Best Compression Methods for 'Specific' Games. Q&A

[Masquerade]

Orcs Must Die! 3 [Build 8508638]

*.PAK

xtool_OMD3+srep+lolz

Everything else:

srep+razor

13.2GB ---> 7GB

[Masquerade]

The Drained Goddess

xzlib+srep+lolz

13GB ---> 9.9GB

[KaktoR]

Age of Empires 3 Definitive Edition
1 language, v latest (I don't know lol)

 18:47:43 - Selected ARC/DS method for Data1a-01.bin was: xtool:c256mb:malz4:mreflate+srep_new+4x4:b64mb:lzma:ultra:64m:bt4:fb273:lc8:mc1000000
 18:47:43 - Selected ARC/DS method for Data1b-01.bin was: srep_new+4x4:b64mb:lzma:ultra:64m:bt4:fb273:lc8:mc1000000
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 22:56:39 - Overall input size: 47.31 GB
 22:56:39 - Overall output size: 26.55 GB (Ratio 56.13%)
 22:56:39 - Data files creation time: 03:54:16

Thanks to Edison007 for xtool plugin

[KaktoR]

FINAL FANTASY VII Remake Intergrade
Movies ripped, v1.001

 09:51:56 - Selected ARC/DS method for Data1a-01.bin was: oo2reck:7+srep_new+4x4:b64mb:lzma:ultra:64m:bt4:fb273:lc8:mc1000000
 09:51:56 - Selected ARC/DS method for Data1b-01.bin was: srep_new+4x4:b64mb:lzma:ultra:64m:bt4:fb273:lc8:mc1000000
 09:51:56 - Selected ARC/DS method for Data1c-01.bin was: srep_new+1
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 21:47:09 - Overall input size: 81.52 GB
 21:47:09 - Overall output size: 69.26 GB (Ratio 84.97%)
 21:47:09 - Overall conversion time: 11:55:06

Data1a -> pak files
Data1b -> all except pak and emov
Data1c -> emov files

This is basically a update for my last report about this game.

English, French and Japanese movies were ripped. Game was tested 100% in german + english with ripped video files (I played the game twice in english + german with all additional side quest stuff + DLC). I assume it will work on french and japanese languages too.

How to know if the game works with ripped movie files? You will encounter game freezes on points were a video should play (the game is not "freezing" actually, but you can't do any actions). Luckily you can guess which video is missing or wrong ripped by folder and file names.

*_US files are used for english only. Files without language code are used by french, german, japanese (except for credits videos, but this is obvious).

You can delete language voiceovers out of "pakchunk0_s23-WindowsNoEditor.pak" file with quickbms + hex editor to save additional ~2GB, but I didn't for this test.

[:( Sad8669]

Yes you will have null video files.

Zero bytes still takes up space, if you look at them in the file explorer the size doesn't change, since 00 bytes are repeated all until the end of the file, lossless data compression algorithms takes good use of repeated bytes, hence the compressed file is so small.

i think that's how it works though i am not sure.

OR

you can take srep for example, it just saves the position of dupes occurrence and copies a single of copy of these dupes to those positions during decompression.

[Rainiu]

Help with compressing Ender Lillies smaller please. Thanks.

[Masquerade]

Originally Posted by Rainiu

Help with compressing Ender Lillies smaller please. Thanks.

xzlib+srep+lolz

For the banks, try following this guide.

[Rainiu]

Originally Posted by Masquerade

xzlib+srep+lolz

For the banks, try following this guide.

what about the ucas extension? is xzlib taking care of both the .pak and .ucas files? I was only able to compress it to around 870mb.

[Masquerade]

Originally Posted by Rainiu

what about the ucas extension? is xzlib taking care of both the .pak and .ucas files? I was only able to compress it to around 870mb.

Yes. In this case, the UCAS files are not encrypted.

[Masquerade]

Winter Ember [Build 8534177] [Lossy + Lossless]

If you want to recode the videos, you can recode them to 3000kb/s bitrate using ffmpeg:

for %f in (*.MP4) do ffmpeg -i "%f" -b:v 3000k "_%~nf.MP4"

You can view a comparison between the quality of original videos and recoded videos here.

Compression

xzlib+srep+lolz/$mp4=srep

Original Size [Lossless Videos]: 5.7GB

Final Size [Lossless Videos]: 2.9GB

Original Size [Recoded Videos]: 4.6GB

Final Size [Recoded Videos]: 1.8GB

[Rainiu]

Couldn't find the answer through search. What compression method do I use for pdf files?
I think if we have a sticky thread about a general compression method for specific types of files, it would greatly help newbies like us.

[KaktoR]

png, pdf = reflate

[Masquerade]

Use precomp on pdf.

[KaktoR]

F.E.A.R
latest version, incl all DLC

 17:36:13 - Selected ARC/DS method for Data1a-01.bin was: msc_tak+srep_new+4x4:lzma
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 18:26:20 - Overall input size: 14.33 GB
 18:26:20 - Overall output size: 2.43 GB (Ratio 16.95%)
 18:26:20 - Overall conversion time: 00:50:06

 19:39:54 - Overall decompression time: 00:08:14
 19:39:54 - All files have been successfully extracted!

[KaktoR]

F.E.A.R 2
latest version, incl all DLC

 20:49:39 - Selected ARC/DS method for Data1a-01.bin was: bpk+xtool:mzlib+srep_new+4x4:lzma
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 21:27:24 - Overall input size: 14.64 GB
 21:27:24 - Overall output size: 5.74 GB (Ratio 39.17%)
 21:27:24 - Overall conversion time: 00:37:43

 22:02:08 - Overall decompression time: 00:06:53
 22:02:08 - All files have been successfully extracted!