Iced_Bullet
04/03/08, 20:03 PM
In this series of threads, I'm listing and giving tutorials on how to improve your game-play. These are not instructions, or officially related to Atari in any way. They are tutorials created by me, for the sole purpose of giving you the chance to improve your gameplay.
I take no responsibility in your game going corupt or damaged. I cannot be help responsible for damages to game files or profiles. However this is highly unlikely to happen ;)
Anyway, on with the tutorial of Profile Conversions ...
Make sure you back up everything, unless you want to have to restart your profile if something does go wrong.
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In this thread:
Offline to Online Profile conversions [this post]
Online to Offline Profile conversions [next post]
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Offline to Online Profile Conversions:
What this is: This method will convert your offline profile into an online profile.
The purpose: Allows you to repair a profile that has somehow lost its online capability (in other words, the game believes you're no longer on Gamespy)
What you need: A backup of your saved files (I hope you backed up regularly!) OR Your "broken" profile, untouched.
STEP 1
Make a new folder on your computer and copy your backup in there. If you haven't yet deleted your broken profile in frustration, then copy that profile. Do not just move the profile, as we'll be working on it and you want to preserve an original somewhere.
STEP 2
Start the game. Delete your broken profile and create a new one. Register it online with Gamespy (the name you use doesn't matter - it can be the same name or another one entirely.) You will need to fully complete the tutorial sequence, which means:
a) Rent a car
b) Buy your house
c) Beat the rookie race
d) Return to your home, enter and exit it.
You should, at this point, be back in freeride mode, with the ability to use the map and travel wherever you want to. You can now exit the game.
STEP 3
Next, you will need a "Hex Editor". This will read the unreadable characters in your profiles and allow some form of "interpretation" (loose term here. You'll still be looking at gibberish, but at least it'll be recognizable characters!)
As per kadettgte's suggestion, do a Google search for Hex Workshop and install that with the default settings (in other words, you don't need to configure anything)
STEP 4
Now, you are ready to repair your profile. Open up Hex Workshop, maximize its window so you can better see what's going on, then go to Tools > Compare > Compare Files. In the window that appears, you get to select two files to open. Your source file will be the offline profile. Your target file will be the online profile. "Source" and "Target" are a convention - the order doesn't actually matter. We'll begin with the files playersave file. They can be found in [profilename]\playersave\.
For the options just below in the window, make sure Resynchronizing Compare is selected. You can now press OK.
Two windows will appear. At the top will be the offline playersave. At the bottom will be the online one. There will be highlighting here and there. Disregard it.
STEP 5
Now that your files are open for comparison, go to the online file, on the bottom. In the menu bar, go to Edit > Goto. Input 50 as the offset, and select Dec as the measurement (it's below the text box). Also make sure you choose From beginning of file.
Press OK. Your cursor will be placed before the 50th byte of the file. Select all the data from the beginning of the file 'till the 50th byte. Go to Edit > Copy.
Next, use Goto again to go to the 50th byte of the offline file, select from the beginning 'till the 50th byte again, then go to Edit > Paste.
You have finished patching this file. Save (say "yes" to making a backup, as screw-ups happen) and then close both files.
STEP 6
We're almost there. Using Windows Explorer, go to the online profile: My Documents\Test Drive Unlimited\savegame\[profilename]
Delete its contents.
STEP 7
Using Windows Explorer, go to the offline profile you just patched, copy its contents and paste them into My Documents\Test Drive Unlimited\savegame\[profilename]
STEP 8
Lastly, in this newly pasted profile, go to the playersave folder and copy its contents. Paste them into playersave2 This way, both the "current" save and the backup are marked as online, with all your goodies in it.
STEP 9
You are now ready to play. Fire up Test Drive Unlimited, connect and drive around a little bit to make sure you have everything you used to have and all the bits and pieces are in their correct place.
STEP 10
BACKUP! We don't want to lose this profile we just fixed. http://forums.eu.atari.com/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif
PARENTHESIS
What we just did, is tell the offline profile that it's really an online profile. We preserved all the data and goodies that were in your offline profile, cars, houses, money and all, and simply replaced the little "offline" flag with an "online" one, which we salvaged from the temporary online profile you had just created.
Thanks to Shurikane (http://forums.eu.atari.com/member.php?u=675657) ; Katrina_Lansbury (http://forums.eu.atari.com/member.php?u=700403) and kadettgte (http://forums.eu.atari.com/member.php?u=696519) for this method.
I take no responsibility in your game going corupt or damaged. I cannot be help responsible for damages to game files or profiles. However this is highly unlikely to happen ;)
Anyway, on with the tutorial of Profile Conversions ...
Make sure you back up everything, unless you want to have to restart your profile if something does go wrong.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------
In this thread:
Offline to Online Profile conversions [this post]
Online to Offline Profile conversions [next post]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------
Offline to Online Profile Conversions:
What this is: This method will convert your offline profile into an online profile.
The purpose: Allows you to repair a profile that has somehow lost its online capability (in other words, the game believes you're no longer on Gamespy)
What you need: A backup of your saved files (I hope you backed up regularly!) OR Your "broken" profile, untouched.
STEP 1
Make a new folder on your computer and copy your backup in there. If you haven't yet deleted your broken profile in frustration, then copy that profile. Do not just move the profile, as we'll be working on it and you want to preserve an original somewhere.
STEP 2
Start the game. Delete your broken profile and create a new one. Register it online with Gamespy (the name you use doesn't matter - it can be the same name or another one entirely.) You will need to fully complete the tutorial sequence, which means:
a) Rent a car
b) Buy your house
c) Beat the rookie race
d) Return to your home, enter and exit it.
You should, at this point, be back in freeride mode, with the ability to use the map and travel wherever you want to. You can now exit the game.
STEP 3
Next, you will need a "Hex Editor". This will read the unreadable characters in your profiles and allow some form of "interpretation" (loose term here. You'll still be looking at gibberish, but at least it'll be recognizable characters!)
As per kadettgte's suggestion, do a Google search for Hex Workshop and install that with the default settings (in other words, you don't need to configure anything)
STEP 4
Now, you are ready to repair your profile. Open up Hex Workshop, maximize its window so you can better see what's going on, then go to Tools > Compare > Compare Files. In the window that appears, you get to select two files to open. Your source file will be the offline profile. Your target file will be the online profile. "Source" and "Target" are a convention - the order doesn't actually matter. We'll begin with the files playersave file. They can be found in [profilename]\playersave\.
For the options just below in the window, make sure Resynchronizing Compare is selected. You can now press OK.
Two windows will appear. At the top will be the offline playersave. At the bottom will be the online one. There will be highlighting here and there. Disregard it.
STEP 5
Now that your files are open for comparison, go to the online file, on the bottom. In the menu bar, go to Edit > Goto. Input 50 as the offset, and select Dec as the measurement (it's below the text box). Also make sure you choose From beginning of file.
Press OK. Your cursor will be placed before the 50th byte of the file. Select all the data from the beginning of the file 'till the 50th byte. Go to Edit > Copy.
Next, use Goto again to go to the 50th byte of the offline file, select from the beginning 'till the 50th byte again, then go to Edit > Paste.
You have finished patching this file. Save (say "yes" to making a backup, as screw-ups happen) and then close both files.
STEP 6
We're almost there. Using Windows Explorer, go to the online profile: My Documents\Test Drive Unlimited\savegame\[profilename]
Delete its contents.
STEP 7
Using Windows Explorer, go to the offline profile you just patched, copy its contents and paste them into My Documents\Test Drive Unlimited\savegame\[profilename]
STEP 8
Lastly, in this newly pasted profile, go to the playersave folder and copy its contents. Paste them into playersave2 This way, both the "current" save and the backup are marked as online, with all your goodies in it.
STEP 9
You are now ready to play. Fire up Test Drive Unlimited, connect and drive around a little bit to make sure you have everything you used to have and all the bits and pieces are in their correct place.
STEP 10
BACKUP! We don't want to lose this profile we just fixed. http://forums.eu.atari.com/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif
PARENTHESIS
What we just did, is tell the offline profile that it's really an online profile. We preserved all the data and goodies that were in your offline profile, cars, houses, money and all, and simply replaced the little "offline" flag with an "online" one, which we salvaged from the temporary online profile you had just created.
Thanks to Shurikane (http://forums.eu.atari.com/member.php?u=675657) ; Katrina_Lansbury (http://forums.eu.atari.com/member.php?u=700403) and kadettgte (http://forums.eu.atari.com/member.php?u=696519) for this method.