Electronic Arts LIB Game Archive - Revision history

RSola: Wording fixes

2025-11-27T06:05:18Z

Wording fixes

RSola: Add Electronic Arts category

2025-10-27T00:48:52Z

Add Electronic Arts category

RSola: Page created

2025-10-27T00:40:15Z

Page created

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{{FormatInfo
|formattype=electronic
|subcat=Archiving
|released=1990
}}

'''Electronic Arts LIB Game Archive''' is an archiving format used in some video games, add-ons and toolings released by Electronic Arts during the 1990s.

== Identification ==

Archives begin with the ASCII string <code>EALIB</code> (hexadecimal {{magic|45 41 4c 49 42}}).

== Format details ==

Byte order is [[Endianness|little-endian]]. The count of file records in the archive follows the <code>EALIB</code> signature as a 2-byte integer. This count does not include the unnamed final record. Each record has a fixed length of 18 bytes.

=== File record ===

{| class="wikitable"
! Offset !! Size !! Description
|-
| 0 || 13 bytes || File name (up to 8+3 characters, plus dot), null-terminated and padded
|-
| 13 || 1 byte || Compression method
{| class="wikitable"
! Value !! Meaning
|-
| 0 || Uncompressed (stored)
|-
| 1 || [[LZSS]]-style compression, probably [[LZSS_(Haruhiko_Okumura)|Okumura's LZSS]]
|-
| 3 || Looks like an special mode for pictures (data starts with <code>PXPK</code>)
|-
| 4 || [[PKWARE DCL Implode]]
|}
|-
| 14 || 4 bytes || Absolute offset of the file data inside the archive
|}

Records appear sorted by their offset fields in ascending order, so the size allocated to extract any file can be calculated from two consecutive records. A special record with an empty file name follows the last valid file. The offset field in this record should be the whole size of the archive.

When the compression method is 1 or 4, the uncompressed size immediately precedes the compressed stream as a 4-byte integer.

== Software ==

* https://aluigi.altervista.org/bms/ealib.bms - Script for [https://aluigi.altervista.org/quickbms.htm QuickBMS] that extracts and decompresses, when possible, files from an EALIB archive
* https://www.watto.org/extract - Watto's Game Extractor supports EALIB archives (although extraction might be buggy)

== Sample files ==

* {{DiscMasterLink|search?format=electronicArtsLibGameArchive|DiscMaster search by format}}
* {{DiscMasterLink|search?detection=45414c4942*|DiscMaster search by header}} - Previous search misses a few seemingly valid archives
* {{DexvertSamples|archive/electronicArtsLibGameArchive}}

== Links ==

* [https://moddingwiki.shikadi.net/wiki/LIB_Format_(Electronic_Arts) LIB Format (Electronic Arts) at ModdingWiki]

[[Category:Game data files]]

← Older revision		Revision as of 00:48, 27 October 2025
Line 57:		Line 57:
	* [https://moddingwiki.shikadi.net/wiki/LIB_Format_(Electronic_Arts) LIB Format (Electronic Arts) at ModdingWiki]		* [https://moddingwiki.shikadi.net/wiki/LIB_Format_(Electronic_Arts) LIB Format (Electronic Arts) at ModdingWiki]

		+	[[Category:Electronic Arts]]
	[[Category:Game data files]]		[[Category:Game data files]]

@@ Line 5: / Line 5: @@
 }}
-'''Electronic Arts LIB Game Archive''' is an archiving format used in some video games, add-ons and toolings released by Electronic Arts during the 1990s.
+'''Electronic Arts LIB Game Archive''' is an archiving format used in some video games, add-ons and toolkits released by Electronic Arts during the 1990s.
 == Identification ==
@@ Line 30: / Line 30: @@
 | 1  || [[LZSS]]-style compression, probably [[LZSS_(Haruhiko_Okumura)|Okumura's LZSS]]
 |-
-| 3  || Looks like an special mode for pictures (data starts with <code>PXPK</code>)
+| 3  || Looks like a special mode for pictures (data starts with <code>PXPK</code>)
 |-
 | 4  || [[PKWARE DCL Implode]]
 |}
 |-
-| 14 || 4 bytes  || Absolute offset of the file data inside the archive
+| 14 || 4 bytes  || Absolute offset of the file data in the archive
 |}
@@ Line 44: / Line 44: @@
 == Software ==
-* https://aluigi.altervista.org/bms/ealib.bms - Script for [https://aluigi.altervista.org/quickbms.htm QuickBMS] that extracts and decompresses, when possible, files from an EALIB archive
+* https://aluigi.altervista.org/bms/ealib.bms - Script for [https://aluigi.altervista.org/quickbms.htm QuickBMS] that extracts and, when possible, decompresses files from an EALIB archive
 * https://www.watto.org/extract - Watto's Game Extractor supports EALIB archives (although extraction might be buggy)