NoLifeWzToNx

March 1, 2026 · View on GitHub

A command-line tool written in C++ that converts MapleStory WZ (and IMG) files into the more efficient NX format. Part of the NoLifeStory project.

Prerequisites

Requirement	Details
Visual Studio 2019 (Community or higher)	Download
Windows SDK 8.1	Download
Platform Toolset v140	Installed via the Visual Studio Installer ("C++ Windows XP Support for VS 2017 (v141) tools" workload or the v140 build tools)

Note: This project has also been successfully built and tested with Visual Studio 2026 Community (v18.2.1).

All third-party libraries (libsquish, LZ4, zlib) are already included in the includes/ directory — no extra downloads needed.

Building

Open NoLifeWzToNx.sln in Visual Studio.
Verify the project is configured for Windows SDK 8.1 and Platform Toolset v140:
- Right-click the NoLifeWzToNx project → Properties
- Confirm Platform: x64
Build the solution in Release mode for best performance: Build → Build Solution (or Ctrl+Shift+B).

The compiled binary will be placed in x64/Release/.

Tip: Release mode is significantly faster than Debug — file conversions that take minutes in Debug finish in seconds in Release.

Usage

1. Prepare your WZ files

Place your .wz files inside the files/ folder in the project root (create it if it doesn't exist).

⚠ Warning: Do not include Data.wz in the conversion. It is not a standard WZ file and will cause errors.

2. Convert WZ to NX

Option A — Using the batch file (recommended)

Double-click convert.bat in the project root. It runs:

x64\Release\NoLifeWzToNx files -c

Option B — From the command line

NoLifeWzToNx <path> [options]

<path> can be a single .wz/.img file or a directory (all files within it will be converted recursively).

Convert a single file:

x64\Release\NoLifeWzToNx files\Base.wz -c

Convert all files in a folder:

x64\Release\NoLifeWzToNx files -c

3. View WZ file information

To check the format and version of your WZ files without converting them:

Option A — Using the batch file

Double-click info.bat in the project root.

Option B — From the command line

NoLifeWzToNx <path> -i

Example output:

File: files\Base.wz
Description: Package file v1.0 Copyright 2002 Wizet, ZMS
Data offset: 0x3c
Format: New (64-bit, no version hash)
Version: Cannot be determined from file
         (New format WZ files do not store the patch version.)
         Likely v170+ / v200+ era client.

For legacy WZ files (pre-v170), the tool will brute-force the encrypted version hash and report candidate version numbers.

Command-line options

Flag	Description
`-c`, `--client`	Convert in client mode (includes image/sound data)
`-s`, `--server`	Convert in server mode (skips image/sound data)
`-h`, `--lz4hc`	Use LZ4 HC (high-compression) for smaller output files at the cost of slower conversion
`-i`, `--info`	Display WZ file information (format, version) without converting

Output

Each .wz file produces a corresponding .nx file in the same directory. Conversion time is printed to the console when complete.

WZ format compatibility

Format	Versions	Status
Legacy (with version hash)	Pre-v170 (e.g. v83, v112)	Supported
New 64-bit (no version hash)	v170+ / v200+ era	Supported

Files have been successfully converted and tested using MapleStory v229.2.

Dependencies

All dependencies are bundled in the repository under includes/.

Library	Purpose	Source
libsquish	DXT texture decompression	GitHub
LZ4	Fast lossless compression	GitHub
zlib	General-purpose compression	GitHub

NX Format Specification

Full documentation for the NX binary format is available at nxformat.github.io.

License

This project is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 — see the source file headers for details.