decompression routines

[Toni Wilen]

Any recommendations for good compression algorithm that has free 68000-compatible pc-relative assembler decompression routine? (preferably short, fast and with not too bad compression ratio)

I had (another) crazy idea: create hrtmon rom resident structure that allocate memory for hrtmon, decompresses, relocates and finally initializes it
(I still have free ROM space in my 1M CDTV..)

Compression is needed because hrtmon is quite big (about 200k uncompressed), 40k-60k compressed.

(I tried powerpacker but it created about 10k bigger executable than gzip)

[RedskullDC]

Hi Toni,

Think you would be hard pressed to better LZX in terms of size, still holds it's own against recent algorithms like 7z.

Free source for decompression routine(in C) is on Aminet:
http://aminet.net/misc/unix/unlzx.c.gz

Not 68k, admittedly, but compiles easy enough.

Cheers,
Red

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by RedskullDC

Hi Toni,

Think you would be hard pressed to better LZX in terms of size, still holds it's own against recent algorithms like 7z.

Thanks but lzx decompression speed is too low, decompression routine is extremely complex (I know because it is in winuae already) and takes too much memory. (lzx decompression + hrtmon lzx packed size > powerpacker decompression routine + hrtmon pp packed size )

[RedskullDC]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Thanks but lzx decompression speed is too low, decompression routine is extremely complex (I know because it is in winuae already) and takes too much memory. (lzx decompression + hrtmon lzx packed size > powerpacker decompression routine + hrtmon pp packed size )

I'm quite surprised by that actually!

Only other "free" one that comes to mind would be:
http://aminet.net/util/pack/xpkILZR.lha
(C-Source included)

Low mem, quick.

Red

[Photon]

There's something about putting C code in boot roms that makes me shiver ...

If you want, you can have a look if SCX-Crunch can match the compression ratio. Although - it's made for decompression speed, about 5 times faster than ordinary crunchers. Crunching is very slow, so setup a fast config. Decrunch routine is reloc and 150-200 bytes IIRC.

As per http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=16183

SCX-Crunch is here: http://coppershade.org/amiga/files/scxcrunch.lha

[Psygore]

Propack (RNC1) or Crunch (CRUa)

[Frog]

CRUa is very good, just in case you could also check StoneCracker

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by Psygore

Propack (RNC1)

I second Propack, very effective, and good depack speed.

Propack was the cruncher that enabled me to get Snow Bros to stay on 1 disk.

[Toni Wilen]

Thanks for suggestions.

I did some tests (v2.30 hrtmon.data, 207 764 bytes, exe header 0x03f3 cleared if packer decided to be "smart" and not pack in data-mode)

pp 58924
scx 58560
stc 52372
cru 50917
rnc 49495
lha 48883
zip 48480
gzip 48361
lzx 44670
rar 42451
7z 39229

"Surprisingly" all "modern" archives have the best compression rate (highest compression mode was always selected). Unfortunately they also have most complex and slowest decompression

I guess my choice is RNC1, very small and fast decompression code, quite good compression ratio.

Interestingly some Amiga packers made smaller archives in exe-mode. (I guess it was due to hrtmon.data having quite large relocation data)

btw, no packer wars please..

[Photon]

Is pp=propacker, or PowerPacker? Also, if you happened to note the decrunch timings I'd love to see how mine fared there - haven't really measured it since I've only used it for decrunching a demo of 110K on A500 in the time it takes to say "pyip". :P

Please don't test all crunchers decrunch time on my account, hehe ... only if you happened to note it down.

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by Photon

Is pp=propacker, or PowerPacker? Also, if you happened to note the decrunch timings I'd love to see how mine fared there - haven't really measured it since I've only used it for decrunching a demo of 110K on A500 in the time it takes to say "pyip". :P

Please don't test all crunchers decrunch time on my account, hehe ... only if you happened to note it down.

pp = powerpacker.

I didn't time others, I was too lazy to switch from jit modes to ce a500

[meynaf]

You may try crunch-mania. It can decrunch in-place so memory requirements are low. Compression ratio should be good enough for what you need.

[Foul]

tested compiling v2.37 hrtmon.data (203.6 kb) with cranker : http://aminet.net/package/util/pack/cranker

RNC sill winner :

RNC Pro Pack 2.08 : 50500 kb
Cranker 0.53 : 51168 kb
PowerPacker 5.0b : 55724 kb
Imploder 4.0 : 50712 kb