polydensity.dat

[iLiR]

What role does polydensity.dat plays in gta sa? And why it's not readable? Or it's a binary .dat file?

[fastman92]

Same name tells "Polygonal density" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygon_density

 

Or it's a binary .dat file?

If you can`t understand easily file through opening in Notepad and you see strange chars then file always is "binary"

Then it can be only understood through considering what is structure of file in hex.

Really no one tried to expain meaning of this file.

But I found something interesting. It means that I didn`t find text "polydensity" in gta_sa.exe.

So I assume this file is useless. To test it try to delete this file and see whether game will crach or not.

If not then for 99% file is useless.

Edited September 1, 2010 by fastman92

[iLiR]

Yes, it's useless. But I was on a computer course (to teach basis of computer). And the teacher has mentioned something about binary system.

 

He also told us that the binary system is made of two numbers: 0 and 1. Then why notepad doesn't display those numbers, but unknown chars?

Edited September 1, 2010 by ilir

[fastman92]

Files are stored in bytes.

Each byte consists 8 bits. Bit can be only 0 or 1.

So computer can save up to 256 numbers decimally in one byte.

Minimal value of one byte is: 00000000

Maximal value: 11111111

It`s binary. Binary system is only name of number system those base is 2 in decimal, but means much in computers.

Example, how to convert 11111111 to decimal: 1*2^0 + 1*2^1 + 1*2^2 + 1*2^3 + 1*2^4 + 1*2^5 + 1*2^6 + 1*2^7

Result: 255.

"why notepad doesn't display those numbers"

Read about ASCII. Only some values of byte have human equivalent - e.g letter, character.

If value of byte is e.g 00, 01, then this letter doesn`t have arranged human characters.

E.g when hex value of byte is 61 then readable character is a letter.

It has only meaning for computer and you have to consider what does it mean. Read about UTF8 too. It can save characters that aren`t in ASCII in two, three or four bytes.

But it`s more complicated.

Edited September 1, 2010 by fastman92

[iLiR]

 

Example, how to convert 11111111 to decimal: 1*2^0 + 1*2^1 + 1*2^2 + 1*2^3 + 1*2^4 + 1*2^5 + 1*2^6 + 1*2^7

Result: 255

I think I taught converting binary to decimal and otherwise from school math. But thanx for taking time and explaining this to me.

Edited September 1, 2010 by ilir