Why 7-ZIP should be used.

Ozzie · 31-12-2009, 05:43 PM

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

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.
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.
Thanks to the huge compression benefit compared to other archive formats, it may save a lot of server space.

Saccade · 31-12-2009, 06:27 PM

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

[ed]
I'm likin' yr enthusiam, tho, Ozzie

keep contributing!

*The Fifth Horseman* · 31-12-2009, 06:31 PM

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).

dosraider · 31-12-2009, 06:45 PM

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

So yes, again .....?

Saccade · 31-12-2009, 06:50 PM

That is sooo last year, Dosraider

Ozzie · 31-12-2009, 07:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Fifth Horseman

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).

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.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saccade

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.

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.

-------
@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?

Saccade · 31-12-2009, 07:50 PM

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?

Ozzie · 31-12-2009, 08:14 PM

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.

Quote:

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...

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.

dosraider · 31-12-2009, 08:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ozzie

@dosraider: The thread you linked to is nearly two years old! I'm new here.....

My sincere excuses, I didn't knew that the search function was only accessible for non-new members, I stand corrected.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ozzie

.....7-ZIP improved a lot in the meantime, and things could change, you know. So, what do you expect?

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).

Ozzie · 31-12-2009, 08:36 PM

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?