Ripping ".exe" games (QUESTION)

[gabrielwoj]

Hi, everyone it again, I have another question, what I didn't found anywhere, so here goes...
I would like to rip Touhou (shooting up, not the fighting one, what does have on TSR)... There are files like that:



Also, I think the textures/sounds are on ".dat", just look the size!
Thanks, this is other system to texture...
Every style of game have they own files, or not used much files...
Like: .dds/.mpq (WoW/Warcraft/Blizzard Games).../.bik
Thanks for support!

[DarkWolf]

The file extension .dat is just a generic file extension used for program data. Sometimes developers will use standard formats, then change the extension to "hide" the files, but a lot of times when you come across a .dat or .bin file, you're dealing with a non-standard file format.

You can try running the file through a file ripper, but most modern games employ compression, which defeats the file ripper most of the time. If the file-ripper fails, you can use a hex editor to see if there's a magic number that tells what kind of file it is. After that, you'd have to reverse engineer the file format, which is not an easy task.

Unfortunately, I don't know where to get any modern file rippers (the last one I used ran under DOS).

[Saltonara]

Blizzard's MPQ files can be opened with WinMPQ.

[gabrielwoj]

Blizzard's MPQ files can be opened with WinMPQ.

I know that, it was an example, look my MPQ rips, MPQ is easy to use:
http://www.spriters-resource.com/communi...?tid=13201

The file extension .dat is just a generic file extension used for program data. Sometimes developers will use standard formats, then change the extension to "hide" the files, but a lot of times when you come across a .dat or .bin file, you're dealing with a non-standard file format.

You can try running the file through a file ripper, but most modern games employ compression, which defeats the file ripper most of the time. If the file-ripper fails, you can use a hex editor to see if there's a magic number that tells what kind of file it is. After that, you'd have to reverse engineer the file format, which is not an easy task.

Unfortunately, I don't know where to get any modern file rippers (the last one I used ran under DOS).

I will try, and I will remove PE Explorer from my computer...
EDIT: This site?
http://directory.fsf.org/project/fripper/
It's saying it's for Linux... It have for windows (I have Linux, but its pretty hard to install ".tar.bz2"
Also, please could you send the link of correct FILE RIPPER?

[DarkWolf]

Just doing a quick search on Google, you might want to check out Extractor. But as I said before, if the files are compressed, the ripper probably won't get you anything.

File rippers do tend to get results from DOS games. But you usually only end up getting music and sound effects.

[gabrielwoj]

Just doing a quick search on Google, you might want to check out Extractor. But as I said before, if the files are compressed, the ripper probably won't get you anything.

File rippers do tend to get results from DOS games. But you usually only end up getting music and sound effects.

Thanks, I will try, RTB ripped the figthing Touhou...

---

I only got .TXT files, tested some about 4 games, all txt's...
I try to found some tutorial, didn't found it...
Can you help me please?

[DarkWolf]

It's probably to the point where you'd have to attack it with a hex editor. I can't really help you much more, as I don't have the game and really don't have the time at present to try and figure out a file format (I've only done it a few successfully myself).

[gabrielwoj]

It's probably to the point where you'd have to attack it with a hex editor. I can't really help you much more, as I don't have the game and really don't have the time at present to try and figure out a file format (I've only done it a few successfully myself).

Well, but there are some tip for all games?

[Maneko]

No, they aren't, as every game is different.
Game rippers are very unreliable and outdated IMO, so your best option is using an hex editor to scan the .dat file for .png or .bmp headers.
If you hit paydirt, then delete everything *before* the image header, save and open the .dat file with any image viewer program, copy the image and paste it on MSPaint.
Scan the .dat file again, and search for the next image header, then delete everything before it, save and repeat the previous steps until you get all the images on it.

Yeah, it's a long and tedious process, but it works.

However, because of the new data compression routines, sometimes even the hex editor trick fails, which really sucks.

I hope this could help you somehow.

[gabrielwoj]

No, they aren't, as every game is different.
Game rippers are very unreliable and outdated IMO, so your best option is using an hex editor to scan the .dat file for .png or .bmp headers.
If you hit paydirt, then delete everything *before* the image header, save and open the .dat file with any image viewer program, copy the image and paste it on MSPaint.
Scan the .dat file again, and search for the next image header, then delete everything before it, save and repeat the previous steps until you get all the images on it.

Yeah, it's a long and tedious process, but it works.

However, because of the new data compression routines, sometimes even the hex editor trick fails, which really sucks.

I hope this could help you somehow.

Don't really know if there are a program which opens .dat files...
Also, hex editor is made for change codes of images and others right?
I don't get much follow what you did said, but may I give some try...
Just need an program to open dat files...
I have Irfan View and XnView...
It works?

[Shadowth117]

No, they aren't, as every game is different.
Game rippers are very unreliable and outdated IMO, so your best option is using an hex editor to scan the .dat file for .png or .bmp headers.
If you hit paydirt, then delete everything *before* the image header, save and open the .dat file with any image viewer program, copy the image and paste it on MSPaint.
Scan the .dat file again, and search for the next image header, then delete everything before it, save and repeat the previous steps until you get all the images on it.

Yeah, it's a long and tedious process, but it works.

However, because of the new data compression routines, sometimes even the hex editor trick fails, which really sucks.

I hope this could help you somehow.

Don't really know if there are a program which opens .dat files...
Also, hex editor is made for change codes of images and others right?
I don't get much follow what you did said, but may I give some try...
Just need an program to open dat files...
I have Irfan View and XnView...
It works?

A hex editor is a program used to view the raw data of a file. If you know what you're doing, they can be very powerful and can be used to do a number of things. In this case, it would allow you to find images in that .dat file. So long as you know what headers to look for, you should be fine.

If Maneko's method works for you, then you should just be able to open the .dat in any program that supports the file type of the header you found. In this case, yes Irfan View would probably work fine.

Also, I'm just guessing based on the fact that you mentioned textures in the first post, but this is a 3d game right? If so, another method you may want to try to rip textures with is ripping them with this program. It rips 3d scenes and, more importantly in your case, textures in .dds format. This method ONLY works though if the game renders itself with a recent version of DirectX. You'll also have to be skilled enough to get through the game in order to get to the point where the textures you want show up since it only rips what's been rendered.