Civ4 PakBuild

[Thunderfall]

Civ4 PakBuild is a program released by Firaxis that allows you to unpak the Art0.FPK file in the \Civilization IV\Assets\ folder. It's avilable for Win XP and Win2K.

File size is only 200 KB.

Windows XP: http://www.civfanatics.net/downloads/civ4/utility/PakBuild.zip
Windows 2000: http://www.civfanatics.net/downloads/civ4/utility/PakBuild-Win2000.zip

 

[krazydude]

Nice! This will surely help mod makers, maybe even me in the future

 

[OwieB2003]

Question: If I use this utility to unpack the artfile, will it improve the speed of the game?

 

[MeteorPunch]

Question: If I use this utility to unpack the artfile, will it improve the speed of the game?

I was wondering about this too. This is true for some other games.

 

[phybre]

Using this program made the game unrunnable for me, even after reinstalling. So caveat utator.

 

[DeadZoneMDx]

Im guessing that anything in that folder then overrides the .FPK file itself when launching the game?

 

[Jeff1787]

I can't figure out how to use it!!!

 

[userqwerty]

this tool made my game run better. the files most commonly used get cached better and more often. caching that whole file is a rediculuous proposition.

also for systems with less than a gig of ram use "Cacheman" do a google search

 

[Polietileno]

It´s funny, but adding to the alredy big list of problems and headaches, this little tool doesn´t work. For some strange reason it can´t read the FPK file.

 

[Supa]

Same here. I launch Pakbuild, File > Open > Art0.fpk and it gives me this error : ERROR: Could not open 'D:\blabla\Art0.FPK'!

Am I doing sth wrong ? File is unused and isn't read only.

Edit: I found why it didn't work. You don't have to open it, but to extract it.

 

[Roman Legion]

My game crashes everytime I try to load my game I need help.

 

[MetHimPikeHoses]

So I extracted all the pak files... now do I delete them? OR does Civ4 know to use the extracted art files instead of the pak files?

 

[Flak]

I think it will still use the pak files if it finds them in that folder. I just created a temp folder a couple of levels up and moved them there.

 

[MetHimPikeHoses]

I think it will still use the pak files if it finds them in that folder. I just created a temp folder a couple of levels up and moved them there.

And did you notice any improvement? I did the same, and things seems to be running okay, but not noticeably faster. Movies still slideshows... I'm going to try the new Harkonnen patch and monitor the fps.

 

[Olleus]

umm i am very worried. I cant find a file called art0.pak all i have is:
asset0.pak asset1.pak asset2.pak asset3.pak
Note i have the european version of the game

EDIT: i unpacked those and it seems to work

 

[Sir Aragorn]

umm i am very worried. I cant find a file called art0.pak all i have is:
asset0.pak asset1.pak asset2.pak asset3.pak
Note i have the european version of the game

EDIT: i unpacked those and it seems to work

I have the same 4 files since 1.52 patch
and I am unable to unpack the files....I receive an error massage

is it normal?

 

[CivDav]

This is a good idea, jus 1 prob.: the files are in unknown format. DDS? BIK? i don't know these. Can anyone show me format converter, plese?

 

[GeneralMatt]

Sure, I know this, dds are the skins, biks are the movies. There are links to were you can get programs to veiw them here on this site.

 

[Granias]

One tip: You don't have to open the FPK files, just unpack them. Open the "PAK" menu -> Unpack (CTRL-U). Then select your FPK files. If you try to open them you get an error message. Is see more people had this problem, perhaps something to put in the opening post.

 

[korvgubben]

I can't extract the PackBuild : here are the error messages I get :
"the CRC failed in PackBuild.exe. The file is corrupted"
And when I try to launch PackBuild, I get :
"PackBuild is not a valid win32 application"

Can anyone tell me how to do to get PackBuild to work?