repack

[lukachandrika]

guys does there are links with repack versions of games which will minimize the games size and expands again after downloading but not compressed versions which has low quality ?

 

[anne O'nymous]

guys does there are links with repack versions of games which will minimize the games size and expands again after downloading but not compressed versions which has low quality ?

No, because such version do not exist.
If there were a compression algorithm that permit to just save 5% of size compared to all others algorithm, you could be sure that everyone would be using/recommending it already. Compressed versions rely on quality decrease because it's the only way to compress a game.

 

[lukachandrika]

No, because such version do not exist.
If there were a compression algorithm that permit to just save 5% of size compared to all others algorithm, you could be sure that everyone would be using/recommending it already. Compressed versions rely on quality decrease because it's the only way to compress a game.

but i saw one of the games DOD on a repack website with a decreased size and after installing it becomes in original size and there are some other games but not that good , and the games with high quality content has a large size and with every update you have to redownload all of it again with the internet in my country its a bit hard .

 

[anne O'nymous]

but i saw one of the games DOD on a repack website with a decreased size and after installing it becomes in original size

Hmm. That how archives works :/
But you seem to imply that they haven't touched the CGs, not even changing the compression ratio to something a little bit smaller while still having a good enough quality. And I really don't see how this can be done with more than a really low save of the archived size. Passing time adjusting the dictionary size and algorithm you can perhaps reach a 5% gain, but I doubt that you can really do better.

 

[slimypettanko]

Hmm. That how archives works :/
But you seem to imply that they haven't touched the CGs, not even changing the compression ratio to something a little bit smaller while still having a good enough quality. And I really don't see how this can be done with more than a really low save of the archived size. Passing time adjusting the dictionary size and algorithm you can perhaps reach a 5% gain, but I doubt that you can really do better.

I don't know about those specific repacks, but in some special circumstances some games can be compressed to a lower size than merely naive archiving.
To give an example, I recall a game where the developer would encrypt the game resources, but it had no packing. If you try to pack encrypted data (high entropy) you won't achieve much compression, but if you decrypt it, compress it and then have your installer re-encrypt it thus regenerating the data, you could have achieved a lot of compression. In a similar way, there's no point in recompressing already compressed formats, but sometimes unpacking and repacking with a better compression format may help, some formats are tuned for specific data types (text, code, images, music, and so on). This usually would require per-game code. If the game is already using easily compressable formats, then your benefits might only be marginal when switching various compression formats. I've also seen some cases where people had very large redundant datasets that gained a lot from using a tuned compression.
Is this worth it for most games? Not in 2022. Back in the '90s and early 2000s there used to be rip groups that have a similar purpose as these public repack groups, often they would have custom tools they made for unpacking and repacking for various game engines used at the time and were trying to squeeze as much out of their games as possible. It was justifiable back then when many people were on dialup or DSL, nowadays less so.

Also other examples are when a game uses redundant files that are almost copies of each other and it can be possible to store just the differences. All this would have to be decided on a case by case basis.

 

[anne O'nymous]

I don't know about those specific repacks, but in some special circumstances some games can be compressed to a lower size than merely naive archiving.

But as you concluded, nowadays it wouldn't lead to a really significant gain in most of the case.
For Ren'Py the only thing I see is to unpack the resources. The compression algorithm will do better works with independent x MB files, than with a global x GB one (that isn't even compressed). But, except passing an hour tweaking the configuration of the algorithm, there's not much more that can be done.

 

[lukachandrika]

look guys i didn't understand some of the replay but this example illustrates the idea, as the game before installation has a size of 11 GB and this is the size that you downloaded, and in the other picture, the main game size after installation reached 23 GB and so I saved about 12 GB and this is the idea of Repack compressing the files to facilitate the transfer and then unpacking them again to get the full size In full quality, but how to convert the original file to a compressed Repack file, i do not know about it.

 

[anne O'nymous]

[...] and this is the idea of Repack compressing the files

No, what you show is just basic compression of the distributed file.

Due to the name, we can guess that the said compression was redone (like slimypettanko said), but that's all, and what you're showing mean nothing.
Yes, games are distributed in a compressed format, and yes they take more space once installed. It was already the case for the game/software I used in the 80's, and it's still the case for all games nowadays.
Yes, there's some compression methods that works better than others, but nowadays the difference is minimal. It's more in the time needed to create the archive that the difference is made.
Yes, sometimes you can reduce the size if you redo the archive. But without knowing the original size of the archive, there's no way to tell how efficient was FitGirl with his/her repack.


I made a test with the game Corruption.
Distribution size: 9 462 631 Bytes.
Redone archive (better compression method) size: 9 426 777 Bytes (~0.5%) (~20 minutes processing)
Repacked (individual CGs, better compression method) size: 9 376 658 Bytes (~1%) (~25 minutes processing)

A gain of 1% is totally insignificant. Whatever how big 90 MB can feel for you, there would be no difference. Even if you needed 18 hours to download the game because your connection is really slow, it would just save you 11 minutes... Sorry if it seem harsh, but when you pass 18 hours downloading something, it's not 11 minutes more or less that will make a change.
And obviously, the less time you need to download the archive, the less time you gain.

 

[lukachandrika]

No, what you show is just basic compression of the distributed file.

Due to the name, we can guess that the said compression was redone (like slimypettanko said), but that's all, and what you're showing mean nothing.
Yes, games are distributed in a compressed format, and yes they take more space once installed. It was already the case for the game/software I used in the 80's, and it's still the case for all games nowadays.
Yes, there's some compression methods that works better than others, but nowadays the difference is minimal. It's more in the time needed to create the archive that the difference is made.
Yes, sometimes you can reduce the size if you redo the archive. But without knowing the original size of the archive, there's no way to tell how efficient was FitGirl with his/her repack.


I made a test with the game Corruption.
Distribution size: 9 462 631 Bytes.
Redone archive (better compression method) size: 9 426 777 Bytes (~0.5%) (~20 minutes processing)
Repacked (individual CGs, better compression method) size: 9 376 658 Bytes (~1%) (~25 minutes processing)

A gain of 1% is totally insignificant. Whatever how big 90 MB can feel for you, there would be no difference. Even if you needed 18 hours to download the game because your connection is really slow, it would just save you 11 minutes... Sorry if it seem harsh, but when you pass 18 hours downloading something, it's not 11 minutes more or less that will make a change.
And obviously, the less time you need to download the archive, the less time you gain.

the problem in my internet is not slow its reliable but the problem is that there is a limited data in my internet system so i cant download this big sized games not for once but i will redownloaded it again with every new update which is not practical with my internet system and i wished if i found the games here in the repack way which making it easy for me so i have to wait being adik when it finished to download it for one time .

 

[anne O'nymous]

[...] the problem is that there is a limited data in my internet system so i cant download this big sized games [...]

It's what the compressed versions are for. Of course, there's a downgrade regarding the quality of the CGs, but generally it's far to be unbearable. Anyway it's the only possible solution to have the full update while still having a small archive size.

but i will redownloaded it again with every new update which is not practical with my internet system [...]

Personally what I do is to download the standard version the first time I try the game, to have an effective view of its visual quality, then only download the compressed version until the game is finished. And when it's finished, I again download the standard version. Not that I have limits to my connection, but I have enough crap on my hard drives like that, so the time it's finished I limit their size.