pak file (remember to use forward slashes for the path) */ * filename : the name of the file you're trying to load from the. * pak_filename : the os filename of the. (The LittleLong function, not defined here, should byteswap the variable contents only if the code is compiled on a big-endian machine.) pak file, and return the contents of a certain file inside it. Here is some public-domain C code to open a.

Another World (15th anniversary re-release).

Some other completely unrelated games also use the. Most games based on the Quake engine retain the use of the. The pak files packaged with Quake store the file table after all the actual contents, but it shouldn't matter which comes first. The offset (from the beginning of the pak file) to the beginning of this file's contents. pak file by dividing the 'size' value in the header by 64 (the size of the file entry struct). You can determine the number of files stored in the. Index to the beginning of the file table. So for example FTE, Darkplaces or QuakeSpasm-Spiked will use the unpacked mod/maps/start.bsp which (editor's subjective opinion) is infinitely more reasonable.Īll numerical values are in little-endian (Intel) format. Generally the engine will prefer the one from the last PAK file in the path hierarchy, so in this case the file from the mod's pak0.pak.īut some modern engines will actually prefer a file outside PAK files over PAK files in the same mod path. Since a file might exist in the same path in multiple pak files and the game directories (ID1 and mod), precedence is important to know about.Ĭonsider a map maps/start.bsp existing in the following files and paths: The pak0.pak which comes with Quake and lives in the ID1 folder is required by all Quake game engines. PAK files are typically named pak0.pak, pak1.pak, pak2.pak, and so on. The PAKs are treated exactly the same as if their contents were extracted into separate files, rather than being packed together in one PAK archive. Quake engines usually load the pak0.pak file in the ID1 subfolder, plus whatever other PAK archives they find in the game directory (subfolder) they're told to use. For example a file foo.bsp in a directory maps would technically have the name maps/foo.bsp which has a length of 12 characters. Sub-directories inside the PAK file are part of this. The data may include graphics, objects, textures, sounds, and other game data.įilenames inside PAK files are restricted to a maximum length of 56 characters. PAK files are commonly used to store data to be loaded by a Quake game engine.

Quake 2 pak0 pak