Cost vs return - aka worthiness debate

[artag]

Ok, it seems there is a missunderstanding here.

I don't use the builting methods of FA. Those are masked (group) compression and some other pre-built stuff. If it works for you, be happy.

I'm talking about something else.

I have mi own compression chains. Usually, people use somethin like

pzlib+srep+lzma for game assets compression (or 3d scenes/models in my case)

lzma on FA only use two cores and has some speed issues during decompression.

7zip LZMA2 can use more than 2 cores and it has increased speed during compression,

also during decompression thanks to skipped uncompressable blocks.

It gives me faster compression and decompresion and is a good substitute for internal

LZMA, specially if time is a concern. Even if you use less agressive settings (because of time) it its a better feature - vs - size compared to internal lzma.

I know about 4x4 lzma, but the memory scales too much during compression if i use a larger
block, with 7zip i can use 2 or 3 threads and save memory if i want larger blocks.


My question to experienced users (or repackers?) is if there is a better candidate than
7zip. (Even if i sacrifice some MB, better compression / decompression speed is desirable).


you can use 7zip as external like this:

[External compressor:7zip]
header = 0
packcmd   = 7za a -txz -an -mcrc=0 -mf=off -myx=0 -mmt=4 -m0=lzma2{:option} -si -so <stdin> <stdout>
unpackcmd = 7za x -txz -an -y -si -so <stdin> <stdout>

Set -mmt=4 to 3 or 2 if it's eating more memory that you have or you wat larger blocks.


invoke it like this

7zip:d=512m or 7zip:d=64m:fb=16 or 7zip:d=64m:fb=16:a=0

pzlib+srep+7zip ,etc

etc
less d=, less memory, or reduce mmt.

use task manager to monitor the exe

<stdin> <stdout> works ok on my end, even with inno setup

good luck