The Compressorizer! Mass DBPF Compressing Program

[Hecubus]

Gwill, don't be. I reduced my downloads folder size by 60%, reduced load time by 3 minutes. I haven't tried it on my lot catalog yet, butI I'm hopeful there too.

I love debloatetized files.

[dewshine]

Ohhhh...

This means that I can reduce my dowload folder and fit in more stuff!  Thank you!

So, if we was making new items could we compress them before offering them to the unsuppecting public?  Or would it be better to leave the files alone, and point folks to the tool?

[jrd]

I compress my hacks, since it improves loading speed (as proven by this tool!) and means less file size.

[Gwill]

Looks like I shaved over a Gig off my downloads.  From 2,5 to 1,4 (those 2,5G includes pictures of all downloads).  Haven't tested to see if it's blown up my game yet, but I'm optimistic.

Edit: Remind me to never openly express optimism.     Game crashed at lot loading.  Will do some selective compressing in stead, to start with.

[Ambular]

Looks like I shaved over a Gig off my downloads.  From 2,5 to 1,4 (those 2,5G includes pictures of all downloads).  Haven't tested to see if it's blown up my game yet, but I'm optimistic.

Edit: Remind me to never openly express optimism.     Game crashed at lot loading.  Will do some selective compressing in stead, to start with.

Ooh, you know, I've loaded the game, a neighborhood and CAS, but I haven't tried a lot yet.

* AmberDiceless goes to try it.

[Ambular]

Mine's at 13G, so I think I'd be courting trouble.

This won't cause other tools to fail, such as SimCat / S2PCleanInstall / S2HDetect, right? I can't see how it would, but if the ensquishinator is altering files....     

13GB?  Ye gods, woman, how many hours of load time is that?  O_o

A quick check shows me that Clean Installer still reads the compressed files just fine, so I imagine the other tools would as well...

[PlaidSquirrel]

My dl folder went from 1.34 GB to 799 MB. I did it one sub-folder at a time. There was one file that went from 2kb to 0kb that I was a little worried about.

The first time I ran my game it actually seemed to take longer to load but after that things went more smoothly. Probably I should have deleted the groups cache first but never even thought of it. I did load and even play a house for awhile so things seem to have gone really well.

It would be helpful to be able to see the file name but I see you are working on that already so that's cool.

  

[benrg]

People who are experiencing crashes: if you have the time, please try to narrow down the problem. If you can find a single file which causes a crash when it's recompressed, and post it here, I can probably fix the bug.

The command-line tool verifies that all of the recompressed files match the originals, and backs out the changes if they don't, so it should be safe, but I may have overlooked something.

[jfade]

Very cool, thanks benrg, glad to see you still around and thanks again for making this new library, it's quite awesome!

[Zazazu]

Used the tool today and cut my Downloads from 2.68 gigs to 1.33 gigs. I compressed all but my hacks and face templates. Have entered and played three different lots and have had no issues whatsoever. Game load time is down slightly, from approximately 6-7 minutes to about 5.

[Ambular]

People who are experiencing crashes: if you have the time, please try to narrow down the problem. If you can find a single file which causes a crash when it's recompressed, and post it here, I can probably fix the bug.

Well, I haven't managed to narrow it down to one file yet, benrg, but by process of elimination it's starting to look as though the problem lies in my Object Recolors folder.  I'll see if I can sort out which file(s) it is...

[Gwill]

My problem was probably related to the fact that I did the wole 2,5GB in one go.
If you don't mind, I'll delay giving it go folder by folder (I have a lot of subfolders) until the UI is a little more refined.

[Lorelei]

Mine's at 13G, so I think I'd be courting trouble.

This won't cause other tools to fail, such as SimCat / S2PCleanInstall / S2HDetect, right? I can't see how it would, but if the ensquishinator is altering files....     

13GB?  Ye gods, woman, how many hours of load time is that?  O_o

A quick check shows me that Clean Installer still reads the compressed files just fine, so I imagine the other tools would as well...

25 minutes.

On a laptop.

Running other programs at the same time.

Booyah!

[Magicmoon]

What happens if the compressorizer is run on packages that have already been run through the compressorizer the first time?

My downloads go through a routine. When downloaded, they are put into the NEW folder. After proving them in game, they are moved to the appropriate folder such as objects, clothing, etc.

So say I ran the compressorizer on everything I have today that is not in the NEW folder. Later, I continue to download items, adding them to the NEW folder. My question is should I run the compressorizer on new items after they have been tested, but before moving them to their final destination, or can I keep doing what I have been doing and then run the compressorizer periodically on final destination folders that would have a mixture of both compressed and non-compressed items in them?

Looks like I shaved over a Gig off my downloads.  From 2,5 to 1,4 (those 2,5G includes pictures of all downloads)

Is it doing the pictures? I am currently running the compressor on my Hair folder. Each style has its own subfolder which includes mesh, textures, and a pic. A small handful also have readme.txt where I wrote a note to myself such as "blonde color contains the mesh". A few hairstyles such as Maxis styles that were made available for other ages do not contain a picture.

Anyway, the Hair folder properties show 662 subfolders with 3907 files. However, the Compressor is showing 3275 files being processed.  3907-3275=632. So I ask myself, where are these 632 files? Since there are 662 subfolders and most contain a pic, I assumed that it was the pics left out. (If each subfolder contained one pic, then there are only 30 files left to account for. I'm assuming those files would be the styles that were missing pics).

So have I deducted correctly or are my assumptions wrong? The window that shows which files are being processed only shows Mydocs/owner/Sims2/ then the rest of the file is unreadable as the window cuts it off. I can't find a way to see the entire file name to actually know why there are a different number of files being processed than the folder is reporting having.

[Jelenedra]

I dunno if I should be concerned, but during compression, I had some files get BIGGER after the compression...

[twojeffs]

Were you just looking at the UI, or did you actually check the files? I noticed this in the UI while it was running also, but when I actually checked the files afterward, none were bigger after compression.

@ magicmoon: If the file is already compressed it won't hurt it if you run the program again and it will only process .package files so any other files in those folders are ignored.

[Zazazu]

Were you just looking at the UI, or did you actually check the files? I noticed this in the UI while it was running also, but when I actually checked the files afterward, none were bigger after compression.

@ magicmoon: If the file is already compressed it won't hurt it if you run the program again and it will only process .package files so any other files in those folders are ignored.

Mine did that too (stating the files got bigger). One went from 24 to 1700 kb. I chalk it up to the program getting confused, because the file definitely shrank afterwards.  As for re-compressing, it's fine. I did that by accident on a couple folders and it just ran through them again and didn't make a change to them.

[Hecubus]

Agreed. Apparently there's some sort of magic that happens that won't let a package get more squishified than it's suppsoed to (yeah, there is actually some computer process that does that, but it's Greek to me, so ...'magic".)

Also, I have successfully run this on my lot catalog and neighborhood files...not as much compression, but a noticeable improvement in speed. My game now loads in under 6 minutes (used to be 10), and maybe it's just me, but it seems that lots load a tad faster from the neighborhood screen.

Of course, it could be the drugs.

[MistyBlue]

I got my 1.20 GB folder down to 644 MB. On the downside, my game takes a little longer to load. It used to load in 3 minutes, now it's just under 5. I'm not sure if game performance is any better, but I think I noticed lots loading a little faster, too.

[jfade]

Beta 2 is now available! Grab from link in first post or here:

http://temp.djssims.com/beta/CompressorizerBeta2.zip

Some of you mentioned files that got compressed to 0, but actually that just means the file was compressed to be less than 1 KB. It rounds down and not up so anything less than 1 becomes 0.

Hope this new UI helps, let me know if there's any other issues.

[dizzy]

Not that it's a big deal, but now I get:

Code:

System.DivideByZeroException: Division by zero
  at System.Windows.Forms.ThemeWin32Classic.DrawProgressBar (System.Drawing.Graphics dc, Rectangle clip_rect, System.Windows.Forms.ProgressBar ctrl) [0x00000] 
  at System.Windows.Forms.ProgressBar.OnPaintInternal (System.Windows.Forms.PaintEventArgs pevent) [0x00000] 
  at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc (System.Windows.Forms.Message& m) [0x00000] 
  at System.Windows.Forms.Control+ControlNativeWindow.WndProc (System.Windows.Forms.Message& m) [0x00000] 
  at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.WndProc (IntPtr hWnd, Msg msg, IntPtr wParam, IntPtr lParam) [0x00000]

[jfade]

Ah, heh, I bet I know what that's caused by. I'm going to fix another bug Amber mentioned (again, minor) then upload it again with the same filename.

EDIT: Fixed Amber's problem for sure, I think I've fixed Dizzy's... Get the updated one from the same link.

[Lana B]

I got my 1.20 GB folder down to 644 MB. On the downside, my game takes a little longer to load. It used to load in 3 minutes, now it's just under 5. I'm not sure if game performance is any better, but I think I noticed lots loading a little faster, too.

Have you deleted your cache? It has been noticed that it can lengthen load time unless this is done.

[Goldenbow]

I was a little worried about using this on some of the painting recolors (many of them saved in 32 bit color). Thought it might effect how they look in game. It didn't. They look the same as before.  Presquoosh, with close to 6 gigs of much needed crap my game loaded in roughly 15 minutes.  Post squoosh with 2.73 GB I can't say I've noticed a big change in load time either way. But I'm starting to suspect a highly bloated walls file (which didn't compress all that dramatically) as being the big culprit. 

[MistyBlue]

Have you deleted your cache? It has been noticed that it can lengthen load time unless this is done.

Yeah, that was the first thing I did. It's not a big deal, just an extra minute. Um...I'm in shock at how long some of you have to wait for the game to load! You can fix a meal in that time, probably eat it, too.