more test.. sorry no time measures



Heavy Metal - FAKK2 (377 MB)
.rar 339mb
.7z 341mb

seem like 7z lost this one



MegaLoMania (1.27MB)
.rar 0.99mb
.7z 0.99mb

i tie..but this was hardly a big enough archieve to show any difference


13 .AAC files (39,8 MB)
.rar 38.8
.7z 38.9

see, 7z lost again


it seem like with files who have bad compressability 7z. looses
maybe due to to big headers/compression window

Still, for such small differences i'd still use 7z and not ace .. WinAce compresses very well, and 7z never compresses much worse than Ace, only just a little, which is great. WinAce 2 was once the best, then WinRAR 3 came and the contest between the two never stopped, WinRAR beats some times, and WinAce sometimes, 7z is totally free and just as good as both, swings between better and slightly worse compressiblility. I'm glad this topic was posted .

And AgentMil, emulation brings a sensation i once had with NES, Genesis, arcade machines and Playstation!
Long live emulation!

LoL! I still have my NES, still play it sometime, but not very often anymore. Yeah the sensation of coolness when you play games from an era long forgotten by most modern gamers.

I've had my first bad experience with 7-Zip today.

Try downloading this and this archive - will they open? 7-Zip told me they were both "not supported archives" or something like that. PowerArchiver would open and extract them fine.

It IS strange.. However it may be something about weird compression by someone at that site. I wonder what the problem is.

Volcano: 7-zip doesn't support methods older than deflate (maybe another as well). If that zip is *really* old to be archived with PKzip 1.01 shrinking, crunching and whatsoever methods, it will probably don't be supported by 7-zip. As all *modern* zip compressors use 'deflate' as compression method, it's unlikely to find an uncompresable .zip file (or if you found one, use commandline INFO-unzip, or another zip decompressor).

Ah! So that's why..
Hard to believe people actually use methods that old .

SK1: if you continue answering so fast, you will overrrun Dibrom posts per day

(yeah, i know, that was calculated assuming Dibrom being a member *since 2002-08-26* )

When I started using 7z I was very fascinated by its alarming compression. However RAR has fought back and very well too, since v 3.0. Also, RAR archives are very much popular and I'm gonna stick to it. It compresses more or less identical to 7z (sometimes better), has. Moreover it supports multi-segmented archives (which I often use) and has a nice GUI as well. 7z also doesnt currently support encrypted archives. Thats another downer. 7z looks very promising, though. RAR 3.0 is the man of the moment!

I use 7z for personal archives, Zip and Rar for public distributions. One thing I dislike about 7z is that when you add files in a folder to an archive, you can't delete that folder anymore! Strange bug...

They're not exactly that old... no older than November 2001.

...if you feel secure with those encryption methods...
...you will do better encoding with GPG or PGP...

IMHO the best compressors I love are:

1/WinRAR: versatile,fast,high compression ratio
2/Rk Archiver: high compression ratio (most of the time better than WinRAR) but too slow and need a gui....

WinAce is good but slows down the system :-(

Best Regards,
Nick

Author of 7-zip said, that he will use AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) in future version of 7-zip.

I know for a fact, that 7zip decompresses Proton 3.1, so the problem has to be somewhere else...

dev0

"2/Rk Archiver: high compression ratio (most of the time better than WinRAR) but too slow and need a gui...."

I've uploaded RK GUI for you.
Download it here.

i'm just curious to know how 7zip compares to cab files? in my (very) limited experience, nothing compresses better than cab (lzx cab files, anyway). are there issues with the cab format that i'm not aware of? i admit it's kind of slow, but people here don't seem to care about that sort of thing. also win2k supports cab files the way xp supports zip files (which i thought was nice), and you can always split the file manually, or use something that supports split zip files to do the splitting for you (set it to store).

another question, most archive utilities use context menus, but i've only come across 2 that allow yout to "extract here" instead of into a new directory (winrar and filzip). does 7zip do it too? i could download it and try, or i could be lazy and just ask...

I remember thinking the same thing almost 10 years ago when i switched the compression format of the archives on my BBS from ZIP to RAR 2.0...

Using ZIP files won't make them switch, but using .7z will make them wonder, and of course, a proper link to the home page so they can get the program to open the files.

In other words: Just use it, they will get the program. Put a link to the 7 zip homepage.

Hey, I remember you! You mailed me some months ago suggesting 7z for my files, didn't you?

Well, here are the reasons I can't use 7zip for the time being:

-The format is nearly unknown (Except fot you, geeks). I can foresee my mailbox being flooded by people complaining that my files are broken and Winzip refuses to open them.

-You can open Zip files anywhere. Some people (mostly people using public computers) can't download and install 7-zip in order to open the files.

-SFX won't do. Lots of people coming to RareWares are using Linux, and some even MacOS (I suppose they are after souce files). If I use SFX, they won't be able to decompress at their favorite plataforms.
(The only files inside SFXs there are the AAC winamp plugins, but that's an obvious exception)

Regards;

Roberto.

no it was me..

Oh. OK.

cab doesn't compress all that well, rar and ace and many others compress much better

argh. typed out a response and the browser died. here goes again. sooo... i dunno what type of cabinet files you're talking about, but i can't remember ever seeing something smaller as a rar than as a cabinet. as a sanity check, and because i haven't ever used winrar 3.0, i went and installed all this software and compressed my open office installation (it being the largest convenient thing short of my windows or program files directories).

original:
108 342 056
zip:
47 728 971
rar:
39 561 216
cab:
37 317 618
7z:
35 956 742

of note, cab and 7z took much much MUCH longer than the other three. also, this is just a single directory, so it may not be representative (stderr = inf). barring gross errors, i suppose that rar is the best in terms of efficiency. if it was free ($$, not like FSF free) i might have considered actually using it. 7z seems to work well. in any case, i'm still interested in why you have the impression that cab files don't compress well.

oh yeah.. and i've always been under the impression that winace was crap, so i didn't bother with that. not that zip isn't crap also, but it's a bit more ubiquitous than ace...

edit: it appears that ace files have gotten since i last used them... whatever.

The WinAce format isn't really crap.. But WinAce sure is.
And, WinRAR 3 costs 25$, i think that's a good price, for such a good, FAST, efficient format and program.
7z is good, but not as fast, and nothing compares to WinRAR (the gui, prog). I use WinRAR 3 AND 7z. Depends what for, and who for.

And about cab.. i must say i'm pretty surprised.

dev0:



OK, I'll try to re-download it. If it works then, I was just extremely unlucky to have two archives corrupted during the download in one go...

They won't work. SOMEthing about those archives is bad/old. Won't work with 7z.

try again with rar using the best compression method, solid archive, and 4096KB dictionary size...

interesting, but slow. i ran this thingy over some docs = txt, html, pdf files:

88.437.787 docs.zip (internal wincmd zip)
82.909.269 docs.7z
--------------------

i did use those options, actually, except for the dictionary size. i'm no expert, so i wasn't aware of some of the more subtle options. but it's already off my hdd, since i'm a college student == poor so i wasn't planning on using it anyway. how important is changing the dictionary size from the default value? just curious...

Dictionary size was 4096 by default last time I tried WinRAR 3.0.

The 7z format in itself is very impressive, however that lack of what I would call a very good sleak frontend for the program like WinRAR is missing - that alone is the reason I never did anything much with 7z.

If a very usable frontend was made packed with all the goodies, and some of the problems (I won't elaborate) I've encountered in Win98 were repaired I'd give the format another try-out.

Over that past two years whatever archiver I've installed I'd always end up almost immediately uninstalling it in favor of WinRAR.

dictionary size makes a great deal of difference, the more data you have to compress, the more important a larger dictionary size is. It can make a very big difference in the compressed size. Perhaps this newer program can beat winrar in some or a lot of cases, but I've been using winrar for years now and it's enough of a standard for me to keep from switching.

Currently 7Zip is the most powerful common archiver on the web. Here are the results for compressing two dirs in GTA3 pc game.

Uncompressed files: 298,208,343 bytes
WinZip (Best compression) 2.5 mins 106.3 Mb
7Zip ZIP Mode (-mx) 6 mins 99.0 Mb
WinAce 2.2 (4Mb,MAX,solid,...) 6 mins 84.2 Mb
WinRar 3.0 (4Mb,MAX,solid,...) 6 mins 78.1 Mb
7Zip Mode 1 - 5 mins 74.0 Mb
7Zip Mode 2 - 9 mins 60.9 Mb
7Zip Mode 3 - 13 mins 55.4 Mb
7Zip Mode 4 - 17 mins 50.3 Mb
7Zip Mode 5 - 22 mins 48.7 Mb

Feel the difference, huh!

Command lines for 7zip modes:

7z.exe a -t7z -r -y backup.7z *.* -m0=BCJ2 -m1=LZMA -m2=LZMA -m3=LZMA -mb0:1 -mb0s1:2 -mb0s2:3 -m1a=0 -m2a=0 -m3a=0 -m1d=4M -m2d=4M -m3d=4M -m1fb=32 -m2fb=32 -m3fb=32

7z.exe a -t7z -r -y backup.7z *.* -m0=BCJ2 -m1=LZMA -m2=LZMA -m3=LZMA -mb0:1 -mb0s1:2 -mb0s2:3 -m1a=1 -m2a=1 -m3a=1 -m1d=8M -m2d=8M -m3d=8M -m1fb=32 -m2fb=32 -m3fb=32

7z.exe a -t7z -r -y backup.7z *.* -m0=BCJ2 -m1=LZMA -m2=LZMA -m3=LZMA -mb0:1 -mb0s1:2 -mb0s2:3 -m1a=2 -m2a=2 -m3a=2 -m1d=16M -m2d=16M -m3d=16M -m1fb=64 -m2fb=64 -m3fb=64

7z.exe a -t7z -r -y backup.7z *.* -m0=BCJ2 -m1=LZMA -m2=LZMA -m3=LZMA -mb0:1 -mb0s1:2 -mb0s2:3 -m1a=2 -m2a=2 -m3a=2 -m1d=32M -m2d=32M -m3d=32M -m1fb=128 -m2fb=128 -m3fb=128

7z.exe a -t7z -r -y backup.7z *.* -m0=BCJ2 -m1=LZMA -m2=LZMA -m3=LZMA -mb0:1 -mb0s1:2 -mb0s2:3 -m1a=2 -m2a=2 -m3a=2 -m1d=45M -m2d=45M -m3d=45M -m1fb=192 -m2fb=192 -m3fb=192

U need lots of mem for last 2 modes, but difference comparing to WinRAR3 is incredible.

7zip always gets better compression on every type of files, comparing to common other archivers.

----------------

Just made another test.

Commodore Amiga #-B TOSEC full set, 2563 files.

Unpacked: 2,308,855,869 bytes
ZIP MAX: 1,245,925,724 bytes
WinRAR3 Solid MAX: 651,161,766 bytes
7ZIP MAX: 507,384,429 bytes (7z.exe a -t7z -r -y backup.7z *.* -m0=BCJ2 -m1=LZMA -m2=LZMA -m3=LZMA -mb0:1 -mb0s1:2 -mb0s2:3 -m1a=2 -m2a=2 -m3a=2 -m1d=45M -m2d=45M -m3d=45M -m1fb=192 -m2fb=192 -m3fb=192)


Maybe my message is late, but some numbers may be useful.

Nero must have self-compressed binary files, I'd expect 7z to have much more compression than ZIP and RAR.

A really fair test is to exclude those binaries since they do not recompress much. A program called UPX is used quite a bit, such CDex is a one for instance.

i still think that 7z are lacking alot of features

I'm using winrar do distrubte self-installing archieves.

e.g sfx archive that decomrpes to %temp% folder , run an exe file, clears up the temp folder after running the .exe.

7z does not have this option.

also you need to many mouse clicks to extract an .7z archieve compaed to extracting a .rar archieve ( a very small issues)

For ultimate compression of ZIP archives, use ZipMax:
www.clrmame.com
It parses each file within a ZIP archive and tries several different compression methods before choosing the best one for each file, and then multiplexes the ZIP accordingly.
Usually you can shave off at least a few % which can make quite a difference it you're using big files.

Just in case anyone was interested...

Even "mode 3" (-m3d=16M -m1fb=64 etc...) failed on my system, giving System Error: Out of memory... I only have 192 MB RAM and my swap on a fixed-size partition. Is the same amount of RAM needed for decompression?

Tested on 242 MB uncompressed data:

7z -tzip -mx : 123 MB
Winrar 3 (4 MB dict, max etc) : 67.0 MB
7z "mode 2" : 61.1 MB

I would switch to 7z if it had the same amount of features like winrar, for example:

• Multivolume support
  
• Using a "rarfiles.lst" or grouping files togheter by their contents instead of sorting by extension
  
• recovery record/volumes
  
• better gui similar to win- zip/rar/ace

Rightclick->Extract->OK is to many clicks? How many clicks do you need in Winrar? Unless it is zero it is not that big a difference if at all.

As for a self installer. All that is waiting is for someone to write it. And since the source is open they could easily do so. Not so for RAR.

I was getting the same errors. But I had my swap size fixed. I set it back to system managed(yech) and it worked ok. Swap balooned up to a GB but it worked. And for those of you using the GUI version wanting to try the switches simply remove all instances of the "-m" switch but leave what follows. Simple I know. But still easy for people to miss.

For eg. "0=BCJ2 1=LZMA 2=LZMA 3=LZMA b0:1 b0s1:2 b0s2:3 1a=2 2a=2 3a=2 1d=45M 2d=45M 3d=45M 1fb=192 2fb=192 3fb=192"




Multivolume is tenatively schedualed for December as are recovery records. I miss the old GUI. I hope the current version is not around much longer. Though I don't use the GUI that much. As far as a "rarfiles.lst" I have never used one and am not 100% on what it is. Some sort of rules for automated file compression of set directories? If I need to compress stuff by common content I simply select and compress that stuff myself.

It is used to increase compression.

For example; adding a bunch of .c files, then .mp3 (or other type that is hard to compress) and last a bunch of .txt-files, it's most likely that grouping the .c and .txt togheter increases compression.

From the Winrar help:





Looks promising

Edit2: (removed the last edit...)

Did some digging through the helpfile and the forums at http://sourceforge.net/projects/sevenzip/

For maximum zip-compression (slightly better than -mx):


The author himself, Igor Pavlov stated:

So I used a modified "mode 4":

7z.exe a -t7z -r -y backup.7z *.* -m0=BCJ2 -m1=LZMA -m2=LZMA -m3=LZMA -mb0:1 -mb0s1:2 -mb0s2:3 -m1a=2 -m2a=2 -m3a=2 -m1d=32M -m2d=4M -m3d=4M -m1fb=128 -m2fb=128 -m3fb=128

This worked on my system, used about ~550 MB RAM. Can someone (with large ram) please test how well this line compresses vs Zombiek's "mode 4" ? Preferably on a large amount of .exe and .dll-files...

Cool program. At least for me (I have lot of time to repack my zips ) Does anyone know some commandline free zip compessors (I already have 7zip (7zan.exe) and Info-zip 2.3)

Just a suggestion: check out CTX "... that on most datatypes achieves compression very close to WinRAR 3.00 and sometimes even better. CTX is strongly fixed in "top 10" archivers. In future, results shown by version 1.00 final will be even better."

...and is GPL !

with winrar you just need one (right)click and move the mouse af little

but as i said: its a small issue

and about the self installer ? i dont care if someoen could make it himself. I can't, so i cannot use 7z for 90% or my archieving.

i would skip to 7z as soon as this option was there, but it isn't

Actually, it is.

Go to the help file (the .chm, not the .txt) and go to Command Line Version -> Switches -> -sfx

There's a sub-section dealing with creating a simple installer. If all you're looking to do is automagically run some setup.exe, then this should work just fine.

I just tested it out and it's really easy. There's even a sample file in the help that you can copy and paste then edit to your liking.

thans alot
running an .exe is all that i need.

ill try this and if it works then winrar is going to the bin

I find this format very interesting - very good compression and GNU LGPL.

For people searching a good GUI try "Total Commander" (formerly known as "Windows Commander") with the MultiArc plugin (multiple packer extension). There is a preformed configuration for 7z which works well. You can get it from Total Commander - Plugins

Just wondering...

Usually I just right click on the files, choose Add to 7z -> Maximum, Create Solid Archive.

Would it give better compression if I use extra parameters?

Did some more tests:

A collection of fasttracker .xm modules (461 MB uncompressed):

zip: 315.5 MB
rar3: 234.5 MB
7z: 177.3 MB

However, 7z isn't always best:

A collection of fasttracker .xi instruments (305 MB uncompressed, ~3500 files)

7z: 186 MB
rar3: 179 MB

rar3 = 4 MB dict, solid, max, etc...
7z: 7zn.exe a -t7z -r -y -m0=BCJ2 -m1=LZMA -m2=LZMA -m3=LZMA -mb0:1 -mb0s1:2 -mb0s2:3 -m1a=2 -m2a=2 -m3a=2 -m1d=16M -m2d=4M -m3d=4M -m1fb=128 -m2fb=128 -m3fb=128 archive.7z

Close enough for me, thanks...

I'm assuming nobody here frequently downloads ripped games from p2p/irc..

UHARC is an archiver used by a lot of the groups who produce these games, using some mad techniques to get 1gig down to 100mb.

I can't find any actual links to a UHA page with the latest downloads, never got around to looking into it. Google will get you a french test between the latest archivers, (i put that link in so you can translate it). UHA came out very similar to 7Z