I see in another thread (about the size of people's FS2004 folder) - that some people have compressed their folders.Firstly, how do you do this -- and can we have a discussion please on the pros and cons of doing so. I would prefer to hear mostly from people who have actually done this and what their experiences are. Please don't comment if your opinions are only based on what you "think" or "have heard".It is difficult to reason somebody out of a position that they have not reasoned themselves into.Thanks Barry

I've long since compressed my folders. No problems whatsoever. The argument goes that the reduction in size of the folders allows the read head of the hard drive to access the spot faster, offsetting the need to decompress the data in software. As FS uses large - very large - bundles of data, it seems it ought to be a good thing. I have detected a slight decrease in initial load times while the percentage points climb, but there is no difference in-game at all. And with the size of modern hard drives it doesn't really matter.Allcott

>I've long since compressed my folders. No problems>whatsoever. >But how do you actually do it?Regards Barry

Select the FS2004 folder with your mouse right click properties...At the popup screen choose avanced (but lower right)...That's all..Running uncompressed here hehehe :-)Succes...Andr

In XP (at least) right click the folder to be compressed, select properties/general/advanced. Then select to compress.Jonl

Howdy,You can compress your entire drive's contents by simply performing a regular Disk Cleanup. This will compress all unused files (don't forget to set the number of days Option, too).

>I would prefer to hear mostly from people who have actually>done this and what their experiences are. Please don't comment>if your opinions are only based on what you "think" or "have>heard".>When I did it I got significantly longer load times for loading a flight so I soon uncompressed it again.Example up to 10 minutes to load a flight in a Megascenery area compared to 3-5 minutes uncompressed.

I unintentionally and inadvertently compressed my FS files :(I didn't notice any difference in performance and only realised I'd done it when I saw the the "file size" was greater than the "file size on disk" under file properties.I'm using UK VFR Photographic Scenery and Terrain.

Do not compress your folders. This will no doubt decrease performance as there's a overhead associated with decompression. This fact is clearly evident from the option "Compress OLD files" in disk cleanup options. Rarely use files are compressed while others aren't. This is done with performance in mind.Keith

Read my post! I didn't experience any reduction in performance. Anyway the performance reduction due to uncompressing files needs to be balanced against the performance increase from faster disk access as a result of transferring less information. Your argument is too simplistic.

Precisely!Allcott

>Do not compress your folders. This will no doubt decrease>performance as there's a overhead associated with>decompression. You are clearly mistaken. I have done many, many tests with compressed and uncompressed folders and I see absolutely no impact on my system when I compress F9 folder. Don't know about slower CPUs but on mine - I decided to have them compressed since it saves me disk space without any performance penalty whatsoever.Michael J.WinXP-Home SP2,AMD64 3500+,Abit AV8,Radeon X800Pro,36GB Raptor,1GB PC3200,Audigy 2http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/747400.jpghttp://www.hifisim.com/images/asv_beta_member.jpg

His argument is simplistic, but it's right, I think!I am studying for Computer Engineering and I have some info on those subjects.The software overhead for decompressing the files on the hard disk is much greater than the possible gain you have on reading less data from the hard drive. Of course, NTFS is already optimized for compression, but the overhead is still there.BUT, you are probably right when you say that you don't experience any slowdowns in the game itself. Confused? Don't be, it's actually simple...When you begin a flight and load up the sim, and the percentage goes slowly up, you are loading the scenery, traffic and texture files into your RAM. Of course, your RAM probably won't be big enough to hold everything, so Windows begins to transfer data from RAM to the swap file, somewhere on your hard drive. So, parts of your sim are on the RAM, others are on the swap file. For you, the user, this transparent system makes it look like you have an infinite amount of memory, and you can effectively use more memory than the amount of RAM installed. This is called VIRTUAL MEMORY.So, if you notice activity on your hard drive while changing views, for example, what is happening is that your computer is transferring data from the swap file on your disk to the RAM, and then the processor or graphics card accesses it from there. In fact, that is one of the main principles of virtual memory. Due to some inconsistency problems, data is always accessed through the upper part of the memory hierachy.Of course, some new files must be brought to the virtual memory system from the FS folder as you fly, such as new scenery data as you overfly it. But the speed you fly at is slow enough (even with a fast jet) that you don't even notice that activity, so if the transfer speed is slightly lower due to the decompression overhead, you don't notice it.So, compressing your FS folder won't get you worse performance, but you won't get any improvement either. What you may notice is an increase in loading times, especially with sceneries like megascenery, which require lots of texture data to be loaded.Hope this clears things up a bit ;)

>you may notice is an increase in loading times, especially>with sceneries like megascenery, which require lots of texture>data to be loaded.I don't have any Megascenery but UT USA involves lots of extra scenery files to be loaded. I monitored the loading time before and after compression and saw absolutely no noticable difference.Michael J.

>>The software overhead for decompressing the files on the hard>disk is much greater than the possible gain you have on>reading less data from the hard drive. Of course, NTFS is>already optimized for compression, but the overhead is still>there.What evidence have you about the relative times of decompressing and of disk transfer?