1. There is newer version of UPX - 2.92 (Rosetta 5.45 uses 2.91).
2. I suggest trying LZMA compression if not used already.

I compressed the current 5.45 release with the new UPX version 2.92 and maximum compression. The new executable has now 2,10 MB, that's 23% of the original!

We'll switch to 2.92 and use maximum compression for the next release. Thanks!

Has anyone had luck compressing Mac ppc and intel executables?

I compressed the current 5.45 release with the new UPX version 2.92 and maximum compression. The new executable has now 2,10 MB, that's 23% of the original!

Maximum compression ?

You mean "upx.exe --lzma rosetta_5.45_windows_intelx86.exe" or "upx.exe --best rosetta_5.45_windows_intelx86.exe" ?


"--lzma" option is better than "--best".

I compressed the current 5.45 release with the new UPX version 2.92 and maximum compression. The new executable has now 2,10 MB, that's 23% of the original!

Maximum compression ?

You mean "upx.exe --lzma rosetta_5.45_windows_intelx86.exe" or "upx.exe --best rosetta_5.45_windows_intelx86.exe" ?


"--lzma" option is better than "--best".

I used this command: upx.exe -9 --all-methods --all-filters
It took quite long, and I think --ultra-brute would take even longer.

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I made a few more tests, and the --lzma method, as Piotr already said, is one of the fastest and best compression options. There are a few more options with even better compression, but most of them take more than half an hour to complete.

...a half hour to compress, but, just curious, how long to DEcompress? That is the part the client PCs would be doing. Decompress is often faster. If it only takes 5min to decompress, it might still be worth doing.

And how did the sizes compare?

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Add this signature to your EMail:
Running Microsoft's "System Idle Process" will never help cure cancer, AIDS nor Alzheimer's. But running Rosetta@home just might!
https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/

AFAIK --lzma does not have additional options aimed for increasing compression.
Decompression is fast. Does anyone have not compressed (not: unpacked), original version of the latest Rosetta ?

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I compressed the current 5.45 release with the new UPX version 2.92 and maximum compression. The new executable has now 2,10 MB, that's 23% of the original!

Maximum compression ?

You mean "upx.exe --lzma rosetta_5.45_windows_intelx86.exe" or "upx.exe --best rosetta_5.45_windows_intelx86.exe" ?


"--lzma" option is better than "--best".

Thats not true. If you only use "--lzma", LZMA/7 will be applied. But if you use "--lzma --best", LZMA/10 will be applied. Slightly better Ratio 22.64%. And it ist still faster than only using "--best".

If you only use "--best", the old NRV2E/10 will be applied. Slower and the Ratio is only 27.09% on the rosetta_5.45_windows_intelx86.exe.

Using "--lzma --brute" or "--lzma --ultra-brute" is not worth. You have very much slower compression (depending on file) and often no better ratio.

However, it is best to use "--lzma --best --exact" to get a byte-identical file after decompression with option -d. There is no loss in compression ratio in this case.

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My point was just that in the big scheme of things, the compress is only done once... by BakerLab. And if the difference in the time to decompress is smaller then the difference in the download time for a 56k modem user, then perhaps it would be worth using a method that has a long compress time if it saves a few more minutes of download time.

It's the decompress time that is most important. That is what is being done tens of thousands of times.

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Add this signature to your EMail:
Running Microsoft's "System Idle Process" will never help cure cancer, AIDS nor Alzheimer's. But running Rosetta@home just might!
https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/

Okay, perhaps I was a little bit offtopic. Of course, BakerLab will do the compression of the app and send it out. Otherwise it would be senseless. But the decompression speed of UPX is very fast. According to http://upx.sourceforge.net/ the decompression is ~10 MB/sec on an ancient Pentium 133, ~200 MB/sec on an Athlon XP 2000+. Everyone with an 56k Modem will save much time.
Depending on the processor, you will perhaps lose one or maybe two seconds.

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My point was just that in the big scheme of things, the compress is only done once... by BakerLab. And if the difference in the time to decompress is smaller then the difference in the download time for a 56k modem user, then perhaps it would be worth using a method that has a long compress time if it saves a few more minutes of download time.

It's the decompress time that is most important. That is what is being done tens of thousands of times.

The compression time would be 10 times higher, but the size 50 KB less. It is not worth the effort.

surely the compression only needs to be done once per file at the bakerlab end?

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However, it is best to use "--lzma --best --exact" to get a byte-identical file after decompression with option -d. There is no loss in compression ratio in this case.

I also checked compression ratio:
Original "rosetta_5.45_windows_intelx86.exe" - 3206144 bytes.
Repacked one - first with decompress (-d) then packed (with "--lzma --best --exact") - 2208256 bytes.

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We'll switch to 2.92 and use maximum compression for the next release. Thanks!

Rosetta 5.46 released... and UPX 2.91 used ! Probably with old packer options too !

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We'll switch to 2.92 and use maximum compression for the next release. Thanks!

Rosetta 5.46 released... and UPX 2.91 used ! Probably with old packer options too !

3206144-2208256=997888
997888[gain from compression]*267373[hosts]=266808308224 bytes
266808308224/1024=260554988.5 kilobytes
=254448.230 megabytes
=248.484 gigabytes

WASTED

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UPX 3.01 FINAL released:
http://upx.sourceforge.net/

I suggest trying following commandline:
upx.exe --lzma --best --ultra-brute FILE.exe

I achieved 0.69% gain vs previous wersion. Plus 3.01 is a FINAL and STABLE version, since 2.92 was a beta IIRC. 0.69% is not much ? It is 17920 bytes for 5.72.
17920*376584[hosts]=6748385280 bytes=6590220 megabytes=6435 gigbytes~6.28 terabytes bandwidth save !!!

1 kilobyte = 1024 bytes

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Hi -- this looks great, we'll use this compression for the next update (sorry I missed it for these last couple). It wil be nice to compress the Mac apps now!

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