A Couple Of Dll File Questions

kaitismommy · Post by **kaitismommy** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 7:07 pm

I thought that I had read somewhere that there is a limit to how many dll files could be in your ZT folder. Is that true? What is the restriction and how do you get around it if you have a lot of downloads?
Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I couldn't find any information about it, but maybe I overlooked it.
Thanks in advance.

kaitismommy · Post by **kaitismommy** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 7:46 pm

I'm sorry, I should have looked a little longer but I did finally find it. Boy do I feel completely stupid. LOL I guess that today is my day for it.

Post by **Jay** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 10:32 pm

Welcome to the Lounge!

Yes, there is much information here, all scattered about. That makes it hard to find a specific answer.

Just to confirm what you probably found... Zoo Tycoon 1 has a limit of 63 ".dll" files. The only way around this is to combine ".dll" files. That is a time consuming process. Fortunately, that has been done for you for many ".dll" files. Zoo Admin has several combined ".dll" files. Zoo Tek has a couple. There is also one here at Zookeeper's Lounge, which combined ".dll" files from many Zoo Tycoon sites. So if you have the combined ".dll" files from here, Zoo Admin, and Zoo Tek, you will have plenty of room remaining for all of the other ".dll" files out there.

Another thing to keep in mind about ".dll" files... There are some old downloads (including from here) that either have a ".dll" patch program or are a copy of a modified ingame ".dll" file. Do not run these patch programs and do not install any user ".dll" file that is bigger than 1.8 mb. These are known to cause sporadic problems with the expansion packs.

Post by **yellowrose** » Sat Jun 11, 2005 10:39 am

Jay these older patched dlls...when you install the older downloads that have the patch program is there a way to know which original Lang file was patched ??

If yes and you know which file gets patched make a backup of the original Lang file then install the download and patch then rename the dll that was patched and restore the back up original and use both at the same time

I have quite a few of these older downloads that have the patch file.

Post by **fern** » Sat Jun 11, 2005 5:23 pm

I have run several exe patch files and usually they patch the lang0.dll

If yes and you know which file gets patched make a backup of the original Lang file then install the download and patch then rename the dll that was patched and restore the back up original and use both at the same time

Since this is a main file it would not be possible to do this.
I think that sometimes if you watch when you install it tells you which file and that it has made a backup
If you let me know the file names I might be able to tell you. Otherwise Jay probably knows.
Also some patched files have had new dlls made since.

Post by **Jay** » Sat Jun 11, 2005 9:54 pm

I understand what you are trying to suggest, yellowrose. And the final answer is no, that will not work. But there is also no need. Now for my usual long, boring explanation.

There are lots of different patch programs. They differ in what they patch. Sometimes a single patch program will patch different ingame files depending on what it finds. Some even patch official download ".dll" files. The only way to know for sure what is patched is to use the file compare program and compare each ingame ".dll" and ".ztd" file with the originals on the game CD-ROMs. Also, you would have to keep a separate copy of the official downloads and do file compares against those as well.

Some patch programs do what you are suggesting. They patch lang0.dll as a file with a new name. This gets to the user ".dll" file that is bigger than 1.8 mb comment I made. These are also known to cause sporadic problems with the expansion packs. The reason is that Blue Fang is overwriting messages in lang0.dll with those they created in lang100.dll and lang200.dll. It is OK for them to overwrite the messages because they know what order Zoo Tycoon will read these files. Unfortunately, the user ".dll" files that are based on lang0.dll will change the order. So now, lang0 messages (from the user ".dll") are read after lang100 or lang200. So the message ends up going back to what it was, which confuses Zoo Tycoon at some point, and the game crashes. Unfortunately, the crashes are sporadic, so it is difficult to test.

The reason there is "no need" is because the ZKL combined ".dll" file has most of the messages that these older patch programs tried to create. So you do not need to run those older patch programs. The only older messages that are not in the combined ".dll" file are those that had some other problem in addition to this, such as conflicted with another user creation. You would not want these patched ".dll" files for these other reasons anyway. These are the ones that need to be changed to the newer way of doing things, while fixing their other problems as well.

So, for your older downloads, see which ones are covered by the ZKL combined ".dll". For those that are not, feel free to let me know. I might already know about them, but it can't hurt to have another double checking.

Zoogrammy · Post by **Zoogrammy** » Sun Jun 12, 2005 2:39 pm

Jay, what about the lumberjacks theme pack from DJ design that you have here?

Post by **fern** » Sun Jun 12, 2005 8:33 pm

Zoogrammy the Lumberjack Pack has it's own dll. It is not a patch dll as I have run this pack.

Zoogrammy · Post by **Zoogrammy** » Sun Jun 12, 2005 9:48 pm

I guess I just should have stated what was on my mind. Which is: I was hoping that it could be a part of the combined dll here at the Lounge. Just one more dll to get out of my game.

Post by **Jay** » Sun Jun 12, 2005 9:50 pm

Although the Lumberjack Pack is probably safe for you, Zoogrammy, the objects in the pack could crash a person's game if they are not using an English version of the game. So I hope to fix those and repackage the pack so that it is not using an ".exe" file. I don't know when that will be. Since I also do not like running ".exe" files unless I know exactly what they do, fern was gracious enough to send me the .ztd" and ".dll" files. But that was more than 2 months ago. I've been bad... not fixing things in a while. But I just have much more fun helping with new things than fixing old.

And, yes, at that time it would be included in the ZKL ".combined" dll, in addition to its own. I want to renumber things slightly to conform to Blue Fang's way of doing things.

micandra · Post by **micandra** » Sun Jun 19, 2005 9:49 am

I have some of DJ's dls that patch the lang0 file. It backs the file automaticlt. Anyhoo, I'e never had a problem from that. I have ZTCC.

Post by **Jay** » Sun Jun 19, 2005 10:11 am

That is fortunate that you do not have problems. But I have. As I mentioned above, those patch programs cause Zoo Tycoon to read messages from the ".dll" files in the wrong order. Zoo Tycoon would always crash on me within 1 game year. I could never predict exactly when, though. It took me a long time to figure out. But once I put the messages from those patched ".dll" files into separate ".dll" files and then deleted those patched ".dll" files and then replaced the lang0.dll with the original one from the Zoo Tycoon CD-ROM, I have not experienced any more crashes. So I still stand by my recommendation. Do not run these patch programs and do not install any user ".dll" file that is bigger than 1.8 mb. These are known to cause sporadic problems with the expansion packs.