Some repacks require too much memory or too recent OS to run (FreeArc), some others require DLLs, such as redistributables or NET Framework for the installer itself. The installer shouldn’t raise the system requirements of the game, and be as small and unintrusive as possible.
With multi core support the installation times would be greatly improved. I think it works for small installations, but not for large ones – I’ll have to test more, once I have the time for it.Īnother issue is that the InnoSetup installation only uses 1 CPU core to unpack the files. If anyone has a solution for that it would be greatly appreciated. Packed with InnoSetup it was about 23-25GB in size, but it could be ~18GB or even less (~14GB?) with a moderately high FreeArc compression and no duplicate files packed twice. GTA 4 and GTA4 – EFLC have 6-8GB of files in common and it is really annoying having to download ~25-30GB from Steam, whenever I want to play the game. What I couldn’t find was a way to not pack duplicate files twice. In the meantime I have been experimenting with FreeArc (harder compression than 7zip), there is a script on their page for download: Thank you very much for your writing out the instructions and for the linkback. Hey Aaron, sorry for not approving your comment sooner (I had to, because it has a link in it). AN installation with 7zip compression should take about 1-2 minutes per GB if you have a CPU with good single core performance. a 20GB game would take 2.5 hours or more).
However, since InnoSetup only uses one CPU core during installation, it might take forever to install (e.g. You can use FreeArc to compress the game files a lot more. You can also use the Inno Media Player, but I have not tried that. The user TLama on stackoverflow posted code that you can use in combination with the BASS audio library (you need the bass.dll to play sound during the installation, with an on/off button. This file is temporarily not available sorry ? Play music during the installation Simply change everything that says “CHANGEME”, import registry keys and game files and compile. New! I created a template that you can import to ISTool. Hit CTRL+F9 to start the compiling process. If “Attribute: readonly” or similar is added to any line, remove it or the file will not be deleted when the game is uninstalled.ġ5.
Go back to the first line of the script and hit CTRL+F, then type in “readonly” and search.
Windows will automatically write to Wow6432Node if you are on a 64 bit Windows. If your registry keys contain “Wow6432Node”, delete this part. Scroll down and take a look at the registry keys.Click “Script”, then “Project” -> “Import from file” -> Registry and import the registry file that you exported from regedit earlier.Now click “Files and Dirs” and drag + drop the files+folders inside the game folder into the ISTool window.If your game is going to be larger than 2,100,000,000 Bytes when packed (~2GB), you also need to enable “Disk Spanning” (check the box, set “Disk slice size” to 2000000000 and apply/confirm. When done, click “Project” -> “Setup Options” -> “Compiler” and change the compression level there to “ultra64”.Start ISTool, click “File” -> “New” and enter the details you want.Remove unnecessary files from the copy you made (uninstall.exe, register.exe.Make a copy of the game folder (usually at C:\Programs (x86).).Open regedit (Start -> type in regedit) and export the registry keys the game created.
On a 32 bit Windows the Wow6432Node part should be missing. HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\publishername\gamename On a 64 bit Windows they look similar to this: Find the registry entries the game created.After installation finished, click “2nd shot” in regshot.
exe file that can then be used as an installer. To sum up how ISTool works in one sentence: You add the game files to a list and start the compiling process, which compresses the game files into a. The tool that many use for this purpose (including for example gog.com) is called “Inno Setup”. ?Ī much better solution would be to repack your game, so all you need to do is click install and have the latest version of the game installed with no effort.
rar the game folder and unpack it + play whenever you want to, but some games require registry entries.