RAR File ... What is it?

B

Bill Kestell

Charter Member
I have some stuff that is in this format and I haven't a clue as to how to open them up.

I do have WinZip installed ... but haven't had any luck with that.

Thanks
 
Compression

Bill,

It's another program to compress files. A program called WinRAR will decompress it for you. A web search will provide many results for the program. I believe there is a free demo somewhere.
 
Thanks you both so very much. I have it and boy is it slick at unwrapping the files. Still don't know why RAR exists ... but what do I know about most of this anyway!:173go1:
 
Bill Kestell said:
Thanks you both so very much. I have it and boy is it slick at unwrapping the files. Still don't know why RAR exists ... but what do I know about most of this anyway!:173go1:
Click to expand...

I think the compression algorythm is better than zip files and it has some advantages regarding internet distribution. that's what they say at least.
 
In general terms if you pack the same file(s) as a .zip and a .rar archive then the .rar file will usually be the smaller of the two (and sometimes significantly so).

This in turn means less HD space is used to store the file and it also downloads more quickly.
 
You can program Winzip to open rar files in the configuration menu. Choose OPTIONS > CONFIGURATION > SYSTEM tab > and punch the ASSOCIATIONS button. Halfway down the list of file types is a box to select for handling RAR files. Now you obviuosly can't create a rar file with Winzip, its just good for opening them if you don't have WinRAR available.
 
Bill,

I use 7-Zip also. It is supposed to decompress 19 different types of compressed files. Who knew there were that many?

voyager
 
Bill Kestell said:
Thanks you both so very much. I have it and boy is it slick at unwrapping the files. Still don't know why RAR exists ... but what do I know about most of this anyway!:173go1:
Click to expand...

Bill, I found this site called Skunkworks that supports some form of flight sim, there are many CFS2 planes over there they have redone, I've had several people tell me their stuff is CFS2 compatible. I downloaded their Natter, and got a bunch of confusing gobbledeegook from WINRAR, and I can;t find the decompressed file, nor the downloaded one for that matter on my computer. I've used Winzip since it was PKZip on DOS 5, I'm gonna try 7-Zip and see what's up. I don;t like Winrar, I'm not used to it.

Bones
 
.....hi BILL :ernae:
...WINRAR is used a lot in usenet and P to P groups to split LARGE files into smaller RAR file segments.
and it works with an excellent program called QUICK-PAR that can reasemble the parts into the larger file ,(if any parts are missing extra par files can be created to fill in the gaps).:ernae:

also with RAR files you can just open the first RAR segment to preview what the file is.
....(so you dont have to download 600 segments and find that its not what you wanted etc):medals:
 
Bill Kestell said:
TonyBones ... I took a look at the Natter ... it's made for Strike Fighters!

Crap!:pop4:
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Okay, that's the sim they support. I guess we are stuck with the Naatter for CFS3, though someone might get aambitious and adapt the graphic image over to CFS2 and write the files for the rest of the plane. I got CFS3, getting it to run on this computer is the trick.

Thanks Bill.

Bones
 
tonybones2112 said:
Bill, I found this site called Skunkworks that supports some form of flight sim, there are many CFS2 planes over there they have redone, I've had several people tell me their stuff is CFS2 compatible. I downloaded their Natter, and got a bunch of confusing gobbledeegook from WINRAR, and I can;t find the decompressed file, nor the downloaded one for that matter on my computer. I've used Winzip since it was PKZip on DOS 5, I'm gonna try 7-Zip and see what's up. I don;t like Winrar, I'm not used to it.

Bones
Click to expand...
It's our team's website for ThirdWire sims mods.

You may have an older WinRar package and I may have packed it with a newer version.

The ThirdWire sims are not compatible with Microsoft Flight Sims, you could get a source code and make the changes to convert it to the other sims and vice-versa. It does take time and work but it can be done.

Differences are animation, material shaders, poly count target, Virtual cockpits, texture maps, etc.

One of the biggest headaches is that for the TW games, you have to use 3DS Max at the end to export a binary LOD file that the game uses. And there are no easy way to transport the source code across GMax, FSDS and 3DS Max. But it can be done.
 
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