dds and image files question(+ fsb FMOD's)

[elit]

Greetings, since now I think it is becoming increasingly necessary to repack games by extracting its resource packs and tools like ztool are becoming less compatible with new games anyway(at least thats what it looks to me after recent testing), I was wondering what is the current situation regarding .dds and certain image files - specifically .tga, .png and .bmp compression. What compressors are currently most recommended?

I know there is MSC for .dds and .bmp files but have read various opinions on it. There is by the way fixed bmf2.01 tool:
https://encode.ru/threads/2838-BMF-2...?highlight=bmf
Then there is also FLIF...

Are any of these tools worth it and better than basic srep+lzma? How does default FreeArc's .bmp optimization compare to custom tools? I tried yesterday to make desktop screenshot in various formats and then to compress it with arc. Without compression .png had I think around 2.2mb, .bmp almost 5mb and .tga also around 2mb. But arc compressed .tga and .png to around 1.3-1.6mb and .bmp to 1.09mb! This has bring me to think and making new research. I am also extra curious about .dds files compression because games tend to have these a lot.

Also since .bmp's compress so well, it may be a good idea to convert other formats(png, tga) to bmp/flif and back? Anyway so far I narrowed it to MSC(+bmf v2.01) and/or FLIF. I may do another "research" just as I did with LZMA and freearc before but its time consuming and maybe someone here already knows better...

Lastly, I like to know if FMOD's "banks" and .fsb files are able to (re)compress or if its already done deal like video files(considering keeping it lossless). And whether there are tools to extract, re-compress lossy and re-inject back as well.

Thanks

[78372]

Converting other image formats to bmp and vice versa will loose CRC. PNG Compresses the worst among picture formats afaik. BMP, JPG etc. compresses well. FreeArc really needs another multimedia compressor other than MSC, msc has became very old now and hasn't been updated for years.

[Gupta]

BMP is pure image, PNG is Deflate Compressed BMP, JPG is lossy compression standards with little bit of compression ofc ( you lose alpha channels and much more)

most of the newer proprietary game engines have their own image standards, formats etc, so it's mostly useless to invent something like MSC again at least for game compression

[Andu21]

You could make use of latest precomp with intense+brute for png files, and then apply something like lzma and compare it to your freearc results.

[elit]

Originally Posted by 78372

Converting other image formats to bmp and vice versa will loose CRC.

This should not be an issue though, quickbms by default is not crc compliant when reimporting(unlike Razor's Injector Maker which need much more precise handling of files), all that matter is that new file is same size or smaller than original.

Originally Posted by PrinceGupta2000

BMP is pure image, PNG is Deflate Compressed BMP

This is helpful to know thank you. I saw many games still use .dds format though. And I recall MSC was the only one specializing on that?
EDIT: bmp use RLE compression

Originally Posted by Andu21

You could make use of latest precomp with intense+brute for png files, and then apply something like lzma and compare it to your freearc results.

But I think it would be then better to convert to .bmp and compress so because there are many optimizations and tools for .bmp files. FA have one by default and there is also bmf/msc tool. That should be better(and quicker) than slow "brute" precomp+lzma.

[elit]

Ok I tried MSC on a .dds file from Raiders of the Broken Planet game. It had precisely zero effect, nothing, nada. It did detect it as "dx10" unknown something. I tried all options combinations there were, it always output exact same size file as original and also FA compress it same as original dds file. This was same in the past when I tried it on other games. I have yet to see one where msc does anything with .dds files. My guess is that as newer DirectX surface specification - and thus format change, this tool can do less and less with it. Probably for older games only. Anyway, .dds files in this game are over 14GB, or 63% of it. Oh well.