Replays (GTA SA)

Introduction

GTA SA replays are the sequence of the scenes and actions recorded and stored in the replay.rep file. This file is located in the GTA San Andreas User Files directory.

Format Details

Each .rep file consists of header and variable amount of 'scenes'. Scene is a copy of important game information at given moment of time (actors, vehicles positions, weather, clothes, etc). Following one after another, the scenes create an illusion of a movie when played.

The .rep file itself consist of up to 8 parts, size of each one is 100,000 bytes, depending on the replay length. The maximum size of replay file is 800,000 bytes. If the replay length is that it does not match 100,000 bytes boundary being less, the rest of the block is filled with useless data (commonly the previous replay data).

Data Blocks

Each block consists of a byte denoting its type and some data as described below.

Tools

There is a template for 010 Editor, made by Seemann. It allows to edit different replay data in hex editor. http://sannybuilder.com/dev/Replay.rar