This GCF Extractor I’ve been working on ever since Valve came up with Steam is becoming a pain in the ass.
I mean really, its not any sort of ‘killer-app’ and for the general public they can either get the files out by using an HLDS install or downloading them from someone else who has. However, my natural curiosity and the fact that I’ve ‘cracked’ file formats before is probably what’s driving me to even bother trying.
Thing is though, I’ve started to get stupid ammounts of e-mails asking for updates on its progress and begging letters basically demanding I send them a copy of it as if their very existence relies on this program.
Well sorry to say but the truth is, as of time of writing, that the GCF extractor is nothing more than some crudely bashed together scripts which I have to re-compile and customise for every single task I want to do with the file. Theres no GUI and not even any sort of command line interface to speak of. So in short, I can’t send you a utility that doesnt yet properly exist. Not even the fact that I haven’t fully worked out the GCF virtual filesystem format matters to some people!
Actually what I have found amusing is some of the ‘hate’ mail I’ve been getting. It seems to come in two flavours – those who are also trying to write one and seem to be scared/jealous/envious that I might finish an extractor before them, and others who have tried and failed and list reasons why even trying to create the extractor is a pointless exercise anyway.
Ain’t people funny?
Ah well, I don’t really care. I have more important things to worry about so this isn’t exactly the number one priority in my life right now and its not as if I’m being paid to write it.
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Theres been a lack of updates on my part for quite some time now. Not completely my fault as evil forces have been conspiring to keep me away.
My computer decided to blow a chip and I’ve been forced to spend 3500 SEK on an upgrade. Apart from replacing the motherboard I had to replace all the RAM too as my system was orginally Rambus based (still, I managed to sell the old RAM second hand for 1200 SEK within 5 hours of placing an advert) and I also had to replace the processor to as my old one was the wrong form factor. Bloody typical.
So those minor set-backs aside, everything else has been *fairly* O.K.
I’ve managed to do some minor updates to the side, namely I’ve added a new tutorial on how to build a Steam-aware installer for Half-Life based mods. Little bit nicer than the old zip file method and a little more intuitive. I’ll eventually move all my downloads to this system.
I also hacked out the relevant parts of the DoD GCF (game cache file) so that I could edit the hideous GUI that Valve shipped with the DoD 1.1 update.
Im still working on a GCF extractor. Pace has been slow due to illness and lack of energy but I’ve had some sucess. The file format is like no other I’ve come across and although I’ve figured out some of it (such as block sizes and part of the indexing) I’ve got a long way to go before fully functional gcf extractor application.
Anyway, now my computer is working and my scanner too (I had to make my machine dual boot XP/98SE to get it to work!) I might be able to put some more pictures on the site.
As the above picture illustrates, I’ve become quite the “fika-monster” of late having discovered the joys of sitting in a café on a rainy day with a huge mug of coffee and cake du jour, watching the world go by.
I suppose not working has some benefits…
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