An example:
Code: Select all
CompanyLogo
Logo_Boston_Albany
I am trying to make a single PK4 containing all the custom logos for my mod, and as a pre-work experiment, I thought I would test my theory that (even when operating in an x64 environment) the game's EXE suffers the 128 character limit for directory+file name length. And if anything is a 16-bit app in a 32-bit wrapper, which I suspect the Logo tool might be, then things can really get much more limited. There were also problems in 16-bit and 32-bit programming affecting the number of files in a directory folder that could be read. The number varies by app and disk formatting architecture, but in my experience 2000 is usually where it goes south for 32-bit software. The number of readable files in a directory is also limited by length of string, so it may see files A, B, C and D, but cannot open/read B because the total string length is more than 128 characters.
These limitations are lockstepped to the 8.3 naming convention of FAT-16 disk formatting architecture, which FAT-32 and later disk formatting architectures never perfectly remedied. The change in directories in late versions of Windows was an attempt by the developers to address the issue, but software developers aren't all on board with the idea of terse directory naming.
For instance, a default install of RRT3 under Windows XP might have this problem:
C:\Program Files\PopTop Software\Railroad Tycoon 3\Data\AdditionalUserContent\
is already 78 characters in length.
and in some cases, you might see:
C:\Program Files\Take2 Games\PopTop Software\Railroad Tycoon 3\Data\AdditionalUserContent\
89 characters in length.
Adding Logo_Boston_and_Albany.pk4 to the tail of that, would increase the string to 115 characters over-all length. And Logo_Central_Maine_and_Quebec_RR.pk4 would push the string to 125 characters, very close to the 128 character limit.
Add (space)(x86) onto Program Files and you've crossed threshold at 129 characters.
C:\Program Files\Take2 Games\PopTop Software\Railroad Tycoon 3\Data\AdditionalUserContent\Logo_Central_Maine_and_Quebec_RR.pk4
If the game has a limited buffer for holding directory listings, then both string length and number of files could be causing the 100 logo limit. As well as other bugs.
So, returning to the DSC file question. If it's just useless fluff, removing it means there's one less file chewing on RAM allocated to the file buffer. If the DSC is critical to logo files, then can it carry more than one logo?