Depression about Compression

[krimzin]

Ok, I looked around the web forever and couldn't find any good advice so I came here since modders generally swear by the 7z format. I'm using Jzip to compress files to save hard-disk space on my computer, but for some reason, whenever I compress things in a 7z file, it takes up the same amount of HD space as it did before I compressed it. I check the file properties in Jzip and it displays a 0% compression. What am I doing wrong?

[lp rob1]

Did you set up 7-zip to us a compression level of anything other than 'Store'? Store only bunches up the files.

I remember when I started using WinRAR... I thought that Store was the best option :tongue:

[krimzin]

yeah I used Ultra. I'm a little confused as to what you're saying, are you saying store will make the file size smaller by compressing the files, or do nothing but group them like any ordinary folder does?

[LFact]

Some files won't be compressed well when you make archive. If a file was already compressed by any means, compressing it again won't any change or make it worse. (Compress a small file, then compress the compressed file again and again, compare their size and see)

 

Media files are usually distributed in already compressed state. Making compressed archive with them won't decrease file size much. Also, storing many archive files in one archive won't save your HD space much. Their file size will remain same or rather be increased a bit.

[Carnage2K4]

YAY LOK, fan, your not using winRAR thats you 1st issue... :P yeah It might just be the file type, you will notice as LFact said; media file like mp3's will only compress about 1-3% as there already at max compression, but files like PNG will compress 70-80% just because there in a naturally non-compressed state. I don't like 7zip, you can do all the same stuff with winRAR, but maybe that's just cos I use winRAR all the time