game folder as pk3 file

[CBM]

as the subject states, I think it would be nice if each game could be zipped to a pk3 file and then still be detected by raze.exe to avoid having to have actual folder cluttering it up
?

[mjr4077au]

You can make a Blood or Duke or Exhumed or ShadowWarrior folder for each game's contents and it's encouraged

[CBM]

You can make a Blood or Duke or Exhumed or ShadowWarrior folder for each game's contents and it's encouraged

I already have that (as shown in my screenshot)

but what if I could have it in pk3 files instead?

or can I just have a bunch of grp files floating around instead?

[Graf Zahl]

or can I just have a bunch of grp files floating around instead?

Except for Blood, essentially yes. With the following exceptions, none of the games needs anything but the main GRP (in case of Exhumed it is named "STUFF.DAT"):

Redneck Rampage Rides Again and Exhumed have a separate intro movie. Don't forget to copy that, too.
NAM and WW2GI use loose "game.con" files in the game folder. You'd have to rename them to "nam.con" and "ww2gi.con" respectively so that they do not clash with Duke and still get loaded automatically. In case of WW2GI you will also have to rename the includes for the same reason.
If you have a Redneck Rampage version with the Route66 add-on you have to get all the files needed for that and zip them up, as they are scattered throughout the directory. I can post a list later when I am back home.

All other files are not needed - that particularly applies to most of the CON files in the game folder. That was just a quirk of the Duke engine to forcibly extract them without asking. All source ports I know have disabled that "Feature" and can load them just fine from the GRP.

But be careful with Blood! The game chose to ignore all common sense when organizing its game data. Leave the folder alone and don't do anything with it.

[irukanjji]

Where we can see a list of the essencialy files, for each game, so it runs in raze,
like copying grp files to duke and rff files to blood, apart creating folders?

[Graf Zahl]

For Duke, SW, RR, RRRA, WW2GI and Exhumed it is simple: These only need the main.GRP file and in case of RRRA and Exhumed also the movie file. I was mistaken with WW2GI, it includes the CONs in the GRP.
For NAM you need the main .GRP file and GAME.CON, which is not included in the GRP.

For Blood it gets tricky: From the main game folder you need all .ART files, all .GRP files plus surface.dat, tables.dat and voxel.dat and blood.ini. If you want the movies you have to copy them from the CD. gti.smk and logo.smk go into the game directory, everything else into a "movie" subdirectory.

For Duke World Tour leave things alone! It may be large but is also too messy to sort out.

And now for the two nastiest pieces of work: Blood's Cryptic Passage and RR's Route 66.
If you want to keep things organized, zip up the following files and afterward delete them:

Cryptic Passsage:

cpart*.ar_
cryptic.ini
cp*.map
cryptic.smk
cryptic.wav

Route 66:

all CONs ending with *66.con"
end66.anm
turd66.anm
tilesa66.art
tilesb66.art
asyamb.voc
end66.voc
g_bite.voc
g_sit.voc
neon.voc
turd66.voc
route66/*.map

[Graf Zahl]

Note that this does not concern CD music! Since some games depend on CD for musical support, it is not recommended to mix these together at all! Keep the games in separate directories if you want to play with proper music.
In general you have to be a lot more careful with Build games than with Doom because the files system works differently. Even though I did smooth its roughest edges these games will still load more data than you might expect! So if you mix games in the same folder, be prepared for weirdness.

[irukanjji]

Thanks a lot, Graf, no problem with music, i play all my games, without music, i like more the ambient sounds of the games.