-=> Quoting Hans Mangold to Mark Madronio <=-
 HM> Here's a test I made to see how "solid" archivers outshine
 HM> the standard archivers such as PKZip.
 HM> Files compressed (Registry from WINDOWS folder):
 HM> 95SYSTEM JAR     1,802,788  02-24-97  6:36p
 HM> 95SYSTEM RAR     1,865,201  02-24-97  6:36p
 HM> 95SYSTEM ZIP     2,013,215  02-24-97  6:36p
 HM> Since there is so much redundancy in this example, I would
 HM> have expected a *much* greater difference between the
 HM> "solid" archivers (JAR and RAR, both set to max.) and the
 HM> standard archiver (PKZip -ex).  I wish Robert would explain
 HM> this one :-)
Well, I don't have JAR yet but since its beta period is about to end, I'll
just wait for the full release. I tested ARJ, ZIP and RAR on the BBS door
game ArrowBridge II directory and here is what I got (using max settings).
AB       ARJ       419,867
AB       ZIP       392,143
AB       RAR       391,895
Uncompressed: 96 files        3,312,216 bytes
I tried it out on my Durango mail reader directory since it's reasonably
large and is typical of most shareware stuff (i.e. Windows based). And my
MIDI collection (which had a couple of ZIPs inside)
DURANGO  ARJ     1,217,146
DURANGO  ZIP     1,209,030
DURANGO  RAR     1,005,362
Uncompressed: 16 file(s)      2,589,303 bytes
MIDI     ARJ     5,395,755
MIDI     ZIP     5,432,558
MIDI     RAR     5,054,325
Uncompressed: 491 file(s)     15,354,626 bytes
ZIP seems to compress better than ARJ except with lots of small files (MIDI).
Or maybe my ARJ config isn't that good (-m1 -jm -i2 -jt2 -jk -a1). Except
with RAR, ZIP and ARJ weren't compressing the files sorted by extension name
which would have contributed to their larger archives. I'll try this again
once I get JAR.
The extra savings in RAR aren't that impressive compared to the normal
archivers (especially after waiting 16min for the MIDI stuff which took less
than 5min with ZIP and ARJ on a Pentium60).
 HM> Cheers, Hans
Mark
markmad@netspace.net.au
mmadroni@st.nepean.uws.edu.au
... Behavioural psychology -- pulling habits out of rats.
--- Maximus 3.01
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