Tutorial about compressing games faster using UltraArc
 

This is a compression tutorial to compress fast using UltraArc.

UltraArc is my favourite compression tool. The simple gui and split features are very nice. Now I am going to write a tutorial for compressing fast using UltraArc.

Ok, here, we are going to discuss about three games as an example.
1. Just Cause 2
2. Prince of Persia Warrior Within
3. GTA Vice City


1. Just Cause 2, The first game. Ok, we are now going to compress Just cause 2. First, check the game with Zlib checker. Grab it from here:
http://fileforums.com/showthread.php?t=97657 . We can see that archives_win32 folder has a lot of zlib streams, while the other folders contain none of them. Now, move the archives_win32 folder to another folder and the other folder/files to another folder. Now compress the contents of archives_win32 folder with precomp(any version you like)+srep+lzma. Then compress the other folder with other files using srep+delta+exe2+lzma or simply srep+lzma. Rather than compresing the whole game with precomp+srep+lzma, this two times compressing takes very much less time.
2. Next about Prince of Persia warrior within. Check it with zlib checker and you will find no zlib streams. But you noticed some bik video files. Move the folder with bik files to another folder and compress it with no method because bik videos are not compress able. Then compress the other folder with srep+delta+exe2+lzma or simply srep+lzma. This should not take as much time as compressing the whole game with srep+lzma
3. Third game, GTA Vice City. Checking it with zlib checker, we got no streams. But the audio folder and the movies folder contain media files. We will move it to another folder and keep other files/folders to another folder. Now we will compress the folder with audio, movies with msc or msc+srep+lzma. Then we will compress the other folder with srep+delta+exe2+lzma or simply srep+lzma. Took a small amount of time.

Remember, these games I have taken as examples. But this method should be used for most of the games. This tutorial contains tutorials from other forum members, but I have modified and wrote in my own way with something more than that.

re: tutorial about compressing games faster using ultraarc
 

hey there bro. Kitsune1982 here, a fellow gamer, conversion designer and general nerd. I appreciate your contribution and think its great but I would like to point out something. you say bik files are not compressable. this is true, BUT! if you download rad video tools a free bink/bik/smack/smk editor, you can re-encode them at a lower bitrate. I posted a thread a month ago on this forum with how to do that, so im not trying to criticize, just pointing out that while bik/bk2 files cant be compressed with conventional means, they CAN be re-encoded at a lower bitrate easily with rad video tools. please share this reply with other people so they can be 'in the know' about this little fact. take care. have a great one!

-Kitsune :)

That's, however, ripping. I don't like to rip game contents so I didn't wrote that :)