GTASA Downloader
Introduction
This downloader aims to make it effortless for anyone to have a portable copy of the game, along with SA-MP, an ASI loader (for your varied scripts), and SAMPCAC (SA-MP Client Anti-Cheat, which is discontinued but still works fine and is better than nothing...).
Why
- There are not many places to download the game anymore. And when there are, you never know what you're going to get.
- The archive it downloads is really small (~500MB), compared to the ~4.7GB when it's decompressed. So I don't mind hosting it.
- It's hosted on one of my VPSs that will never go away (costs ~50USD per year). Its sole purpose is to serve files. It's limited to 1Mb/s downloads and 1 concurrent connection.
- Piecing together all the right files/installing the correct software is always a pain.
- The SAMPCAC ASI script gets flagged as malware (it's not), so an exception needs to be added to Windows Defender to prevent it from being removed from the game directory. (This is why it needs to be run as Administrator.)
- I deemed this a simple enough exercise to get started with the Rust language.
ASI Loader
The loader provided is my fork of Carlos Menezes' ASI Loader.
SAMPCAC
All client-side anti-cheats were bypassed at some point, and this one was no exception. But whatever, it's included, as some servers still use it since not everyone can bypass it.
Anti-Cheat Issues
It might not work alongside other ASI scripts. (It didn't work for me when trying to run a Window Mode ASI.) Either remove it if you don't need it or rename the extension if you think you'll need it later.
Known Issues
- Since I'm using WinGet to install 7Zip (to decompress the game archive) and DirectX (Yes, fresh Windows installs don't come with DirectX pre-installed.), you need to accept msstore (Microsoft Store - that's the source for this WinGet package) terms before downloading anything. So if it doesn't work the first time, open the command prompt and run
winget install --id=7zip.7zip -e to accept those terms and install 7Zip.
How it works
After opening the executable as Administrator, the app:
- Downloads a 7Zip archive ("gtasa.7z") to the same directory as the executable.
- Asks you for a directory name (press enter for the default to be used - "GTA San Andreas") to where it will decompress the game archive, equally, to the same directory as the executable.
- Decompresses/extracts the archive into the specified directory.
- Adds an exception/exclusion to Windows Defender to prevent SAMPCAC's ASI script from being removed.
- Downloads "sampcac_client.asi".
The game archive will remain so it can be reused the next time you want a fresh installation or if you want to store it for yourself.
