7z in favor of zip

Xiaopang · Post by **Xiaopang** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 6:32 am

I was wondering why the gdi's were compressed with zip. 7z would have been much more powerful. I compressed the gdi of V-Rally 2 Expert Edition down to 561MB with 7z, while your zip needed 798MB. That's a difference of 30%. Imagine how much bandwidth seeders could save by just using more efficient compressors. Especially since only a few people on UG and DCtorrents are seeding these games and packs.

Post by **darcagn** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 9:56 am

This issue is pretty much a beaten dead horse.

We don't use plain ZIP compression; we use TorrentZip. This is a special kind of ZIP file in which everyone who puts the same files into the TorrentZip program will get byte-for-byte exact ZIP file out of it. Using plain zip, rar, or 7z compression does not give this advantage.

Thus, I could go to the store, buy Grandia II, stick in my Dreamcast, dump it, torrentzip it, and join on the tracker and immediately seed, while using any other compression I could not do this.

Xiaopang · Post by **Xiaopang** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 10:08 am

Interesting. Never heard of it. It clearly has an advantage, but this only kicks in if many people actually dump and release and thats not the case. Anyway, I'm glad that you guys do that at all, so I won't complain

Post by **az_bont** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 12:09 pm

If you have Usenet access, you can find the latest dumps being uploaded here. They're in RAR format, so if you want to later jump on the torrents and seed (which would be much appreciated), you'll have to recompress them to ZIP and run them through TorrentZip as darcagn described.

Xiaopang · Post by **Xiaopang** » Tue Jul 24, 2007 2:37 pm

Thanks for the hint! Right now I'm satisfied with the UG torrents. They are not the fastest solution, but the longer I download the longer I can seed. But it's good to know that there's a high speed possbility of getting the files

Btw, why don't you use fileservers like megaupload? More people have access to them than to the usenet, thus more could chip in seeding. Would also take quite a load off the seeders I guess.

Majinseed · Post by **Majinseed** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 2:49 pm

Xiaopang wrote:Thanks for the hint! Right now I'm satisfied with the UG torrents. They are not the fastest solution, but the longer I download the longer I can seed. But it's good to know that there's a high speed possbility of getting the files
Btw, why don't you use fileservers like megaupload? More people have access to them than to the usenet, thus more could chip in seeding. Would also take quite a load off the seeders I guess.

i think most people that "seriously" are into this kind of stuff have access to usenet

and hosters like megaupload etc are too much hassle imho...

just my 2 cents.

Xiaopang · Post by **Xiaopang** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 4:43 pm

Majinseed wrote: i think most people that "seriously" are into this kind of stuff have access to usenet

and hosters like megaupload etc are too much hassle imho...

in my opinion it's the other way around

uploading the stuff to megaupload costs you not more than 1 click, while you need quite some preparation for usenet (splitting the files to handy sizes, creating par files--> increased share and upload size etc). furthermore, some usenet providers store the files only a month or even only a few weeks, while ddl-links can last months without being deleted if they are properly set up. also, ddl-sites are free to use, while usenet-access can cost a pretty penny

Majinseed · Post by **Majinseed** » Thu Jul 26, 2007 9:26 am

Xiaopang wrote:
in my opinion it's the other way around uploading the stuff to megaupload costs you not more than 1 click, while you need quite some preparation for usenet (splitting the files to handy sizes, creating par files--> increased share and upload size etc). furthermore, some usenet providers store the files only a month or even only a few weeks, while ddl-links can last months without being deleted if they are properly set up. also, ddl-sites are free to use, while usenet-access can cost a pretty penny

as said, a lot of people already have usenet access, the prices aren't too high (flats cost around 15 bucks month) and this preparation for posting is pretty easy. with free hosters instead you never know how long you files will last, security is low (

) and you'll have to spread your link everywhere. not to mention that a lot of people don't like dling there for different reasons. but everyone has his own opinion and if you won't up at any freehosters i think you'll have to wait quite a while to see anything there...

Post by **darcagn** » Thu Jul 26, 2007 11:55 am

I personally agree with you, Majinseed. Usenet is extremely easy to use once you've got the routine down. DDL sites, on the other hand, require you to input the captcha, wait 45 seconds, wait until your bandwidth limit is passed, etc.