Compression Comparison Guide - Page 8

msl · 3rd Aug 2007, 02:53 AM

Wow, it seems like the recent betas of 7-zip really have made huge steps forwards in performance! I gave 7-zip 4.51 beta a quick try and, although it uses quite a bit more memory than WinRAR, it seems significantly faster while still maintaining its compression rates.

Adrian Wong · 4th Aug 2007, 01:32 PM

I'll be retesting the entire suite again, because we have an updated testbed. May also include decompression times. But it will be a really massive project.

chu10 · 11th Aug 2007, 07:48 PM

It would be very nice testing.

msl · 14th Aug 2007, 11:02 PM

It may be worth considering solid and non-solid archives when you re-test. I notice that you used WinRAR in "solid" mode for all of your tests, which is not the default. Solid can have compression advantages (depending on the data set) but non-solid has advantages in accessibility of individual files within an archive.

In terms of performance, WinRAR seems to be significantly faster creating non-solid rather than solid archives. 7-zip on the other hand creates solid archives by default and seems to be generally slower when creating non-solid archives.

I think multi-threading also shakes the results up a bit. Some archivers/compressors seem to do a better job than others of exploiting multi-threading.

If you want to save some time on the testing, you could cut down on the tests on fundamentally incompressible data (i.e. data that is already in a highly compressed state). This only really seems interesting to me to compare speed for backup/archiving purposes and compression ratios are irrelevant. Using anything other than the fastest available settings is probably a waste in these cases.

Adrian Wong · 14th Aug 2007, 11:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by msl

It may be worth considering solid and non-solid archives when you re-test. I notice that you used WinRAR in "solid" mode for all of your tests, which is not the default. Solid can have compression advantages (depending on the data set) but non-solid has advantages in accessibility of individual files within an archive.

In terms of performance, WinRAR seems to be significantly faster creating non-solid rather than solid archives. 7-zip on the other hand creates solid archives by default and seems to be generally slower when creating non-solid archives.

I think multi-threading also shakes the results up a bit. Some archivers/compressors seem to do a better job than others of exploiting multi-threading.

If you want to save some time on the testing, you could cut down on the tests on fundamentally incompressible data (i.e. data that is already in a highly compressed state). This only really seems interesting to me to compare speed for backup/archiving purposes and compression ratios are irrelevant. Using anything other than the fastest available settings is probably a waste in these cases.

Good point. Well, if I test solid archives, I would test for all. If not, we can retest without using solid archives. But it would be too much work to test for both.

Multi-threading support is always enabled.

Yeah, still thinking on the poorly compressible files. Originally added them to show everyone just how poorly compressible they are. May replace them with other files. Then again, there are many who still compress video clips in RAR or ZIP for sharing online.

darryl@lovato.com · 19th Apr 2008, 12:29 AM

I'm the VP of advanced technology at Smith Micro - I'd love to see the test results updated to include our latest version.

- Darryl

ChampionLLY · 19th Apr 2008, 02:19 AM

thread digger!

welcome to the forum anyway

Adrian Wong · 19th Apr 2008, 04:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by darryl@lovato.com

I'm the VP of advanced technology at Smith Micro - I'd love to see the test results updated to include our latest version.

- Darryl

Hi Darryl,

I've been planning to redo it soon but it will be a really massive effort - new testbed, new file types, new tests (compression, decompression), etc.

4th Aug 2007, 01:32 PM	#72 (permalink)
Adrian Wong Da Boss Join Date: 10 Oct 2002 Location: In front of my ASUS F8V notebook! Posts: 30,124 Reputation: 3081 Rep Power: 67	I'll be retesting the entire suite again, because we have an updated testbed. May also include decompression times. But it will be a really massive project. __________________ Dr. Adrian Wong Tech ARP \| Blog @ Tech ARP \| The Free Trade Zone DYKT : The only offshore account I have is at the sand bank? Keep Tech ARP free! Visit our sponsors! We need PROGRAMMERS and TECHNICAL WRITERS! Contact us if you are a hot shot programmer or technical writer! My items for sale : 50x SD Card \| Memory Stick PRO \| Cyclone Energy Saver \| Seiko SS watch \| Tiger/Carlsberg beer jugs \| Travel Speakers \| Motorola V600 \| Nokia N90 SOLD! \| New Lowepro Mini Trekker AW Other items for sale @ the FTZ : Zalman CNPS9500 LED @ $20 \| Zalman CNPS7700 Cu @ $20 \| Zalman CNPS7000 Cu @ $20 \| Swarovski bracelet watches \| Dell 17" LCD \| Hi-Fi speakers \| English DIVX movies \| HP LaserJet toners! \| Office chairs

11th Aug 2007, 07:48 PM	#73 (permalink)
chu10 Newbie Join Date: 11 Aug 2007 Posts: 1 Reputation: 0 Rep Power: 0	Nice It would be very nice testing.

19th Apr 2008, 12:29 AM	#76 (permalink)
darryl@lovato.com Newbie Join Date: 19 Apr 2008 Posts: 1 Reputation: 0 Rep Power: 0	New version of Stuffit should "kick butt" on this test set I'm the VP of advanced technology at Smith Micro - I'd love to see the test results updated to include our latest version. - Darryl

19th Apr 2008, 02:19 AM	#77 (permalink)
ChampionLLY News Writer Join Date: 23 Apr 2006 Posts: 1,170 Reputation: 716 Rep Power: 11	thread digger! welcome to the forum anyway __________________ \| Core2Quad Q6600 @ 3.2Ghz \| ASUS P5B-E Plus \| KHX DDR2-800 CL4 2x512MB \| Hitachi 160GB SATA300 \| NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT OC \| BENQ 20.1" LCD \| \| Pentium-M 740 \| Kingston 1GB + Nanya 256MB \| Seagate 120GB 5.4krpm \| RADEON X700 64MB \| 14" LCD

3rd Aug 2007, 02:53 AM	#71 (permalink)
msl Newbie Join Date: 30 Jul 2007 Posts: 4 Reputation: 0 Rep Power: 0	Wow, it seems like the recent betas of 7-zip really have made huge steps forwards in performance! I gave 7-zip 4.51 beta a quick try and, although it uses quite a bit more memory than WinRAR, it seems significantly faster while still maintaining its compression rates.

14th Aug 2007, 11:02 PM	#74 (permalink)
msl Newbie Join Date: 30 Jul 2007 Posts: 4 Reputation: 0 Rep Power: 0	It may be worth considering solid and non-solid archives when you re-test. I notice that you used WinRAR in "solid" mode for all of your tests, which is not the default. Solid can have compression advantages (depending on the data set) but non-solid has advantages in accessibility of individual files within an archive. In terms of performance, WinRAR seems to be significantly faster creating non-solid rather than solid archives. 7-zip on the other hand creates solid archives by default and seems to be generally slower when creating non-solid archives. I think multi-threading also shakes the results up a bit. Some archivers/compressors seem to do a better job than others of exploiting multi-threading. If you want to save some time on the testing, you could cut down on the tests on fundamentally incompressible data (i.e. data that is already in a highly compressed state). This only really seems interesting to me to compare speed for backup/archiving purposes and compression ratios are irrelevant. Using anything other than the fastest available settings is probably a waste in these cases.