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#1 04/05/07 14:04

Trevzy
Member
Registered: 04/05/07

Demo problems

well I''m having a small problem when I unzip my oni demo with winzip it opens up automaticly then has the blam! error but it doesn't intall and stay there so the patches don't work what can I do to get the demo running, I have downloaded it twice once from www.download.com the other time from fileplanet.

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#2 04/05/07 14:04

Tosh
Member
From: Oregon, USA
Registered: 01/14/07
Website

Re: Demo problems

Is it a self extracting archive..? If so, then I guess it automatically installed (check C:\Program Files\Oni) and then ran it.

Also I don't think the patch works for the PC demo version. At least not the patched exe you may have downloaded. Try the official Ian's patch on it, it patches quite a few different versions. Though I'm not sure if that includes the demo... :X

EDIT:
If it's not installing, there's a review on download.com that may be of a little help:

Gooood. Mooooooo.

29-Apr-2002 11:58:15 AM
Reviewer: Jin698

For all you fools that have to unzip the thing every time you wanna play, just right-click on the exe and click on "extract to" and then pick the folder you want to install it to. Then let it install. Oh, yeah. Goog game. Moo.

Last edited by Tosh (04/05/07 14:04)

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#3 04/05/07 16:04

Trevzy
Member
Registered: 04/05/07

Re: Demo problems

well I tried to 'extract to...' only to find that no such option exists:o so I tried the next closest thing which was 'extract all' at first it look like it might work it let me choose where to unzip to but then my hopes where shot down and stamped into the ground because when I looked at the place I tried upziping to(programfiles) I found that it had just copied the zip file to another place:mad: oh well I guess I should have thought of this earlier but I can just move the install files to my other cpu which is a compac

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#4 04/05/07 19:04

Last_Hero
Member
Registered: 01/14/07

Re: Demo problems

Try extracting it with WinRAR.
It always has "Extract here" and "Extract to..." options.


That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die

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#5 04/05/07 20:04

geyser
Member
From: beyond the veil
Registered: 01/14/07
Website

Re: Demo problems

Woot, post number 1000!

Huh. Only noticed right now that all the copies of the PC demo out there seem to be of the annoying auto-extract-play-remove type.
Sure, that makes sense since Oni doesn't require an actual installation (registry keys and such), but in the case of Oni it's annoying.
Removal upon exit means no bonus levels (2 and maybe 3), no cheats, no scripts, no Dev Mode, no OniUn/Packer experimentation.
Also no possibility to solve compatibility problems (patching, command-line parametes, application specific GFX driver profiles...)
This will have to be remedied. Basically, we'll put up a "Oni Demo Bundle" on oni2.net and a guide to it as an Oni Galore wiki page.
It will include all the levels released as demo content on a platform or another (Chapters 0 to 4, EdT please confirm for Chapter 3).
And we'll keep it up to date with demo-friendly scripts, patches and hacks that will allow people to get the best out of Oni Demo.

0) Right-click doesn't give you any extraction options unless an unpacker such as Winzip, WinRAR or 7-Zip is installed, which is not the case by default.
Windows Explorer then only lets you "Open" the exe. Which, in the case of all the Oni demos around, extracts the game to a temporary folder, deleted upon exit.

1) If you want to bypass the automatic extractor, the easiest way is to rename the .exe to a .zip. Then Explorer will let you handle the file as a regular ZIP.
If you're interested, I recommend Total Commander over Windows Explorer (it has built-in packing tools and unlimited plugins for every imaginable purpose).
With TC, every supported archive can be accessed as a subfolder at any time with keyboard shortcut Ctrl+PgDn, so you don't need to rename the .exe to .zip.
I also recommend WinRAR over Winzip and 7-Zip over WinRAR. 7-Zip handles more archive types and can pack (if needed) in a more compact way than WinRAR.

2) You can also look up the temporary folder to which the .exe extracts Oni. It may vary depending on your version of Windows.
On XP, it should be C:\WINDOWS\Temp\WHATEVER.TMP, where "WHATEVER" is a nonsensical, automatically generated name.
"WHATEVER.TMP" is a folder playing the same role as the usual installation folder (typically C:\Program Files\Oni).
(note that you may not be able to view the contents of your Windows folder (and thus the Temp folder) depending on your user rights and File Explorer preferences)
The trick, then, is to copy the contents of that folder to wherever you'd like Oni to reside, and then take it from there.
That's a needless hack, though. Renaming to .zip and opening in File Explorer should work just fine.

That'll leave the problem of the crash. Ian's patch is supposed to handle the demo (see bottom of page for thorough links to downloads and instructions).
In case you (or other people) have trouble with the patch, I'll patch the EXE on my side and make it available through the wiki and with the "demo bundle".
Note that depending on your GFX card manufacturer, you may not have to patch anything. See HERE if you have an Nvidia
(and if you have an ATI, have a look there too, because the interfaces and settings are quite similar).

Last of all, before I put the bundle together, here's where you can get the official bonus level for PC (Chapter 2):
First, on Yahoo! GAMES. Second, on take2.de
IIRC, Chapter 3 was released for free by Feral (for the Mac). EdT, please confirm.
File formats are fairly similar, so we could mirror a PC version of Chapter 3 then smile
(bringing the demo to a continuous story spanning most of Konoko's first mission)

Last edited by geyser (04/05/07 20:04)


Behold the power of that which is yet unborn! For the swirling images that flow forth from the Chrysalis are only a shadow of the sleeper's true power.

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#6 04/05/07 21:04

EdT
Moderator
From: Los Angeles, CA
Registered: 01/13/07
Website

Re: Demo problems

geyser: The Mac Demo comes with level 0, 1 and 4

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#7 04/06/07 07:04

geyser
Member
From: beyond the veil
Registered: 01/14/07
Website

Re: Demo problems

EdT: I was asking about bonus levels released as add-ons to the demo.
Chapter 2 is available for PC. Didn't you say Feral released Chapter 3?


Behold the power of that which is yet unborn! For the swirling images that flow forth from the Chrysalis are only a shadow of the sleeper's true power.

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#8 04/06/07 10:04

EdT
Moderator
From: Los Angeles, CA
Registered: 01/13/07
Website

Re: Demo problems

geyser: I don't remember saying that Feral released Chapter 3 and looking at Feral's site, there is no mention of a add-on bonus level.
Chapter 4 was originally included with the Mac demo.

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#9 04/06/07 14:04

geyser
Member
From: beyond the veil
Registered: 01/14/07
Website

Re: Demo problems

OK, that was my own bad memory and wishful thinking, helped by Oni Online (they called the bonus level 2 "Research Lab" for some reason):

Bonus Level
This patch adds an extra level to the PC version of the Oni demo. Install it and you will be able to play through the Research Lab level.

Here's the truth. The first demo released by Bungie included Chapters 1 and 2 (plus training).
Then they changed their minds and made it Chapter 1 and 4 (plus training). That's the demo we know.
Level 2 was part of the original demo, which was only released for PC and is no longer available anywhere.
What happened then is that the community snatched the level 2 from the first demo and spread it around.
That's how it has come to be available as a standalone download, which wasn't the case officially/initially.
The level will load and play with the Mac demo (even if people are likely to use the OSX engine instead).
The only difference in format between PC demo and Mac are the sounds: level-specific sounds won't play.
It's the same problem as with taking levels from a Mac build and feeding them to the PC demo engine
(everything works fine, i.e., the levels will not be locked out by the demo, but there will be no sound)

So. Since Chapter 3 was never actually released free of charge, it won't be right to bundle it smile
I would, however, distribute the level 2 from Mac retail (for those who want to try the Mac demo).
We will, too, bundle the original (PC) level 2 with the usual Oni PC demo. And then some more.
By "some more" I mean massively hacked Chapters 1, 2 and 4, taking full advantage of the data.
A demo-friendly Oni Team Arena is a must. Not all of the gaming modes are possible, but it's OK.
There'll be alternative single-player: more of Muro, Barabas, and a foretaste of Mukade, too smile
(the resources of the demo technically allow for Tankers, Furies, Elites, and Ninja)
(clever use of OniUn/Packer could make all those available in all of the demo...)

In the case of the demo version, it's certainly OK to distribute (mirror) the original levels. It should also be OK to distribute modded vertions of levels 0, 1, 2, 4.
Or, more probably, original levels bundled with a set of patches hardcoded for the demo version (engine and game content) that would load/unload with a GUI.
Since we deal with a unique version, the binary patching backend would be much lighter than with OUP. I think I know a guy who could be interested. Tosh? smile

Last edited by geyser (04/06/07 14:04)


Behold the power of that which is yet unborn! For the swirling images that flow forth from the Chrysalis are only a shadow of the sleeper's true power.

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#10 04/06/07 19:04

Tosh
Member
From: Oregon, USA
Registered: 01/14/07
Website

Re: Demo problems

Hehe. tongue I'm still working on OMM, but it's going well so far. I haven't gotten to the actual patching yet (loading and parsing the patch files atm) but it's next up after the current thing I'm doing for it.

Also, geyser, if you want to stay completely legal here I would not recommend tking resources out of other retail levels and patching them into the distribted levels. Copywrites and etc. are usually listed as "in whole or in part".

I'll download the demo version and play with it once I get this done and make sure everything'll work with it.. it should be fine. Maybe make a mod for it too, though I don't really have any ideas.
An Oni Team Arena would be fun on the tarmac though, wouldn't it? big_smile Especially with jetpacks, you could snipe from on top of the planes.. xD

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#11 04/06/07 19:04

geyser
Member
From: beyond the veil
Registered: 01/14/07
Website

Re: Demo problems

Also, geyser, if you want to stay completely legal here I would not recommend taking resources out of other retail levels and patching them into the distributed levels.

Certainly. The patcher of the demo bundle should only reshuffle content between level0, level1, level2 and level4. I said just that up there.
An OUP-powered patch will be able to actually move, say, character resources from all 3 levels to level0, so that they're available globally.
Your patcher may be more limited: we shall see... Anyway, the idea is indeed to recombine the content that's been released free of charge.
It's still illegal since it involves unauthorized reverse engineering and resource patching. But as compared to injecting retail content it's OK.

The point is that there are Tankers and Furies in level4 (that's a well-known fact), and that Barabas is an Elite.
As for the Ninja, the level1 droids come with ninja anims, sounds and particles. So Ninja are "available" too.
Getting to fight "Mukade's apprentice" was one of the key features of Loser's first Warehouse.
And right now "we" have much more powerful modding knowledge than Loser had then...
I'll try to organize the most compelling directions for "our" development on the wiki. Soon (TM).

An Oni Team Arena would be fun on the tarmac though, wouldn't it?

Whoo-ee, where have you been? smile
Airport Battery Pack. Direct download. Related post.
(won't work for the demo without some trimming)

Last edited by geyser (04/06/07 20:04)


Behold the power of that which is yet unborn! For the swirling images that flow forth from the Chrysalis are only a shadow of the sleeper's true power.

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