How to get Massive Compression?

[mikeyp]

Hey

I got a simple question. When i get Games sometimes they are like 30MB downloadable files. When i WINRAR or whatever them, they decompress to 650+MB files. How did they do that? and how could i do that?

[hrb2k]

most likely there is a big-ass dummy file. dummy files are zero filled which means they hold no info, but are large so they can be compressed alot. they are used to push the game data to the outside part of the disc to make it load faster.

if you want to do it, just burn a bootable cd with echelon method and add a big dummy file. make an image of the cd and rar it up.

[mikeyp]

ok so if the actual file was 650mb. i'd dummy the file to what... 640mb??

[hrb2k]

first, put all the game data in the "data" folder. right-click the data folder, then properties to see how big it is. subtract that number from 620MB just to be safe.

[Da1m0n]

Originally posted by mikeyp
ok so if the actual file was 650mb. i'd dummy the file to what... 640mb??

If you wanted to do THAT, you would need a dummy file with a negative file size (-10 MB), and I've yet to see someone manage to do that.

[mikeyp]

Originally posted by mikeyp
ok so if the actual file was 650mb. i'd dummy the file to what... 640mb??

awsome thanks!!

but what if i just want to put a few DC ISO's on a single CD for storing purposes. could i use a du mmy file to shrink the total size.

LIke if i made an archive with 2 or 3 iso's and then a dummy file whould i get that massive compression?

if not.....then how would i go about doing what i just said: Archiving and storing about 3 iso's on 1 cd. just for storage purposes...not gaming purposes.

thanks

[Megalexxx]

I think you don't understand...

Dummy files don't shrink anything ! They are used for other purpose.
You can't get incredible compression if your original files are big.

The game you had, that was 30 Mb compressed and 650 Mb uncompressed had a dummy file, BUT it also was very small before compression !!!
To simplify, a dummy file is a huge file filled with "0". If you don't compress it, you'll have (say) 640.000.000 X "0" (so 640.000.000 bytes). Once compressed, it will be something like a very few bytes : some to say your original file had 640.000.000 times the same caracter, and some the code the caracter.

BUT, a dummy file won't affect in any way the compressed size of the other files !

[gamesmell]

well if you use win rar set the comperssion methade to best it takes a little longer but it makes much smaller files depending how much smaller depends on what your compressing

[mikeyp]

alright i got it now.

thanks again.