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

[KaktoR]

Fallout 3 GOTY

 20:13:34 - Selected ARC/DS method for Data1a-01.bin was: xtool:mzlib:dd3+lolz:d84:mtt1:mt12:mc1023
 20:13:34 - Selected ARC/DS method for Data1b-01.bin was: msc_tak
 20:13:34 - Selected ARC/DS method for Data1c-01.bin was: oggre
 20:13:34 - Selected ARC/DS method for Data1d-01.bin was: 7zdll-pm:m0=mp3det:m1=packmp3c
 20:13:34 - Selected ARC/DS method for Data1e-01.bin was: bpk+xtool:dd3+lolz:d84:mtt1:mt12:mc1023
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 21:22:39 - Overall input size: 11,25 GB
 21:22:39 - Overall output size: 5,08 GB (Ratio 45.13%)
 21:22:39 - Overall conversion time: 01:00:31

Used quickbms + bethesda.bms to extract WAV, OGG and MP3 files out of all the BSA sound archives.

Example

for %%f in (*.bsa) do quickbms_4gb_files -d -o -Y -f "{}.wav,{}.ogg,{}.mp3" bethesda.bms "%%f"

Used xtool with erase command to erase all WAV, OGG and MP3 files out of the sound archives (zero data).

Example

"xtool" erase "Fallout - Sound.bsa_extract" "Fallout - Sound.bsa" "fallout3.xtl"
...
...

Data1a -> All BSA files
Data1b -> WAV
Data1c -> OGG
Data1d -> MP3
Data1e -> Rest of the files

After installation, use xtool again with decode command to copy all the extracted files back into their original places inside the BSA archives.

Example

"xtool" decode "fallout3.xtl" "Fallout - Sound.bsa_extract" "Fallout - Sound.bsa"
...
...

Remove extracted files from game dir.

PS: Original input size is about 8.70 GB, but due to extracted data this is a bit bigger. However all the sound BSA files will be compressable something like near 1%, so only the install step will require some additional space, but once xtool decode is finished, the size is the same as original but also the crc of all the files.

Edit: Install time + xtool decode about 10mins

[Masquerade]

A Way Out

xtool_zlib_dd5+lolz

20.6GB ---> 14.4GB