Why 7-ZIP should be used.
 

My suggestion is to finally support 7ZIP as an archive format. Why?

1. Because it's supported by countless archive tools, like 7-Zip of course, but also by WinRAR, TugZIP, PeaZIP, ZIPGenius, IZArc, PowerArchiver, jZip, and more.
   
   
2. Because it achieves the best compression.
   An example: I managed to compress an ECMed image of "Secrets of the Pyramids" and its sub channel data, which has together a size of 537MiB, down to 76MiB. Compare this to compression with ZIP, which achieved with the same files only 174 MiB, 24MiB over the 150 MiB limit.
   
   
3. Thanks to the huge compression benefit compared to other archive formats, it may save a lot of server space.

That's some major compression, man...

Are you sure that it is everything and is stable?
I don't like using high levels of compression as it causes more checksum errors than it is worth.
If it is a single file limit, I prefer to split the archive into chunks and ensure it is more stable for others to burst open.

There are other programmes, besides 7-zip that offer such ball-crunchingly high levels of compression (such as Ken Ward's zipper) but 7-zip is a good one.
Free and easy.

I'm not too sure about adopting it as a standard here at abandonia (whatever the extension is that yr talking about), as .zips are pretty universally accepted by Operating Systems.
Also, please be mindful of the fact that an archive needs to be able to be unzipped in Dos and/or Dosbox (so says me).

If I only used my dos machine, I'd be screwed when it came to the newer archive formats.
I only have PKunzip.exe :p

[ed]
I'm likin' yr enthusiam, tho, Ozzie :OK: keep contributing!

There are three reasons against switching to 7-Zip.

First, the current code the site runs on only supports ZIP archives.
Second, the ZIP format is rght now the most widely supported one. Some OS'es have basic ZIP compression/decompression features integrated.
Third, a lot of users barely have any idea how to unpack a ZIP file, let alone anything more complex.

That also means we are NOT going to use any specialised form of compression such as ECM or PakkISO for games stored on the site itself. They may save some space, but are pain for any beginner users.

Saccade: 7-Zip is stable. Thing is, it uses a ton of memory to compress (for best results you'd need somewhere at least 2 GB of RAM).

Again .....?
'Again' because a quick search pointed towards this

So yes, again .....?

That is sooo last year, Dosraider :p

First off, I truly like it that you're trying to keep the site noob friendly, no sarcasm. :)
Can't do anything about your first point, but does that also mean that you don't use RAR archives at all on Abandonia? Because if you would, it would speak against your third point.
The second is also true. What HTML 1.0 is for the web and BMP for pictures, that is ZIP for archives. These are the most simple, widely implemented standards. But they also aren't the most advanced, and you can only do basic stuff with it.

It's true that Windows supports ZIP out of the box, contrary to 7ZIP and RAR. On the other hand, I'm not sure how many use this function. From personal experience, I always install an unpacker when I stumble over an archive I need to unpack. And while WinZIP doesn't support 7ZIP, WinRAR does, and out of personal experience (again), I think it's the most widely used unpacking program.
About ECM: If you know how to burn an image or how to operate DosBox, then you should be able to execute a batch script. If not, then this nice file called "readme.txt" might help.
You don't offer noob friendly preconfigured games that come with DosBox and a special config file either, so I don't think it's too much to expect, at all.

Yep, 7ZIP is perfectly stable, I use it all the time! :)
It's also very fast for unpacking, but quite memory hungry for compression, like The 5th Horseman said.
Personally, I couldn't care less about the server space and download traffic, but since, when using RAR or ZIP, the archive is bigger than the file size limit allows, I feel it's an unnecessary restriction. And except for the not implemented support, the rest of the arguments isn't very sound to me.
Sure, there will be people who will ask for help, but then, there will always be. Then we'll have to figure out how to give it to them, that's all.
It may be a trade-off, but I think it's worth it. :)
I expect disagreement, of course.

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@dosraider: The thread you linked to is nearly two years old! I'm new here, 7-ZIP improved a lot in the meantime, and things could change, you know. So, what do you expect? :dunno:

I don't think yr gonna sell this to us, man... :/

I appreciate all the good points of using .7z, but the cold hard fact that we can't use it due to compatibility still hangs in the air, like a fart in an elevator.

You may have better luck trying to push the .7z format in the ISO Cellar, as the files there are of a size that is actually worth bothering with.
Most of our archives are pretty small, granted that they will only increase in size as the years press on.
At the moment, there is simply no need to upgrade to a different standard.

Maybe when archive sizes get too big to manage and people use formats such as .7z (another programme we would have to support on the user-end, which we can really do without since we have our hands full with dosbox as it is, most of the time) a lot more and server costs get prohibitive for less compressed archives...

The list goes on and on.

This will probably always be a point in contest, but until everyone is sold on it (and that includes our users) I doubt very much it will happen, man.

Try nosing in the ISO Cellar (if you don't have access to that forum, stick around and you will soon) and suggesting it there.
Those files do need a bit more compression and the people who use them are a bit more IT savvy, ye savvy? ;)

Afaik every registered user has access to the ISO cellar from the start. Wasn't this changed just recently?
I see no reason to change every archive to a different standard, but I see a reason to at least add support for 7ZIP. If I didn't, I wouldn't bother! Of course, I don't know how big a problem it is to add the support, since I'm not well versed in such technical issues.

I really don't understand this insistence (I heard it before...) on having to support another program on the user's end: WinRAR already supports 7ZIP like countless other unarchivers! Only WinZIP doesn't, as a notable exception.
Even if WinRAR didn't: ZIP is also supported by 7ZIP of course, so then it would be just an issue of changing the support to another program.

In the end, the only grave problem I see is the lack of support from the site code of Abandonia for 7ZIP. And I guess until this happens any further discussion is futile anyway. :(

My sincere excuses, I didn't knew that the search function was only accessible for non-new members, I stand corrected.
Indeed, and I always advise to use 7Zip to people that seems to have problems with archives, no need to convince me of the usefulness of that nice soft.

But for the rest, nothing has changed indeed, RAR and ZIP are still the standard, not 7Zip, and the n00bs have already enough trouble with the ZIP/RAR standard.
And if you want to use another archiver depending the compressing ratio you'll end up with 20 (now yeah, a bit exaggerated ...) different formats, because one archive is not another (as you probably know already), depending what has to be compressed different algorithms used gives different results. 7Zip doesn't always win the match.

Anyway, to cut the blah blah and other crap short: even if I really like 7Zip, to host archives it isn't the standard. Period.

Maybe a tip to end: as you seems to like 7Zip a lot (as am I) maybe yuou could write a piece about it for ABTimes ( I'm too lazy, as usual).

Now it's 31/12/2009 22:20 here, time to hit the road and get some action to end this ol'year.

See ya folks, if I ever get sober again (doubtful).

No, of course you don't have to be an old member to be able to use the search function. I neither said nor implied this! But are you surprised that new members aren't happy with restrictions they deem unnecessary and encounter for the first time?
The last time this topic got discussed was 2 years ago! So I thought it was long enough to talk about it again, since things may have changed.
7ZIP became a better archive format, games that weren't deemed worthy of preservation, because they weren't old enough or weren't already abandoned, may be worty now, and file sizes got bigger. Also, we may not be content with rips anymore, we may want the "full" game now.
Things change with time, and therefore there may be new reasons for discussion.
That's all I wanted, a new discussion, and that's all you wondered about. And that made me wonder.

Better we let this point rest, ok? :)

And again.
The only place where I'm aware RARs are used is in the ISO Cellar (mostly because the uploads there come directly from the users and everyone uses whichever image formats and compression methods they like)

Unfortunately, we don't only get newbs but also complete n00bs. The sort who only ever heard of Windows XP (or Vista), who only can use hardware which is 100% plug-and-play, and who have zero patience for anything else. To quote one of them: "WTF is an emulator!!! I just want to play the games!!!"
LOL
*cough* If n00bs read the readmes, they wouldn't be n00bs. Most of them can't tell a batch script from their own foot.

XD You'd be very disappointed how some n00bs treated the games. Like trying to run every game using the same exact commands shown in an example in one of the DOSBox tutorials. :wall:

Yep, it was. Of course, they go in there on their own risk. :)

Yes, well, that's the hard part. Our tech support is subject to Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. :)

Don't worry, that was just ol' Raider's sense of humour in action (again). He really should need a government permit for lethal sarcasm.

At this time we don't have the possibility to adapt the site in any way, to allow for other formats then standard Zip.

Also, the tradeoff; a smaller file vs. shitstorm of complaints that the files can't be unpacked, is not worth it.

Last, The servers we have for the files, have no limitation on transfer, nor are we running out of disc-space any time soon.

That's basicly how I see it at the moment, however right you might be.

Now *this* is a prime example of why shit sometimes doesn't get done here.
This simple conversation that should've been over by post 3 has turned into a massive discussion that hasn't progressed further than "we can't because our servers don't support the format" (Nb, that doesn't say mediafire, etc...).

If you feel that .7z archives or self-extractors could be useful for ISO Cellar - as it is obvious (or should be) that they will not be used the main site games - then why not start re-packing the archives from the ISO Cellar as your contribution to the good fight?
It'd be a good way to become re-acquainted with some old games and meet some new ones.

It's really good that you have new ideas and the enthusiasm that it takes to become one of the staff at AB, Ozzie, but as you recognised - this is going nowhere.
Abandonia will not be using the .7z format for site archives at this time.
End of conversation.
Let's talk about what we *can* do.

I'm sure people would really appreciate a download that is half the size, but both you and I know that we will be fielding troubleshooting questions and will have to talk people through how the hell to unpack and run them. Even if they are self-extracting.

It is also not an insistence to support Abandonia users in their blunderings with 7zip - it is just how it is.

After a while, you will find that we deal with a *lot* of pretty silly questions and issues that could've easily been answered and resolved by reading one of our FAQ's or guides (granted they are not very obvious and people don't bother clicking though) that people have taken a lot of time to produce.

Hey - there's an idea.
If you really want to make something of the .7z format here, converting the ISO Cellar files - repacking the archives and uploading - would be a start.
More importantly, you could also write a short guide, maybe a standard readme.txt to include with repacks, as to how you go about:

- making a cd/dvd image (iso/bin/cue) NOT a rip [though people do rip]
- making a .7z archive of said image, so others can start doing this too
[^not necessary for readme.]

- downloading one of the ISO Cellar's .7z archives
- unpacking the .7z archive so the iso is ready to use
- mounting the iso, using Daemon/Alcohol/etc...
- installing and running progs/games from an iso. Esp in Dosbox.
- troubleshooting for complete r-tards.

I'd be happy to include a guide like this in the Abandoned Times.
If you'd like, I can send you Bullfrog's Magic Carpet iso. That will (hopefully) be going on site soon. It could be the first .7z option archive in the ISO Cellar.

I'm sure people will weigh your ideas a lot more heavily in future if there is some evidence that you are willing and able to follow them through to the end :rocks:
[ed]
There are too many people who say they will/can do all these wonderful things and then bugger off or come up with excuses when it is time to do something.
(i'm not bitter or anything)

noo
 

1. 7z format is not supported on plain Windows system, but .zip archvies are.
2. 7z is using HUGE amount of money in comparsion to zip, so its not very usefull with computers with less 128mb of ram... And many users of abandonia are using such machines...

7z is stupid fanboys format. Its SLOW, memory hungry and not compatible with anyhting.

Note: The guy before me meant memory, not money. Carry on.

I like 7zip. It’s a great little program that does a great job of archiving and compressing files (much better than .RAR or .ZIP). I think that it would be great if you found someone to rearchive all the ISO Cellar games in .7z format. The problem is that the program takes a long time to archive a CD image file (I should know, I’ve done it before) so to rearchive the entire ISO Cellar would take a lot of time.

I guess the two are pretty easily confused.

Do you have objective proof of that claim?
*sarcasm* Thank you for an expert's opinion.

i would be all for 7zip because it's of course better than the regular zip but you have to take in mind that it's not mainstream at all

and some of the newbies simply don't know what to do with a new extension, unless 7zip is supported by windows (majority of the newbs) by default we should not switch to 7zip

also @Unregistered32423dds - loool either this was a really bad trolling attempt or you're seriously retarded

Enough of this already. If you want to talk about which packer is better, then move this thread to 3xblah.

Ozzie, no hard feelings, you were not wrong to bring this up. You are right to say that some matters should be discussed again after some time. What you couldn't know is that this is not one of those matters. And there are always people who are capable of using the computer that agree with this, and then discussion starts.

Our main problem are users that don't know much about computers, they simply wanna play games. They are also majority of visitors. Yes, this means that EVERYTHING will be as simple as possible. I'm not even gonna discuss good or bad sides of ZIP, RAR, 7ZIP etc.

Site currently supports only ZIP, but even if the situation is different we are sticking with it as long as it is the EASIEST and the SIMPLEST solution. This criteria will be used for other things that are offered to users as well. Thanks for friendly suggestion, unfortunately after all this time of offering and helping the visitors to play old games, you learn well that even the slightest increase in complexity will result with tons of questions and threads from lot of unhappy visitors. Nobody wants that. And we don't have problems with disc-space.

Titan's words are the final conclusion.

Well, first I reply to Saccade's points one by one! :)

Well, if my only interest was to upload games, then I would have stayed at "Adventure Legends" and continued to upload images there. I may care about sharing rare games, but I don't care where I do it. I came to Abandonia to write reviews. And to perfectly honest, I don't want my "Secrets of the Pyramids" review go to waste.

Well, I may not know much about it, maybe I need to familiarize with the apparently hellish huge amount of help requests that exist. I'm sure there will be a spike in requests if we introduced 7ZIP. But then, change always irritates a bit.
I realize that the priorities here are different than mine. I just would be content with a guide that explains the whole process of unpacking and burning.

Well, it just so happens that I wrote such a guide. ;)

A Newbie's Guide to Unpacking und Burning Images that are compressed with 7-ZIP & ECM

Well, if you want to... ;)

I dunno. I'm really not interested in repacking stuff. I just brought this whole discussion up so I could create an archive under the 150MiB limit. And that didn't work with ZIP. :(

Hehe. :) Well, like I said, and hopefully showed, I'm interested in contributing, but mainly only in writing reviews. :)

---------------------------
No, I care about the practical use, not much about the format itself. I thought its use would be a good thing for Abandonia.

Well, thanks. :)
I just wished I would have known before. Now I feel I wasted my time. :-/

Edit: Somehow, this forum sucks. When you swing open the spoiler you can only read half of the guide, the rest is cut off. :(

Well, I wish I could do something about that feeling, but you will have that feeling every now and then if you are doing voluntary work of any kind. I somehow see it as normal and I've accepted that. Especially if you have lot of ideas (trust me, I know what I'm talking about). Despite that I'm still contributing. It all comes down to the basic motive: it's either ego or love (love for old games and reviewing in this case). If love overcomes ego, you will keep contributing and thinking of new ideas although some of your ideas are refused, or even impossible. And no decent review will go to waste here...

edit: yes, we are having lot of technical problems. You will be able to see entire guide once the page is long enough (yeah, it sucks :( )

We understand us, it seems. :)
Sure, ego plays its part, but I don't think that the contrary force here is love for the old games, but the love to Abandonia, which isn't the same! I didn't lose my motivation to contribute now, but if it ever happens, I'll still contribute in other ways, for other sites.

Then you might tell me what we can do with my review on Abandonia then? Maybe publish it for Abandonia Times? Anyway, this should be a part of another topic. If there's no way, it will go on MobyGames. :)

I should create some more space then. :)

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So true! So much that I in fact didn't even bother reading the whole thread. Don't we have such a thread and also a "why don't we start a mIRC channel this year" thread every year? :mhh:

Yes, we do. It is good thing actually, to see people liking abandonia :3:

Also "Why are we keeping reviews of sold/protected games anyuway" and "Why do we care about sold/protected status in the first place". :rocks:
Have to admit, though - they always have some amusement value. XD

You forgot to mention - we often talk about: Why there is a limit for a size of the game :)

Without the limit - this discussion would not have place :lol:

back to topic: When i upload files to ISO Cellar I use 7zip, but only as a program - the files are still ordinary ZIP. I really do not like when some downloadable things are compressed with something I do not know (it does not happen often, but it happens) or are not useable without additional soft. I got a collection of programs which I like and installing things for just *one* other thing is no fun.

As we earlier agreed - let's stay with ZIP :)

Shouldn't we start to slowly bypass the current limit?
I mean, I'm not for adding 700MB CD images all of sudden, but what difference does it make if the archive is 150MB or 250MB?

I said numerous times before - this "rule" is not absolute nor immutable.
If we have a slightly bigger game, go and add it anyway. :)

What!? I'm not even allowed to add an ugly workaround for an ugly bug!? :omg:
Well, okay, I guess I have to create a new thread for the guide then...

That's probably true.

Well, I went ahead and added the *slightly* bigger 341MiB archive. That's the smallest size I got while still remaining compatibility with Windows Explorer unarchiver. :dunno:

O.o 341 MB?
Maaan... "slightly bigger" doesn' mean "more than twice the size". :p

Well, yeah, it's not like I didn't try to change it... :(
It's the best I have to offer in the boundaries of the rules.
First I tried it with WinZIP, because I thought that a program specialized on ZIP would offer the best result...but no actually, with 7ZIP and the compression method Deflate64 I got the better one. If I use the compression method BZip2 or LZMA the Windows Explorer unarchiver can't unpack the archive anymore.
So...I dunno what we do with it. Your decision. Like I already said, maybe it would be an alternative to publish the review in Abandoned Times...

Edit: I reposted the "Newbie's Guide to Unpacking und Burning Images that are compressed with 7-ZIP & ECM" here.

Didn't the cellar been created to be able to share big archives?

Yes, but we should start adding big archives on the main site. Not exactly 700MB CD images, but some newer games would be fine. And I think that review should be going to AT while we are still uncertain about 340MB big archive...

Comes time, comes faster internets and more bandwith at reduced prices.

True.
However. The average transfer on the file server amounts to every game on the site being downloaded ~10 times a day, and monthly bandwidth from the game downloads and music area exceeds three terabytes a month (yes, TERABYTES) already.
Basing on that, adding a single 700 MB CD image would increase the bandwidth usage by approximately 7 GB a day and 210 GB a month.

I don't really see us going to 350 MB archives anywhere soon.

Is it possible for games that don't have rips or disk versions to somehow link to ISO cellar? When you click on GET IT it opens the topic in ISO cellar or NO GO with the note that game can be found at ISO cellar... This is just an idea that I don't really like myself, but on the other hand it would make it possible to have some attractive titles which will surely bring more visitors... And we won't be taking up bandwith... Although it does feel like we becoming the forum for games on sharing sites... Don't know what's better really...

I though we can add links as extras?

I'm not asking about possibility to do something like that, it is surely possible one way or another. What I was asking is WILL we do that, since I don't think we ever did that, nor we spoke about any similar idea. As far as I know, only games with archives that we can offer from our server can go to main site. Rest is in ISO cellar. I wonder will we change this rule.

Sounds nice.
But then, the question is, how can we control that the downloads are always available and that the links don't break after a while? It could be a hassle to reupload the games, to maintain this...
Which host services would be most reliable? Maybe someone would need a registered/premium account so that there isn't the danger that the files will be removed from the server after a while. Hrm...

The other option is that we won't give a guarantee that the download always works in those ISO cellar cases. But that would suck, too, wouldn't it?
I guess these are the issues that need discussion...

Indeed. IMO it is still better to provide something that is hard to maintain than nothing. And if games are downloaded enough they probably won't need much maintaining, especially if they appear on the main page and attract more players. We can also provide both CD images and disk versions of the games that have both kinds of archives.

However, this is for discussion indeed.

Then again there are torrents (if you want to save the bandwidth)....

Sure, adding torrents for big downloads might be a good idea?
Anybody else for it? Or against it?
I think it would be painless to adopt, I can't see many reasons against it, but then, maybe someone has a different opinion!?

Edit: I guess someone might come with the "Users are dumb!" argument again...
Well, the only other option would be to not offer the games with big file sizes then, and that's surely worse. Anyway, the only thing you need to learn with torrent clients is how to open ports. But that might be necessary either! And I think if you want these games, then you will learn it! ;)
And many people use torrent clients already anyway...

I wonder if Studentis would like the lost of advertising income .....

Okay, so the question is how much it would hurt Abandonia...
I dunno, it should be a non-issue.
You could redirect the users first to a different page with the advertising before they can actually start the download of the torrent file, just like it already happens with the game downloads!

We'd LOVE to add a torrent tracker to AB.
The problem is in the small fact that the only people with access to do that are Studentis' own staff.
As in: overworked, undermanned and not yet done fixing the existing bugs on the site?

May I ask why this access is so limited? Because it sounds like it wouldn't be such a big problem if other people could help, too...

Edit: Ah, I see. A company owns Abandonia, which isn't a reason itself, but somehow, it often is for limited cooperation. Which kinda sucks.

More to the point: We are volunteers they "inherited" (so to say) from the previous owner.

:omg: We would??? How come? I mean, I don't really understand. I thought that it is in Abandonia's interest to have people visiting our site. And providing games via some public share places means that people will have to come to abandonia and at least visit ISO cellar. And then adding reviews to the main site and redirecting to ISO cellar would be much same like we do now, except they will have some bother to download games... But I guess we could give them torrent file as well, it's practically similar. People will use what they prefer anyway...

It is our interest to have people visiting, indeed. XD
Various means can be employed to prevent users reposting the torrents elsewhere, and there are several distinct advantages to using BitTorrent for distribution of the larger files.

So is 7zip safe compared to ZIP? I'm thinking of converting many of old zip archives to 7zip since it provides a much better ratio. For example, my save game folder for one game is 43 MB uncompressed, 32 MB zipped, and 4 MB 7zipped. But I worry about data loss, especially with older files. I don't know why.

So how safe is it compared to zip? And what's the maximum size for an archive? I'm having trouble finding info on that for some reason.

The maximum size...no idea. I never reached the limit! :D
But a simple look on the homepage offered this insight:
7ZIP is stable and from my side it never created a corrupt archive, as long as you don't use the beta versions, at least. ;)

I additionally used ECM for my 78MiB archive of Secrets of Pyramids, a tool that compresses CD images and makes them better compressible with tools like WinRAR or 7ZIP. I learned that this program can corrupt your CD image sometimes, so I would only use it with caution...

ECM corrupted the images or 7ZIP did?

neither win zip nor 7zip "corrupts" your data

Like I said, ECM did. :)