[Answered] Preferred executable cruncher in 2021?

[Photon]

Asmskool is continuing. I know most of the options, but for an upcoming video, I'd like to re-check what's available (as in, free and directly downloadable utility - no includes or compiling). Criteria:

• Very easy to use Amiga utility that compresses an OCS 1MB demo on OCS 1MB*
• that takes an object file with code, data, and BSS sections
• and outputs an executable object file that decrunches correctly on OCS 1MB with minimal overhead.

If you know a neat one that I might have missed, give me your thoughts. Does it meet the criteria? What are the pros and cons, and what do you like best about it?

* If the demo is tight to this platform limit already, just running on Amiga is fine. The output file should support KS1.3 if the input file does.

[andy2004]

Stonecracker 5?.. i says 5 cause i read somewhere http://scoopex1988.org/blast-from-past.html here.. where he put "On the same series of sleepless nights put togethet another quick hack of old sources of mine i.e. StoneCracker v5 cruncher from 1998" At the time i was searching for the 3.45 stc020.library.. and came across that page..
Never seen v5.. v4.10.3 is still freely available.

Execruncher2... blueberry of course.. not sure about the 1mb...

[Photon]

Maybe I should drop Mr. Spiv an e-mail

[mcgeezer]

I've always found ProPacker to be perfect for my needs (both exe and data).

Very simple to use, very good docs, very easy to implement into your project.

[Photon]

mcgeezer, do you mean PowerPacker? or ProPack. I think ProPack is not PD and there must be no modification to the project to crunch the exe.

Remember, it's not for me. Just a solid recommendation when the exe is written. I haven't thought of it that way, but packdisk makers might have great experience with what works for everything!

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by Photon

mcgeezer, do you mean PowerPacker? or ProPack. I think ProPack is not PD and there must be no modification to the project to crunch the exe.

Remember, it's not for me. Just a solid recommendation when the exe is written. I haven't thought of it that way, but packdisk makers might have great experience with what works for everything!

The one I use is the Rob Northen computing one.
I just checked the read me which states as follows:

Short: RNC ProPack - multi-format file packer
Version: 2.08
Uploader: iancourt@hotmail.com (Ian Court)
Author: Rob Northen Computing
Type: util/pack

This is the final release of PRO-PACK from Rob Northen Computing. Since Rob
Northen Computing are nolonger trading, this utility has become freely
distributable.

This may be particularly useful for Amiga users as this is the packer that
Sensible Software used for the data files in SWOS. Now you can edit those
teams and actually save them back to disk in crunched format - no need to
delete other team files to fit edited teams on the disk, and no crashes due
to internal buffers being filled!

This is the complete RNC PRO-PACK distribution, directly from Rob Northen
Computing, which also contains useful assembler code.

Now I have no idea who wrote that read me, or if it an official document with an official license, all I know is that quite a few game dev's use it today for their games.

Any exe packing is done with the PPAMI utility so there's no modification done to tool itself.

Geezer

[Photon]

I know ProPack through Galahad in the context of trackloaded games. If it's PD and does exes that's excellent news (to me)!

If you recommend it over alternatives I can have a look, but I can't have a look at all the crunchers there are. Could you give me an idea? Is it as simple as typing a commandline with the right parameters?

[andy2004]

my list in order..

Stonecracker 4.10.3
Crunch 1.4 wb2+
Crunchydat.
Imploder 4

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by Photon

I know ProPack through Galahad in the context of trackloaded games. If it's PD and does exes that's excellent news (to me)!

If you recommend it over alternatives I can have a look, but I can't have a look at all the crunchers there are. Could you give me an idea? Is it as simple as typing a commandline with the right parameters?

See attached...

I really can't comment on other crunchers from an exe packing point of view as I can't recall trying that many. What I can say is that I've used this now for 4 previous games for exe and data and it's very simple to use.

While the data packing side of things is off topic for your needs, when you make a production of a large size you'll generally have to deal with data files and two things make ProPacker appealing:

1) You can unpack in place
2) Some kind soul compiled ProPack for Windows making packing data files easy that can be placed into a tool chain.

Saying that I am aware that other packers work Windows side but I can't remember their name, I think Antiriad uses different ones in the chain he uses.

Hope this helps.

[chadderack]

Realize I'm new here, but as an aside... I do enjoy when mcgeezer and Photon discuss stuff. I always learn things.

[andy2004]

Over the years.. i've pretty much tried them all..
for me it was a case of.. well.. i wonder how much more floppy disk space I can make simply by changing the cruncher.. and maybe turning the menu1 menu2 into a txt2exe and then crunch that..

Propack may be good.. but if its compressed size. the smallest possible.. to cram as much.. depending on just the exe files.. then stonecracker / crunchydat / cru1.4b if its large.. small as in under 10kb.. TNM,
Data files always powerpacker due to ppmore/muchmore etc with the library to decrunch.
most modplayers do powerpacker that run from the cli., except PROP.. which requires PP . in which case Crunchmania with RTDD with crm.library in libs.. to bypass that..
and if thats the route then all the text files with crunchmania aswell.. as RTDD is running.
Theres no run-time data decruncher for stonecrackers files as i would have tested it..

Missed 1 cruncher.. Titanics cruncher.. it decrunches as it loads the compressed section. where all others load and then decompress..

load file.. decrunch file <most packers

Titanic's.. decrunch file as loading.. into memory.. bigger executable can be run on a stock 1mb machine. compared with other packers.
I think crunchydat / cru1.4b has that ability too

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by andy2004

Over the years.. i've pretty much tried them all..
for me it was a case of.. well.. i wonder how much more floppy disk space I can make simply by changing the cruncher.. and maybe turning the menu1 menu2 into a txt2exe and then crunch that..

Propack may be good.. but if its compressed size. the smallest possible.. to cram as much.. depending on just the exe files.. then stonecracker / crunchydat / cru1.4b if its large.. small as in under 10kb.. TNM,
Data files always powerpacker due to ppmore/muchmore etc with the library to decrunch.
most modplayers do powerpacker that run from the cli., except PROP.. which requires PP . in which case Crunchmania with RTDD with crm.library in libs.. to bypass that..
and if thats the route then all the text files with crunchmania aswell.. as RTDD is running.
Theres no run-time data decruncher for stonecrackers files as i would have tested it..

Missed 1 cruncher.. Titanics cruncher.. it decrunches as it loads the compressed section. where all others load and then decompress..

load file.. decrunch file <most packers

Titanic's.. decrunch file as loading.. into memory.. bigger executable can be run on a stock 1mb machine. compared with other packers.
I think crunchydat / cru1.4b has that ability too

Which of these tools has a straight forward CLI and produces a single packed exe without the need for any additional binaries/libs?

I'll happily take the time to try them myself.

[andy2004]

ALL 3 i mentioned have their own GUI.. and all 3 dont use external librarys.. Stonecracker uses the stc.library only if you select it as the decrunch header.. like imploder did with the explode.library..

Stonecracker can be run from the cli..


Then theres execruncher2 by blueberry.. runs only from cli.. compresses better than stonecracker on some files. but no readme on how to use..
but i did find the following http://ada.untergrund.net/?p=boardthread&id=264&page=0 post #28.
quote "Yeah, some of the options are rather arcane... The best approach is probably to just start with the default values (printed when you crunch something) and then tweak them and see what happens.

Anyway, here's a short explanation:

FROM/TO/QUIET: Obvious.
HUNKMERGE: Merge sections with identical memory type (CHIP/FAST/PUBLIC) into one. If you are abusing the hunk list pointers to find the address of other hunks (popular in 4k intros to avoid relocation entries) you should really know what you are doing before using this option.
MAXDIST: The maximum distance that the LZ compression can refer back when looking for matches. Decreasing it makes the references smaller but loses some opportunities for matching.
MAXLEN: The maximum length of LZ matches. Again, making it smaller decreases the size of the references but limits how long they can be.
OCCMIN/OCCADD: Parameters to the zero-order probability modelling of the range coding. Larger values for OCCMIN makes the predicted probabilities less extreme. Larger values for OCCADD makes the probabilities readjust more often, which is good if the file contains different kinds of data with different probability distributions.
RSW2/RSW3/RSW4: When the packer finds an LZ match, it compares the size of the match to the size of the literal bytes and choses the smallest option. However, near the beginning of the file, it is often best to accept matches even if they are slightly larger than the literal data. Decreasing these values will make the packer more likely to pick matches near the beginning, for matches of length 2, 3 and 4, repectively.
MINI: Use a smaller decompression header which only supports one non-empty section and does not support relocation. The argument is the maximum distance at which matches can be found with both odd and even offsets. Beyond this distance, only matches with even offsets can be found (these are the most common when compressing code). When the MINI option is specified, there are extra limits on MAXDIST, and the OCC??? and RSW? options have no effect.

If this still seems chinese to you, just revert to my original suggestion. "

link for the packer is on that page. note files cant be uncrunched via xfddecrunch

command line for execruncher2 basic.. execrunch2 FROM filename TO filename

[Photon]

Originally Posted by mcgeezer

Which of these tools has a straight forward CLI and produces a single packed exe without the need for any additional binaries/libs?

I'll happily take the time to try them myself.

This is sort of what I'm after - ideally

>program infile outfile

"Program" must run on Amiga though... well just see original post for spec. (Must meet the spec.)

This is just the ideal tho. Installing an application with a nice GUI is fine* (*as long as there's no fine print during installation...).

Cranker is more than a great competitor for Titanics-Cruncher (low-overhead, decrunching while loading).

Shrinkler (also by Blueberry) replaces Execruncher, or no? (Next version will rid .library dependency which I forgot to mention.)

Main point is, exe in, exe out. Copy exe to disk with nothing else. Packdisk author experience valued therefore, they will have (re)packed all kinds of exes.

[mr.spiv]

Originally Posted by Photon

Maybe I should drop Mr. Spiv an e-mail

Heh.. well I found my old stc.library sources recently. Actually, looking into making a backward compatible facelift i.e. some stupidity remain but otherwise some surprises Might take a moment due real-life work load.

[andy2004]

look forward to it..

[Photon]

Originally Posted by mr.spiv

Heh.. well I found my old stc.library sources recently. Actually, looking into making a backward compatible facelift i.e. some stupidity remain but otherwise some surprises Might take a moment due real-life work load.

Great news!

Do it when you can. Take care with "code at work + code at home"! Or at least that made me unhappy and fed up a few years ago.

[nogginthenog]

Originally Posted by andy2004

my list in order..

Stonecracker 4.10.3
Crunch 1.4 wb2+
Crunchydat.
Imploder 4

Imploder 4 has the best music!

[mr.spiv]

Originally Posted by Photon

Great news!

Do it when you can. Take care with "code at work + code at home"! Or at least that made me unhappy and fed up a few years ago.

Well.. I code power points and excel summaries for work

[andy2004]

Originally Posted by nogginthenog

Imploder 4 has the best music!

i know i have the tune as a mp3 on my phone..