Folder compression

[paulcroft 0]

Does anyone have any views on the advantages or otherwise of running FSX from a compressed NTFS folder? I'm not looking to save space, modern hard drives are more than large enough for my needs, but I just wonder if, now that FSX is capable of making fuller use of my core 2 duo's abilities, whether the improvement in file transfer speeds is more than offset by the cpu load required to uncompress/recompress the data or whether there is a useful advantage to be gained.Paul Croft15 miles north of EGKK

[greggerm 312]

I have a view, not backed up by any sort of experience:Don't do it. :)You mention one of the key reasons - uncompressing the directories will take away precious CPU cycles from the simulator itself, rather than allowing the CPU to dedicate itself (for the most part) to the simulator. Let the drive/storage subsystem handle the file transfers as designed, and let the CPU concentrate on the simulation. Another big reason is that many of the MSFS files are already compressed. (eg: all the BMP texture files, etc) You won't be gaining any size advantages. The NTFS compression will *try* to squish down the files, but won't gain much at all. "Double-compressing" a file is generally harder on a system than the first pass, so in addition to the basic compression load, you are asking the computer to compress the most difficult type of file!Most MSFS files are already quite small in size - compressing them for faster transfer times really isn't a viable option, as they already load in at the fastest possible speed.I would recommend using a commercial defrag utility to organize your MSFS drive/directory such that files are in a logical order. (Search here for any of the many defrag threads). This will give you the most bang for the buck, and won't overly burden your computer on mundane compression tasks. Good luck!-Greg

[paulcroft 0]

Thanks for your thoughts on that Greg. They may not be backed up by any specific experience but the logic sounds about right. wrt defrags, I currently use Diskeeper. It may not sort the files and directories for me but it keeps the whole shebang defragged in the background without any intervention on my part. Now that's the sort of software I like :-)Paul Croft15 miles north of EGKK

[FlyingsCool 3]

Did you search the forums. There have been several responses to this by people who do have experience and knowledge. If memory serves, people said it didn't matter, as the file is not stored compressed in morey.Thomas[a href=http://www.flyingscool.com] http://www.flyingscool.com/images/Signature.jpg [/a]I like using VC's :-)N15802 KASH '73 Piper Cherokee Challenger 180

[Magic Man 2]

>Did you search the forums. There have been several responses>to this by people who do have experience and knowledge. If>memory serves, people said it didn't matter, as the file is>not stored compressed in morey.But the OPs point was that a compressed (i.e. smaller file) would be transferred quicker. In the case of lots of texture files then this could add up. He was questioning whether the CPU cycles it would take to decompress would be offset by the faster throughput resulting in a net gain of performance - especially if he has spare CPU cycles that could be put to work doing this.Can you compress BMP files?

[aerdt 0]

Don't use folder compression.It's a left-over from years ago when HDD space was sparse. It will slow down your HDD access and in the worst case cripple your HDD.Pat

[Magic Man 2]

How will it slow down access?How will it cripple a drive?

[Guest Vilk]

can i give you another juicy bone to chew on? :-)a while ago i encrypted the lone partition on one of my drives--the partition contained a lot of small archive files in a lot of directories, fairly close to the fs structureopening the partition in explorer and navigating the folder structure became orders of magnitude snappier--perhaps because of the way truecrypt assembles the file table in memoryi hope it's close to your original area of interest. if not, please disregardcheers

[Cruachan 705]

"It will slow down your HDD access and in the worst case cripple your HDD".Tut, tut, I really don't believe that statement can be correct. I have used folder compression on both FS9 and FSX (since soon after both sims were released) and see useful results in terms of disk space savings, access times and overall sim performance. After loading, HD activity is minimal while each sim is running.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/175150.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/175151.jpgI have experienced no file corruption and regularly defrag (weekly, sometimes more often) with PerfectDisk 8.0.Both my sims and all my games and applications are on drive D: and XP Home + the Paging file is on C: (15GB partition). Archives are on drive E: (not compressed). I don't compress any other folders, just FS9 and FSX.This arrangement has worked well for me over several years with numerous full backups and 3 system rebuilds and everything I need has survived intact.I would suggest that if your HD becomes "crippled" then the finger of blame should not be be pointed at file compression. I have had a few 'crippled' HDs in my time, but the cause is invariably either mechanical or due to a controller fault.Mike

[paulcroft 0]

Well, isn't IT fascinating. One question, two possible answers and they're both represented here. I thought there might be a definitive answer to my question but it seems not. Nonetheless, thanks for your input gents, it's been illuminating:-)Paul Croft15 miles north of EGKK

[Cruachan 705]

"I don't compress any other folders, just FS9 and FSX"I've just checked and am reminded that this is not so. I see I have compressed a few other folders, but they are all flight sim related, e.g. VisualFlight's VFR Textures and VFR-Gen-X.Mike

[aerdt 0]

My "crippled" statement is referencing to compressed folders that cannot be uncompressed again, because of a (potential) lack of disk space. Files can also get corrupted when sharing out compressed files over NFS or SMB. There are many other cases with regards to 3rd party software, which simply cannot handle compressed files. Of course, those are all very specialized cases, but in any case you do not want to take any chances.The compression and decompression and thus any r/w operation requires precious CPU cycles, so I don't think that anyone might want to waste CPU cycles to get a marginally improved disk access time.Of course, that's just my humble opinion. ;)Pat

[mgh 89]

I compressed many files, including FS9, inadvertently! I noticed no different at all. I only realised that I'd done it when I noticed that Size on Disk was less then the File Size when right-clicking on a file then Properties.There is a trade-off between disk transfer time and de-compressing but I have no evidence to determine it - other than my personal experiance that it didn't nake any differecne.

[scott967 62]

In FS9, the Megascenery installers compressed all its texture folder. don't know about in FSX. scott s..

[Magic Man 2]

>My "crippled" statement is referencing to compressed folders>that cannot be uncompressed again, because of a (potential)>lack of disk space. Files can also get corrupted when sharing>out compressed files over NFS or SMB. There are many other>cases with regards to 3rd party software, which simply cannot>handle compressed files. Of course, those are all very>specialized cases, but in any case you do not want to take any>chances.>>The compression and decompression and thus any r/w operation>requires precious CPU cycles, so I don't think that anyone>might want to waste CPU cycles to get a marginally improved>disk access time.>>Of course, that's just my humble opinion. ;)>>PatBut that is the whole point of the post. If he has CPU cycles to spare (or even if he hasn't) is there an advantage to be gained by using processing time to decompress files and benefit from the quicker loading times over no decompressing but possibly marginally longer load times. Scenery is constantly being paged in from disk so any speed up of throughput may be advantageous.