Blender + UPX (for Windows version)

[Friday13]

Hello, maybe this isn't the right forum section, or the right forum at all, but yesterday i did some testing with UPX (Ultimate Packer for eXecutables) to see if it could reduce the size of Blender program files. So, here are the results:
http://omarmodesto.tripod.com/blenderupx.txt

It might be a good idea to distribute the official BF-Blender (or even Tuhopuu) using this, to reduce download times and disk space. That's all

(Note: no harsh comments, flames, or anything like that, just in case)

[Fred_Pyo]

That would be great! I love faster download times...

[Pablosbrain]

Too funny... I'm not sayin its a bad idea... I just find it funny your trying to make a 3D application that is still under 5 megs total even smaller... hah. To much fun in this group! I'm assuming that it uncompresses itself when run. In my mind this probably adds to the startup time... not very much but still... I'd rather have a fast app than a small one. If I'm wrong let me know... also.. would there be an equivalent for the other platforms? If not I would say stay away from it and stick to doing stuff as identically as possible between platforms.

[Timothy]

hmm I'm not sure if this is true since I really dunno how this tool achieves it's compression; but I would assume this would make the actual loading of Blender slower, since it would have to decompress before loading into memory? In my opinion anything that makes a program slower only at the gain of extra diskspace is silly, since diskspace, in perticular the amount Blender takes up, is cheap
Asfor downloading size, I doubt you would be able to compress this alot with zip, so the downloading size would be roughly the same as the current 2.2mb for the zip and .exe download.
I don't think this is really worth looking into.

(Note: no harsh comments, flames, or anything like that, just in case)

You tempt me!

[Bab]

UPX is a good compressor executable but with this, the program get one big block on memory and the program is slower. But with this you can after decompress it, if the download is smaller than the original installation, yes it is a good idea because anyone can decompress it with the UPX program.

I make a test with the 7zip compressor http://www.7-zip.org/%20(only%20on%20wi ... han%20UPX.

[Timothy]

UPX is a good compressor executable but with this, the program get one big block on memory and the program is slower. But with this you can after decompress it, if the download is smaller than the original installation, yes it is a good idea because anyone can decompress it with the UPX program.

I make a test with the 7zip compressor http://www.7-zip.org/%20(only%20on%20wi ... han%20UPX.

I think it's very important that a compression format is well supported,.. the basic .zip format is extremely well supported and can basicly be opened by most people with a windows computer.
Having to download other tools, plugins, or whatever to decompress blender would kind of suck. Besides, how many users would think about decompressing a .exe file?

[Bab]

Yes Timothy it is true, I make a sfx version and it is at 1.75Mo and I think I can make lower (nearly 1.7Mo).

[Friday13]

Pablosbrain: i haven't noticed slowdowns in my crappy 500mhz PoS (Piece of Shiznit) computer.

Timothy: but when Blender is getting bigger and bigger in filesize, using UPX is a good idea for keeping it compact.


Maybe this sounded like a bad idea for most of you, so i'll just keep using UPX myself.


There, end of discussion.

(and again, no harsh comments, etc )


<edit> BTW, did you read this? http://upx.sourceforge.net/#overview <edit>

Yet again, no flames, harsh comments, of throwing of files made with other 3D apps

[ideasman]

I have used UPX on linux an Windows and have found it to great- I think it best to distribute un-fiddeled with binaries.

That- Or give the user an option.

I wouldrather compress it with upx myself.