Switching to 7zip Archives
 

I noticed that Abandonia still generally uses .zip archives for all of the downloads. I, personally, started using 7-Zip several months ago. It's an open source compression program which supports every major format, at least every one that I know of, and it has very high compression.
The best compression results I get are obtained using the .7z format, on ultra compression, using the LZMA method, with a dictionary size of 128MB, a word size of 273, and a solid archive setting. With those settings I get around 20% better compression, sometimes more, sometimes less, than the maximum I can get with WinZip.
For maximum compression you need 2GB of RAM though, but the results are usually very impressive. The compression times are longer, of course, but that's not really a big deal. 7-Zip also has multi-threading support, and a lot of other features.
So, I think Abandonia should recompress all of the archives to 7z format. The site could significantly reduce bandwidth by doing that. It would take a little while, but it would be worth it.
Occasionally I have an archive that compresses better with .zip format than it does with .7z, but the good thing about 7-Zip is it supports compression with all the major formats, as well as for decompression.

So, what does everyone think? It could save a lot of money, hopefully. :wondering:

This been discussed a lot of times in the past. The main concensus was that newbies already have trouble knowing about and using WinZip and we don't want the troubleshooting forum to turn into a "what the hell is 7zip? forum...

The advantages of using rar or 7zip over .zip are, however, uncontested.

Oh. :( Well, add my vote to the yay side. With a front page notice, and a sticky in every part of the forum, the questions would hopefully be reduced enough to not be too annoying. :worried:

Is there a program to work with 7zip archives that works under DOS ??

What could be done is one or two of the most popular downloads .zip files could be replaced by 7zip files as a trial and see what feed back we get or the next couple of games updates could be in 7zip, format if it causes to much trouble then we stick with .zip


Edit: For this to work 7zip utilities will have to be available on this site (Windows and DOS versions)

Yep, it comes with a command line program. It's called 7z.exe. There's a full stand-alone command line program also included called 7za.exe, which can run by itself. :amused: I don't know if those can compress too, or if they are just for decompression. I would recommend compressing in Windows, ect.

Edit:

That sounds like a good idea, Doink. Also, perhaps there could be a poll done, where only VIPs or higher could vote, as to whether or not to try that? I suppose it would have to be a manual poll, since to my knowledge the automatic polls can't take into account rank. Or can they? I would imagine converting the top 10 most popular downloads to .zip would be a good test, if that were to be done.

what's the point? it's not that we hosted 2 GB images or something
the better compression wouldn't bring as much advantage as trouble. zip is older and more stuff supports it, and even if you install pure xp and don't have anything yet there is also default zip uncompressor

I am fairly certain that if you make a poll with only the VIP able to answer, most of us will answer yes readily. Me included. This is really not the point though since nobody else than Kosta and the admins have a say in the matter. And of course, Kosta is weighing way more in the balance too. So, unless Kosta changed his mind since the last time...

The whole point here is: Even if we were to offer two downloads, one with .zip and another for 7zip... There would be a lot of computer knowledgable people who will be pleased to download the 7zip version. But 90%+ of the downloads, those made by people who don't know better, won't even bother to try to discover what 7zip is and will download the .zip version anyways. If we switch all the .zip files to 7zip, most of those 90%+ people will complain that they can't do anything with that "strange file" they downloaded and will either not bother further or flood the troubleshooting forum with stupid questions. Those who won't bother further might be people we are trying to reach out about old games, people who might have joined the rest of this group in the preservation of said games.

It's a good idea, but in the long run it's unfortunatly pretty much a loss/loss situation.

Whatever AB do now, I think that with the number of bugs still not sorted out, any changes that make things more complicated are not a good idea. If AB decides to change the zips to 7zip, they should wait until AB gets back into the top position as a user friendly site.

*Ah, nerdy talky, me likes.*
If compress ratio is your goal, you really should try out UHarc once, beats 7zip completely.

If 'n00b_compability' must be the goal: ZIP -(or RAR eventually)- is the way to go.

We use primarily ZIP format for compatibility reasons. RAR may be used for larger games, but only if absolutely neccesary.

I have Two PC's
One Laptop and a Desktop.

The Laptop has 1,46GHz and JUST 512MB of RAM.
My Desktop is Just a P3 with 550MHz and a mere 320MB of RAM!

And you want WHAT!!
Longer compression times are equal to longer DEcompression times.

I would highly suggest Abandonia keeps to either .zip (compatibility) or uses .rar (very known archive type).

And Nothing else! :mad:

True for now but the size of abandoned games will rapidly increase and changing to a better compression format(not necessarily 7zip) sooner rather than later mite be a good idea.:idea:

This is better than longer download times.
For a trial period the selected games should only be in the 7zip format and the right utilities will be available on the site, this will force people to use the 7zip format and if we get to many questions and to many people have trouble with it then the 7zip files will be removed and the zip files put in there place.

Djees man, you're worst than MS + Mac + Sony together.
*Force* people .... :mad:
It's not because YOU like an application you're suddenly entitled to force it upon others.

Even if I also have 7Zip -(yes, indeed)- I wouldn't dream to shovel it down in other peeps troaths.

Talk about it, propose it, advise it, yes, but force ? No way josé.

What's next? 8Zippy that's again a bit (0.05%) better?
9Zippy? (0.02%) better?

I think RAR supports 7zip and it has a DOS version.

Apologies
...this will encourage people to use the 7zip format...

Edit: 7zip claim to have a 50% to 60% better compression ratio than traditional zip so its a major step.

yes MS + Mac + Sony are encouraging people to upgrade :P

[* Irritant little voice *]

UHarc compresses better and faster than 7Zip, that's why many pirated games are spread around in this format, -(it even compresses mp3 files!)-, so why stick with 7Zip? Let us push UHarc down their troats.

[/* Irritant little voice *]

And what will happen when this whole 7Zip project will be terminated, abandoned, whatever?
Will you recompress all the archives on AB to yet another 'better_than_zip_or_rar' archiver?

i'd still like to point out that most of our abandonned games are about 10 MB in size. maybe if we realy hosted the huge images in future

that is why a trial should be conducted to determine the best replacement for .zip

but anyways this seems to be going nowhere. Personally i've never even used 7zip, I Just joined in the conversation to propose a method of testing it or any compression format on this site and suggest it may be a good idea to change. Abandoned games will be getting much larger so I thought it would be a good idea to get a headstart.

Next topic please:)

Even then, _r.u.s.s., I know several sites where you can download plenty full ISOs, as probably many of you, they all use zip or rar.
n00b_compability is the key word.
And don't FORCE peeps into yet another format.

Nothing which been said in this thread is new, I heard it all 3 years ago.

Size of games will get huge in the future? This been said 3 years ago, I'm yet to see any proof of that. If we ever get to that point, that's why ripped versions been created anyways. ;)

What do you mean still generally uses? All game archives on Abandonia should be ZIPped. It's just a question is some extract to their own folder or if they don't.

Why is this? As mentioned before - user friendliness. Believe it or not, many people don't even know what WinZip is and extract directly via WinXP extractor (which isn't even able to extract all zipped files - I remember a few games The Horseman compressed, wouldn't decompress with WinXP extractor and some guests went into panic).

And about archive size - games like Death Gate are great examples. The full game (with all the high-er resolution video and speach files...) is much larger then the version on the site, yet it doesn't hinder the gameplay. In fact, if somebody isn't sure weather ot give the game a go or not, such a person in more likely to download the ripped version (smaller file to download simply to try).

And I think it happened only once, that a game really got rejected because of its size. It was Magic the Gathering: Shandalar. It was on the site for about 6 hours before Kosta took it down (because it took up too much space - among other things). It wasn't a problem, since it turned out to be ESA protected anyway (but that was a few weeks before the famous ESA clean-up).

So why switch to any other compression tools to convert the archives on the site? For personal use - sure thing, most of our regulars started using it about three years ago, about the time (the EoF mentioned) the previous simular debate was held on the topic.

While I agree with this statement I think the bigger question is whether Abandonia will ever host ISO (or any of the other CD image compressions). There are still plenty of old DOS games not on the site that are small enough to host. We won't run out of games any time in the near future. The issue will be as each year passes very few of the newly eligible games will qualify because we are at the point now (1993 and on) where most anything of any quality was released on CD. The first abandonware site that has the bandwidth to be able to host CD based games is going to become very popular very fast.

I guess my point is that the compression method chosen today is not the issue and will do nothing to prepare Abandonia for what is going to transpire. A new business model will need to develop and the bandwidth technology and availability will no doubt have to change.

Abandonia was names The Home of Abandoned DOS games. There aren't all that many DOS games that would reqire a full CD image to be played. So I don't really feel it would be necesary to change this.

But the ISO cellar in a way indicates that people are aware of the need to change.

Hopefully there will be a sort of a sister site that would deal with full disk images only (like ISOdonia or something), similarly as Reloaded focuses on Freeware games (it's a completely different story with freeware then with abandonware - although pre-Reloaded fan made titles were put on Abandonia as well).

ISOdonia has a nice ring to it. :laugh:

:idea: I would go for Sea Diimages or Sea de Images or Sea of the Images. But nobody understands this, and actually it's plain stupid. :o

LTF - Abandonware France Check out The 7th Guest (click on http://www.abandonware-france.org/lt...hargements.gif on the right side)

For the ISO Cellar it's of course a good idea to use for people who upload the archives with images, but they might want to convert the archive to a self-extracting SFX archive in such a case, to still keep it more user-friendly with unfamiliar formats.
Even so, better yet than 7z might be KGB Archiver. Just as slow for best compression, just as memory and CPU hungry, but claims to have the strongest encryption. I personally tested one ISO with WinRAR and KGB and WinRAR has won, but it took me hours so it might be different with different files, I didn't have the patience to test something else.

totally agree with you.

Hmmm, I wasn't expecting so many people to be against changing it. :worried: It's true that decompression times for 7Zip files are higher, but we're talking about less than a minute, generally. (Except for large archives.) The 1-2GB maximum memory requirement would be only for the person doing the compression, the end-user could get by with 256MB - 512MB without much, if any, impact.

It is true that since most of the downloads are already quite small, the difference in download times with 7zip, or UHarc, would generally be insignificant. It would, however, still reduce overall bandwidth usage by about 10-20% (Hopefully.).

The goal, of course, is to reduce the bandwidth usage and not inconvenience anyone. I don't believe 7Zip has very good support for creating self-extracting archives. I'll download UHarc and see if it's compression is better than 7Zip, and if it supports creating self-extracting archives.

I'll download MDK from here (86MB), and compare the file sizes for the Zip to the best compression I can get with 7Zip and UHarc. I'll also time the decompression for each format. I'll post the results here in about half an hour or so. :)

P.S. Does anyone know the average monthly bandwidth usage of Abandonia, and how much it costs?

Don't know, not sure if Kosta does either now that Studentis owns the place. I'm pretty sure someone from Studentis could tell you, though.

LTF - Abandonware France is a warez site, since it allows people to download non abandonware titles. It's even written plain in the menu: non abandonware.

I'm surprised you linked a warez site, but since it was in french you may just have overlooked it. My first language is french though, and it's quite visible from first glance...

Alright, here's the results. I'll just post my notes since they are pretty self explanatory.


MDK

original Zip - 85.76 MB
max. Zip in 7zip - 78 MB (Maximum Zip compression using 7Zip.)
maximum with Uharc - 62.9 MB
maximum with 7Zip - 61 MB (29% improvement over original)

decompression time original - 5 sec
decompression time max Zip - 17 sec
decompression time Uharc - 7 min 46 sec (memory required to decom. 22.6 MB)
decompression time 7Zip - 14 sec (memory required to decom. 66 MB)


Basically, it is possible to get a little more compression with Zip format. But 7Zip is considerably better, and doesn't take much longer to decompress either.

So, how does having both Zip and 7Zip archives available for download sound? It wouldn't reduce bandwidth as much as dumping Zip completely. But, it would still help, and questions/problems would be kept to a minimum. A help page could be put up telling people where to get 7Zip, ect. It would probably best to limit 7Zip archives to, say, 10+ MB downloads. Does that sound like something worthwhile? :wondering:

[*irritant voice is here again*]

As some 100 topics a day:
What must I download? I don't understand all this stuff 'cause I'm compy n00b. Can you PLZ give me a beginners explanation? From A to Z in easy steps. KTHXBAI.

[/*irritant voice is here again*]

And check your UHarc facts again, you missed a lot it seems.(Especially how to run it in a comm window).

If you really want your actions to have any kind of sense, talk to Kosta. He's the only one in this whole forum who can actually do something for you.

you know, the results may and will differ on what are you trying to pack

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the whole idea of switching archive types was to lighten the bandwide usage... how does having double archives (in both format) help?

Actually there is ALREADY a site Dedicated to abandoned ISO's. (games)

It's called ISO ART - Lost in Cyberspace and it's run by Gargantuan Orangutan. :rolleyes:
And he 'happens' to be a (more like The) moderator in the ISO Cellar. :idea:

OK there is no dedicated bandwidth, So ISO Art has to use external hosts for it's ISO's.
As a matter of fact 90+% of the Cellar ISO Links are on ISO Art and Vice Versa.
So it's basically the same place. :cool:

dosraider - "As some 100 topics a day:
What must I download? I don't understand all this stuff 'cause I'm compy n00b. Can you PLZ give me a beginners explanation? From A to Z in easy steps. KTHXBAI."

dosraider - "And check your UHarc facts again, you missed a lot it seems.(Especially how to run it in a comm window)."

To unzip a .7zip file, first you must download 7Zip. Open your internet browser, and go to http://www.7-zip.org. Once you are there, click on the "Download" link on the left side of the screen, it's three lines below "Home". If you can't figure that out, go to the appropriate link that follows for which operating system you are using. (Most likely you are using Windows if you don't know what your using.)

7zip for Windows download; http://downloads.sourceforge.net/sevenzip/7z457.exe

Detailed instructions for downloading 7zip for other operating systems can be found at this page; http://www.7-zip.org/download.html

Once 7zip is downloaded, start the program and follow the instructions to install it. After 7zip is installed, all you need to do is double-click on the archive you want to open with it. If you need further instructions, feel free to ask.

P.S. I grew up using DOS and Windows 3.1, I know what a window and command prompt is. I used the command prompt version of UHarc, using maximum compression, and it took precisely 7 min 46 sec to compress MDK. If I am missing something, feel free to share.


E.O.F. - "If you really want your actions to have any kind of sense, talk to Kosta. He's the only one in this whole forum who can actually do something for you."

Very well, I'll look-up Kosta and talk to him about it.


r.u.s.s. - "you know, the results may and will differ on what are you trying to pack"

Yes, of course. Different data will compress at different ratios.


Sebatianos - "Correct me if I'm wrong, but the whole idea of switching archive types was to lighten the bandwide usage... how does having double archives (in both format) help?"

That's a good question. The archives are hosted on Abandonia, but the only difference would be that instead of having one choice, they could download a larger .zip archive or a smaller .7zip. The file would only be downloaded once (If the person was being responsible.), but if they downloaded the .7zip instead of the .zip, they would have saved Abandonia over 24 MB of bandwidth in the case of MDK.

Hopefully they wouldn't download both the .zip and the .7zip, since that would definately not help us any. But I don't see why they would do that, unless they couldn't figure out how to open one of them. But, hopefully they would download 7Zip first and figure out how to use it before they downloaded anything from here. I'll try to contact Kosta about all of this.

you actually told him how to uzip an archive? rofl http://www.reloaded.org/forum/style_...hysterical.gif

Eh Adamg. Dosraider is more than Twice your age.
So if he didn't figured out how to open a compressed file by now, he will never learn.

Dosraider was actually Playing the n00bs with his [*irritant voice is here again*] remark. http://www.reloaded.org/forum/style_.../whistling.gif

The ISO cellar is great at what it does but isn't what I had in mind. Where are the reviews, discussion forums, extras etc? There is nothing in the ISO cellar to create interest in the games. It certainly could turn into something greater if Abandonia brought the downloads in-house and treated the games like the ones they currently host.

As I already stated, I use 7Zip.
But if you think it's so simple that a 'readme' solves all problems and will avoid those ever repeating same questions, tell me why the help forum here (and everywhere)is filled with questions about dosbox ........
And I'm not very eager to go in an endless discussion about -yet again- compr ratios. Are you a crew member of 7Zip by any chance?
Anyway, you win, congrats, you just won the special olympics.

BTW, on a side note: My first bought PC was on CP/M, it wasn't my first, but the first I bought, so your 'grew up on Dos', doesn't really impress me.

And now I'm out of this topic, it's useless and really boring.
KTHXBAI.

Yay me is on double post spree ...
And you hardly can pretend that Wendy is an absolute dosbox beginner.....

I rest my case.

Actually, the "non-abandonware" secition doesn't have games actually available to download. It lists them as may have some extras (like boxart or music) but as far as I can tell, you can't actually get the games themselves...

I just tryied it and you're right. When you click on download, the link take you to the exact same page with the download link removed.

That's a pretty poor desing choice for a web site...