ROM Hack Anyone know enough to make it possible to extract/repack Dragon's Dogma ARCs?

[Nazosan]

So Dragon's Dogma was just released on the Switch. Overall it seems to have come out surprisingly well what I've tried of it so far. One great thing about the PC version is that there are a bunch of mods ranging from minor stuff like less blinding lighting from magic effects to relatively major stuff like level rebalancing. (And some of this is even in the form of XML files, so may have no differences to speak of.) I don't know if the textures might be a different format (I sure hope not because, unfortunately, the "Don't Blind Me" mod actually replaces textures and I really really want that on there, lol) but those files may work just as-is even. Obviously mods like the one that hooks dinput8.dll and of course ReShade stuff are impossible, but all the best stuff at least theoretically should be convertable.

Unfortunately, the normal ARCtool is unable to extract the .arc files correctly -- producing a lot of files full of nulls. I've tried messing with options a bit, but nothing seemed to work so far. I assume it uses an extra encryption or is compressing differently or something.

Is it possible I'm missing something? If not, is it possible someone might have the knowhow to modify ARCtool or whatever to be able to support the new files? This game isn't Skyrim, but there's still quite a lot of modding potential there and it's rather interesting to have in a portable form too.

 

[tegzie]

Is it the ARC files from the actual game files itself. I recall that the pc mods made changes to a file called game_main.arc and a tool was made to support dragons dogma. have you tried that?

 

[OrangeRoyal]

There's the arc tool on nexus mods that will extract them but they end of with a file extension with numbers and letters. There's a bat file somewhere that will let you drag an arc file onto it and it will unpack it and rename the file extension to something editable. I don't remember where the bat file is but I found it before by copying one of the file extensions and searching in google.

 

[Nazosan]

Oh I already know about extracting and repacking the ARCs. Like I said, that isn't the problem. The problem is the existing tools for the PC and 360 version of the game are unable to process the Switch ARCs. The resulting files are full of nulls (hex 00,) so if you repack it's not going to work because all the actual content of the ARC is gone. (And that's assuming it even accepts the repacked ARC.) If you try it you'll see it for yourself -- it produces a bunch of errors saying it's unable to decompress the files and those files will be blank when it does it (but they are of specific sizes interestingly enough -- it just fills them with nulls instead of the actual data.)

BTW, ARCtool thinks these are PC ARC files, not "console" (360.) It is able to understand them enough to find the file list and I guess offsets, just not access the data, so my guess is just there's an extra layer of encryption. I would assume this is some very simple encryption the system can do in hardware or there would be an obvious performance loss (this game may not have the heaviest requirements in the world, but it does run pretty well on the Switch -- at least as far as I've gotten into it -- without major load times or anything, so there's no way it's doing heavy decrypting,) so maybe something relatively standard across Switch games? In particular I'm wondering if it is this then maybe some tool could just decrypt that section of the file (obviously the file TOC is not encrypted) for ARCtools to extract normally, then encrypt again when you make the new ARC. I'm just guessing though. I don't know enough about how this stuff works to be able to tell for sure if that's what's going on.

 

[OrangeRoyal]

Oh I already know about extracting and repacking the ARCs. Like I said, that isn't the problem. The problem is the existing tools for the PC and 360 version of the game are unable to process the Switch ARCs. The resulting files are full of nulls (hex 00,) so if you repack it's not going to work because all the actual content of the ARC is gone. (And that's assuming it even accepts the repacked ARC.) If you try it you'll see it for yourself -- it produces a bunch of errors saying it's unable to decompress the files and those files will be blank when it does it (but they are of specific sizes interestingly enough -- it just fills them with nulls instead of the actual data.)

BTW, ARCtool thinks these are PC ARC files, not "console" (360.) It is able to understand them enough to find the file list and I guess offsets, just not access the data, so my guess is just there's an extra layer of encryption. I would assume this is some very simple encryption the system can do in hardware or there would be an obvious performance loss (this game may not have the heaviest requirements in the world, but it does run pretty well on the Switch -- at least as far as I've gotten into it -- without major load times or anything, so there's no way it's doing heavy decrypting,) so maybe something relatively standard across Switch games? In particular I'm wondering if it is this then maybe some tool could just decrypt that section of the file (obviously the file TOC is not encrypted) for ARCtools to extract normally, then encrypt again when you make the new ARC. I'm just guessing though. I don't know enough about how this stuff works to be able to tell for sure if that's what's going on.

I don't understand. I was able to unpack the game just fine and did not get any "nulls" as you have said. I was then able to unpack any arc I wanted and could see the contents just fine as well. Sounds like you did something wrong.

 

[Nazosan]

Strange. You're using the normal ARCtool from NexusMods (the one dated 2016)? I presume you're using the pc-dd.bat file? What does the batch file you're using say in the file itself?

 

[OrangeRoyal]

Strange. You're using the normal ARCtool from NexusMods (the one dated 2016)? I presume you're using the pc-dd.bat file? What does the batch file you're using say in the file itself?

Yes I used the bat file. I only unpacked the game to see if there were any system settings that were editable. I unpacked the game with hactool and then used pc-dd.bat. Maybe your game didn't unpack correctly.

 

[Nazosan]

It unpacked fine -- however, I am using the files post-update if that made any changes (the update is really small, so I doubt it, but I don't know how to see exactly what an update changes.) What does your pc-dd.bat file say in it?

EDIT: Oh, and which ARCtools are you using?

EDIT2: By the sudden silence I'm wondering if you know what I mean. Perhaps you do, but just in case, the .bat file is just a plaintext file that simply lists out commands for the interpreter to do. They can get a bit complicated, but this one should just be one single line (they don't even have the usual @Echo off starter.) Just open Notepad or any text editor and drag and drop the file onto it -- or I think you can right click and hit edit as a shortcut. There should just be one line that says something roughly along these lines: "arctool -dd -texRE6 -alwayscomp -pc -txt -v 7 %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9" I need to know if there are any differences between the official pc-dd.bat from the author and the one you're using that makes up the key difference here. BTW, if you use -xfx it should convert stuff like scripts to xml so you can edit.

 

[Nazosan]

I guess an answer isn't forthcoming. Anyway, I tried the original game files from before the patch and no change. MD5 sums for game_main.arc and bbsrpg_core.arc match pre and post patch, so these files aren't changed by the patch. So at least that little bit of doubt is cleared up.

Oh, and to clarify, I know the files extracted correctly because things like plaintext strings inside all the files are intact (if it was improperly decrypted or something there would be gibberish instead of plaintext strings) and files like the .mp4 videos that aren't specially encrypted or compressed even play back just fine.

If you could get around to it I really wish you would at least just copy and paste that one line so I can at least narrow down the culprit.

 

[eaZy41]

*.arc files on Nintendo Switch uses another compression methods. There are two: first of them is zlib, like PC version, but with high compression settings (header 78 DA, and on PC - 78 9C). And the second compression method has header 8C 06, or similar. I don't know how to decomress this data. A lot of decomressors doesn't work with it.
When you use Arctool for PC - it can't unpack this data, and you get zeroes in file.

 

[Nazosan]

When you use Arctool for PC - it can't unpack this data, and you get zeroes in file.

I rather thought as much (I'm wondering if the above person even double checked those files since they're quite large, just all nulls.) I suppose the only hope is for someone who can write such tools to figure it out from what you describe. Thanks for the detail at least.

 

[Eeveekid]

Hold if I understand right.
Mods work?

 

[Valdrrak]

Hmm I have been trying to do the same thing with one of the great mod compilations, Have you had any luck with it so far? everytime I add the romFS I just get freeze on game loading screen. I was hoping it was going to be like skyrim with easy conversion but judging by what you are saying the files are abit more complex then a simple drop in D:

 

[orangpelupa]

I guess an answer isn't forthcoming. Anyway, I tried the original game files from before the patch and no change. MD5 sums for game_main.arc and bbsrpg_core.arc match pre and post patch, so these files aren't changed by the patch. So at least that little bit of doubt is cleared up.

Oh, and to clarify, I know the files extracted correctly because things like plaintext strings inside all the files are intact (if it was improperly decrypted or something there would be gibberish instead of plaintext strings) and files like the .mp4 videos that aren't specially encrypted or compressed even play back just fine.

If you could get around to it I really wish you would at least just copy and paste that one line so I can at least narrow down the culprit.

Please share the tool link. The arctool and qbms I have failed to extract game main arc

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I don't understand. I was able to unpack the game just fine and did not get any "nulls" as you have said. I was then able to unpack any arc I wanted and could see the contents just fine as well. Sounds like you did something wrong.

Wait so it's you that can unpack? Please share the arctool you used. I can't extract game main arc using arctool and qbms I have

 

[Nazosan]

Hold if I understand right.
Mods work?

Not until someone can figure out how to repack the files for this port. They're very similar, but just different enough to be a problem. (I guess it comes down to using libraries the system natively supports for maximum efficiency?)

Hmm I have been trying to do the same thing with one of the great mod compilations, Have you had any luck with it so far? everytime I add the romFS I just get freeze on game loading screen. I was hoping it was going to be like skyrim with easy conversion but judging by what you are saying the files are abit more complex then a simple drop in D:

It's not quite as far off as it seems. It's just a slight difference in the file format -- it looks like stuff is layed out the same and everything otherwise as far as I can tell, so it's just a matter of getting things in and out of the game archives. IF someone with the knowhow is willing to do it, it's just a matter of someone producing a new ARCtool (or even something else) with Switch support. I guess it comes down to that question of if anyone who can do it will know about it and care enough to take the time. All we can do is hope I guess.

Maybe someone could try to get in touch with FluffyQuack? I don't know if they're still active or not though. Here is their official website with links to threads and tools and all: http://www.fluffyquack.com/

 

[orangpelupa]

looking at old posts (on zenhax, xentax) about arc archive, DDDA on switch probably is still the same arc archive but have differrent keys.

 

[Nazosan]

I'm not an expert by any means, but based on the "unable to decompress" errors, my guess is that this user knew what he was talking about:

*.arc files on Nintendo Switch uses another compression methods. There are two: first of them is zlib, like PC version, but with high compression settings (header 78 DA, and on PC - 78 9C). And the second compression method has header 8C 06, or similar. I don't know how to decomress this data. A lot of decomressors doesn't work with it.
When you use Arctool for PC - it can't unpack this data, and you get zeroes in file.

It sounds relatively simple -- for those who know what they're doing in this sort of thing. I wish I could say that included me, but I've never really been a programmer for various reasons.

My bet is that it's something common to the Switch -- probably frequently used in many of its libraries. They wouldn't have put a lot of effort into doing something completely proprietary separately just for this port.

 

[orangpelupa]

this tool https://gbatemp.net/threads/release...olkit-for-authors-of-fan-translations.452375/

can read the ARC archives but failed to extract anything. it can repack just fine. But replacing the carry weight files with files from PC version doesnt work.

i want to extract the weight files to compare with pc versio.... and compae

 

[Nazosan]

i want to extract the weight files to compare with pc versio.... and compae

Oh man. I just realized. Without the dinput8 mod, a lot of stuff like weight mods will have to be done manually the hard way too. We really need something that can handle this port's files.

 

[orangpelupa]

Theory. The arc tool for resident evil switch will be able to repack this?