Date Posted: 27th Feb 2010 at 8:12 AM
So I've always wanted to know how people check to see if their mods work with new patches, EP's or SP's. I was talking to TFM, and she had some VERY useful information. She then pointed me in the correct direction where I could find a program to help me go through my mods to make sure they are compatible with any changes that EA makes. I decided to take her advice, and write a tutorial for anyone else that wants to learn
You don't have to know how to mod to do this. Even if you have some mods that you are unsure if they are compatible and the creator is hard to get a hold of, you can now do it yourself
What you will need:
S3PE:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/sim...e/1001-03-1524/
WinMerge:
http://winmerge.org/downloads/
Directions
1. First you want to install the programs that are linked above.
2. Open S3PE
3. Click File --> New
4. Click Resource --> Import --> From Package
5. Navigate through your computer and find the mod that you want to check (your mod should be in C:/Program Files/Electronic Arts/Whatever EP or SP you have/Mods/Packages
6. Once you have found the mod, select it and click 'Import'
7. You will now see you mod show up in the box. It will most likely have _XML and _ITUN files. There can be anywhere from 1 file to many files, don't panic! The more files you see, the more work it is to check the mod but you do the same steps for each file.
8. Click on the first file you see.. when you do this, you should see a bunch of coding pop up on the right hand side.
9. On the bottom of the window, you will see: Hex, Value, Grid, Display (with two boxes, mine are always ticked), and the word 'External'. Next to external, there is a button called 'edit'. Click on that button.
10. You now will see another window pop up. This window should open in Windows Notepad.
11. In Windows Notepad, where you see all of the coding, click File --> Save --> and now name the file and save it somewhere you can find it. For example, we will name our file WA1. It is important that with each file you are saving, add a number at the end. If you see 3 files, name the files WA1, WA2 and WA3.
12. Continue to do this until you have gone through all of the files that you see in that window.
13. Now, after you have completed everything above, leave S3PE open with all the files you opened.
14. Open S3PE again, so you now have two windows open.
15. Now you need to navigate to your most recent EP or SP that you are checking to see if the mod you have is compatible with. Since the mod in the example is from WA, we are checking to see if it is compatible with HELS. Click on File --> New. Once this is open, again, click on Resource --> Import --> Package
16. Like stated above, navigate to your most recent EP/SP, we are going to use C:/Program Files/Electronic Arts/The Sims High End Loft Stuff/Game/Bin/Gameplay --> chose the GameplayData.package inside.
17. On the bottom of the window, where I said I keep my boxes ticked (the name and tags boxes), you will be able to see the name of the files on the right.
This is where it might get a little confusing, so please follow the directions carefully:
18. The easiest way to do this, is click on the 'instance' button at the top in S3PE so the files are in numerical order. So, you now have two windows open. In the first window that you saved all of your text files from, you have to find the matching files from the gameplay.package that you just opened. Again, the easiest way to do this is to look for the instance number is window 1 and find it in window 2.
19. After you have found the matching file, you are going to do what you did before with the other files. Look at the bottom of the window, and click 'edit' in S3PE.
20. You will again have a window pop up in Window Notepad. Click File --> Save --> and now save this file in the same location as the other, but leave the number the same. ex. HELS1, HELS2 and HELS3 (there is a reason for this, it will be explained later)
21. Once you do this for all the files, you are ready to move on.
Open WinMerge
1. Click File --> Open
2. A box will pop up will locations that say left and right. (I personally open my existing file on the left and the file I'm comparing it too on the right)
3. So, you would put WA1 in the first box and HELS1 in the second box and click 'OK'
4. You will have both files now side by side. On the left, under 'location pane', if you see any gold, you need to click on it and examine the differences. If the code is totally different, the mod is most likely incompatible. If the coding is the SAME, just the numbers are different, then the mod is compatible. The reason why the numbers are different is because you downloaded that mod to change something in your game to your liking. The numbers that you see on the right, are EA's default numbers. Make sure that you are cautious if the mod you are checking against the new gameplaydata.package has for example 24.0 instead of 24. This may result in problems.
5. Do this to all the text files that you have created
If you don't see any coding differences (except numbers).. then..
CONGRATULATIONS! YOU DID IT!
You just checked your first mod for compatibility!
Feel Free to post questions! I tried to write this tutorial step-by-step without making it confusing. If there are some parts that are hard to understand, please let me know! I can change the wording and help explain it more in-depth for you
Good luck!