[info] BSP Compression Created 18 years ago2006-06-18 06:24:07 UTC by Penguinboy

i decided to do a little research on which programs compress BSP's the best. dont ask why.... anyway, i will be testing several kinds of compression - the popular and common zip and rar formats and the less used 7z and uha formats.
i searched my steam directory and looked for the biggest BSP files i could find.
here are the results of the tests:(sorry for .bmp, .jpeg loses too much text quality)

As you can see WinUHA compresses BSP files the best, with 7-Zip in LZMA mode coming second. 7-Zip is probably the best, as WinRAR can open 7-z files, so you dont have to download 7-Zip to get the map.
WinUHA is available here.

Yay, useless info!

I've never even heard of UHA. Anyway, 7-Zip for the win.

very useless because if you dont winzip or winrar it most people will ignore your stupid proprietary compression format, plus everyone downloads maps through steam now

Very interesting but at the end of the day as people have said...The vote is split between Winzip, WinRar and 7-zip.

Some people just have their opinions on what's better and it is up to the author what he releases his maps in...He'll always get complaints but perhaps it is their loss.

yes, well even though UHA has a better compression ratio, it isnt very versatile since not many people have it
great for backups tho.

since winrar opens the 7-zip files, i think 7-zip is the best - i would even go as far to say that .rar and .7z compressed maps should be allowed to be uploaded to the map vault
well...rar at least

anyway, i wanted to know the info for myself, and i thought i may as well post the results here

Just upload the 3 main formats: ZIP, RAR and 7-zip. That way you cover all bases.

GZ and ZIP are the most common, I'd say, unfortunately.

zip is inbuilt by ME onwards so its essentially the dominant format