the way, do we have the Japanese ADF did.dat anywhere? It would be good to deal with it before looking at the patches.

[Krishty]

By the way, do we have the Japanese ADF did.dat anywhere? It would be good to deal with it before looking at the patches.

No 🙁 This one seems lost in time unless we kidnap Menrva and set him free in Japan.

[mikew]

Speaking of Menrva, I should go through his ADF collection as well, as he has the French, Spanish and Italian installations and all the patches in that mega upload from a few days ago.