Wargame *.ess

AlphaTwentyThree · Post by **AlphaTwentyThree** » Tue May 26, 2015 8:03 am

Hi! Here's an audio format I've never seen before: http://*USE_ANOTHER_FILEHOSTING*/049b7ec ... ffa/ess.7z
Any ideas? Is this some kind of headerless XWMA? What are the *.sformat files for?

aluigi · Post by **aluigi** » Tue May 26, 2015 2:24 pm

It looks like a sequence of "chunks" or something similar.
The following script tries to dump them... I don't think it's useful but maybe you understand something from them:

Code: Select all

endian big
get DUMMY long
get DUMMY long
get DUMMY long
get DUMMY long
get CHUNKS long
math CHUNKS / 0x200
for i = 0 < CHUNKS
    get OFFSET long
    putarray 0 i OFFSET
next i
savepos BASE_OFF
math OFFSET = 0
for i = 0 < CHUNKS
    getarray NEXT_OFF 0 i
    xmath SIZE "NEXT_OFF - OFFSET"
    math OFFSET + BASE_OFF
    log "" OFFSET SIZE
    math OFFSET = NEXT_OFF
next i

id-daemon · Post by **id-daemon** » Tue May 26, 2015 4:11 pm

Why do you think it may be XWMA?

AlphaTwentyThree · Post by **AlphaTwentyThree** » Tue May 26, 2015 4:47 pm

id-daemon2 wrote:Why do you think it may be XWMA?

The table at the stream start somewhat reminded me of a similar structure I once saw in XWMA. I could be completely off though.

AlphaTwentyThree · Post by **AlphaTwentyThree** » Tue May 26, 2015 4:48 pm

aluigi wrote:It looks like a sequence of "chunks" or something similar.
The following script tries to dump them... I don't think it's useful but maybe you understand something from them:

Hm, I can't make anything of the result... :\

id-daemon · Post by **id-daemon** » Tue May 26, 2015 5:14 pm

AlphaTwentyThree wrote:The table at the stream start somewhat reminded me of a similar structure I once saw in XWMA. I could be completely off though.

Can you provide an example of such file? Because it is really strange for a sound to have a list of frames and a list of volumes in a separate file. You see, these frames are variable length, each has some data bytes plus some very small 16-bit numbers. Like 20, 5, -3,...

.sformat files seem to contain the same number of bytes as number of frames in .ess and they correspond to sound amplitude.

AlphaTwentyThree · Post by **AlphaTwentyThree** » Sun Jun 14, 2015 3:35 pm

Well, I found an example of a WMA file stream that only has a wave header: http://*USE_ANOTHER_FILEHOSTING*/a2b6cc8 ... nds_21.wav
See what I mean?

id-daemon · Post by **id-daemon** » Sun Jun 14, 2015 4:22 pm

Yes, some table. But numbers in this one are much bigger.

AlphaTwentyThree · Post by **AlphaTwentyThree** » Sun Jun 14, 2015 6:28 pm

I suppose I can't really help with this problem as I'm no expert in audio formats.
Do you happen to know how to decode or play the RIFF wma? I stumble upon these from time to time and always have to file the game under "unrippable"...

id-daemon · Post by **id-daemon** » Mon Jun 15, 2015 8:43 pm

I don't know.

AlphaTwentyThree · Post by **AlphaTwentyThree** » Mon Jun 15, 2015 11:23 pm

Luigi once mentioned FFMpeg but I honestly don't know which command line to use.

id-daemon · Post by **id-daemon** » Tue Jun 16, 2015 4:14 pm

ffmpeg cannot convert it. I don't think its wma.

AlphaTwentyThree · Post by **AlphaTwentyThree** » Fri Jun 19, 2015 12:16 pm

Found this: http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exi ... /RIFF.html
Look under 0x61...

id-daemon · Post by **id-daemon** » Mon Jun 22, 2015 3:10 pm

I don't think it will help us. What year is this game from?

id-daemon · Post by **id-daemon** » Thu Apr 21, 2016 4:40 pm

I've made some research on this. Interesting algorithm. Anyone still need to decode this format?

AnonBaiter · Post by **AnonBaiter** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 10:29 pm

id-daemon wrote:I've made some research on this. Interesting algorithm. Anyone still need to decode this format?

You can just go on and do it already! After all, it's been quite a while we've been waiting for new unknown formats to be discovered.

id-daemon · Post by **id-daemon** » Sat Apr 23, 2016 8:51 am

During last year I made decoders to some new codecs. Those were not only new formats based on known codecs, but different codecs.

MTA2 - new advanced type of adpcm with a big table
PS Vita - never seen before 4 predictors, and table of 128 elements in compare to standard 5 elements PSX adpcm with 2 predictors
mc3 - really old 3-bit adpcm, but sound alright anyway
codemasters BDL - precise float adpcm type with combined tables

Do you know of any other codecs that can't currently be decoded?

brendan19 · Post by **brendan19** » Sat Apr 23, 2016 4:38 pm

If you'd like, would you be able to take a look at the newer HCA files that are being XOR'ed in sections of the header.

https://mega.nz/#!ItkjyDgb!vdkJR_Sr0vlB ... FZpCU7-Xl8

id-daemon · Post by **id-daemon** » Sat Apr 23, 2016 5:54 pm

But this is not a new codec. Just some obfuscation attempt with the old ones. Maybe I can look into this later, but as for now, I understand there is nothing really new to be researched. So I can focus on these .ess files.

id-daemon · Post by **id-daemon** » Sun Apr 24, 2016 5:23 pm

ESS file decoded for the very first time!

Its only one channel, and some glitches because of probably some errors in decoding, but they will be eliminated soon.

http://www82.zippyshare.com/v/Pk6fZ7QL/file.html

ZenHAX

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