Compact GUI: Resize your Games/Programs by 60% or more

Discussion in 'Game Tweaks and Modifications' started by NvidiaFreak650, Oct 16, 2017.

  1. NvidiaFreak650

    NvidiaFreak650 Master Guru

    Messages:
    672
    Likes Received:
    602
    GPU:
    Nvidia RTX 4080 FE
    [​IMG]
    Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/76hj26/i_tested_25_games_against_the_windows_compact/
    Website with more info: https://github.com/ImminentFate/CompactGUI
    Download: https://github.com/ImminentFate/CompactGUI/releases

    I try it & it works, not only this save space on your HDD/SSD/SSHD but no frame rate lost with no file deleted. pick XPress16K for the best compressed mode.

    Note* Once Compact GUI is done with the game you pick, go to the folder in Windows where the game is at, highlight the very same folder of the game you use in Compact GUI, then hold shift while pressing right mouse a menu going to show open Powershell.

    Once Powershell is open enter compact /c /s & wait until it's done. after you compress it, it marks the folder so that any changes get compressed as well.

    *This step is for games that update a lot & does not break the compressed folder each time there a update. If you want to know if compressed work in Powershell, you going to see two little blue arrows in the folder. now when the game update it's going to compress the file in realtime so there no need to rerun Compact GUI.
     
    Last edited: Oct 16, 2017
  2. NvidiaFreak650

    NvidiaFreak650 Master Guru

    Messages:
    672
    Likes Received:
    602
    GPU:
    Nvidia RTX 4080 FE
    [​IMG]
    I try Evil Within 2 & Middle Earth: Shadow of War, no framerate change & game is a little smooth due of the SSHD is loading files quicker due of the compressed files.
     
    Skinner, fantaskarsef and KissSh0t like this.
  3. KissSh0t

    KissSh0t Ancient Guru

    Messages:
    13,788
    Likes Received:
    7,524
    GPU:
    ASUS 3060 OC 12GB
    That is so crazy... the difference in size.
     
    akbaar and fantaskarsef like this.
  4. NvidiaFreak650

    NvidiaFreak650 Master Guru

    Messages:
    672
    Likes Received:
    602
    GPU:
    Nvidia RTX 4080 FE
    Yeah, some games work best while some don't. what great about this tool is it run on Windows 10 Compact.exe in System 64, this GUI help you pick what compress you want. I really loving this tool, not only it give me more space back but no need to delete games anymore.
    [​IMG]
     

  5. Athlonite

    Athlonite Maha Guru

    Messages:
    1,358
    Likes Received:
    52
    GPU:
    Pulse RX5700 8GB
    Does this not effect load times as it will have to first decompress any files needed thus taking longer to load....

    also doesn't this do the same thing as found in the properties of files and folders

    [​IMG]

    And after using file and folder compression

    [​IMG]

    so a 1.15GB saving on disk space
     
    Last edited: Oct 17, 2017
  6. NvidiaFreak650

    NvidiaFreak650 Master Guru

    Messages:
    672
    Likes Received:
    602
    GPU:
    Nvidia RTX 4080 FE
    It's almost the same but it's new at the same time.
    Background
    Windows 10 includes a little-known but very useful tool called Compact that allows one to compress folders and files on disk, decompressing them at runtime. With any modern CPU, this added load is hardly noticed, and the space savings are of most use on those with smaller SSDs.

    As program folders and games can be shrunk by up to 60%, this has the added bonus of potentially reducing load times - especially on slower HDDs.

    More information on the inbuilt Windows function can be found here

    This tool is intentionally designed to only compress folders and files. Whole drives and entire Windows installations cannot be modified from within CompactGUI - users seeking that functionality should use the command-line version built into Windows (this is intentional).

    The compression used by compact.exe is similar to the built-in NTFS compression in that it is transparent. Compressed files and programs can still be accessed as if nothing has changed and show up in Explorer as they normally would — they'll just be decompressed on the fly at runtime. However, the newer algorithms are much more efficient than NTFS (LZNT1).
     
  7. BuildeR2

    BuildeR2 Ancient Guru

    Messages:
    3,207
    Likes Received:
    437
    GPU:
    ASUS 4090 TUF OG OC
    What black magic is this? Seems too good to be true. I'm willing to try it if others here say it is legit. Also curious about what Athlonite is asking.
     
  8. NvidiaFreak650

    NvidiaFreak650 Master Guru

    Messages:
    672
    Likes Received:
    602
    GPU:
    Nvidia RTX 4080 FE
    I try it & i'm loving it, no issues.
     
  9. Athlonite

    Athlonite Maha Guru

    Messages:
    1,358
    Likes Received:
    52
    GPU:
    Pulse RX5700 8GB
    And as a comparrison to file and folder compression I downloaded Compact GUI and compressed the same folder after decompressing it from file/folder compression

    [​IMG]

    so only ~400 Megabytes better the file/folder compression offered by Windows itself
     
  10. BuildeR2

    BuildeR2 Ancient Guru

    Messages:
    3,207
    Likes Received:
    437
    GPU:
    ASUS 4090 TUF OG OC
    And there is *NO* downside with something like an i7 and SSD? For example, I am playing Fallout 4 and the DLC packs but the high resolution texture pack is too large for me to keep installed. If I were to download it (~100GB) and use this tool to compress it on my SSD, I shouldn't run into excessive CPU usage or SSD reads/writes? Lastly, does this massive compression compromise texture quality at all? I'm surely interested but not quite understanding this win/win/win situation, as there is usually some kind of downside.
     

  11. NvidiaFreak650

    NvidiaFreak650 Master Guru

    Messages:
    672
    Likes Received:
    602
    GPU:
    Nvidia RTX 4080 FE
    You can read more if you need more answer https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/...5_games_against_the_windows_compact/?sort=new
    Additional Notes
    In my testing, using any of the XPRESS modes has no discernible impact on CPU performance when the compressed program is run (Using an i7-6700HQ).
    [​IMG]
     
    Noisiv likes this.
  12. vbetts

    vbetts Don Vincenzo Staff Member

    Messages:
    15,140
    Likes Received:
    1,743
    GPU:
    GTX 1080 Ti
    So I usually don't compress my files because I haven't had good luck with compressing some of my games. Are you doing the compressing on a mechanical drive or an SSD? My SSD I really only use for my OS, and documents, while I had a 2tb Seagate drive for my games.

    2 games I'm interested in compressing are Gears of War 4, and Black Ops 3.
     
  13. mbk1969

    mbk1969 Ancient Guru

    Messages:
    15,505
    Likes Received:
    13,526
    GPU:
    GF RTX 4070
  14. fantaskarsef

    fantaskarsef Ancient Guru

    Messages:
    15,636
    Likes Received:
    9,512
    GPU:
    4090@H2O
    Okay, I got to take a look at that. Also at how the basic windows stuff works that's supposed to do the same.
    Damn, no justifying buying a bigger SSD now...
     
  15. 0blivious

    0blivious Ancient Guru

    Messages:
    3,301
    Likes Received:
    824
    GPU:
    7800 XT / 5700 XT
    Interesting. I don't have any space issues but this may come in handy on my laptop. Thank you for the heads up.
     

  16. thatguy91

    thatguy91 Guest

    The first mention I made about this feature with space and performance comparison was back in April 2015, under another of my online usernames (actually my intended name for on here, but I made a typo at the time and thought 'meh' :D)
    http://cinematicmod.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=3956&p=11670&hilit=xpress16k#p11670
     
  17. NvidiaFreak650

    NvidiaFreak650 Master Guru

    Messages:
    672
    Likes Received:
    602
    GPU:
    Nvidia RTX 4080 FE
    Not all games will give you a lot of space back to your SSD, SSHD or HDD with this tool. you just have to try it out & see if you gain space back. I understand people have mix feeling about this but it won't hurt your games or system because this tool is part of Windows in a way since this tool just a UI to use Windows CMD command for Compact.exe.
     
  18. Athlonite

    Athlonite Maha Guru

    Messages:
    1,358
    Likes Received:
    52
    GPU:
    Pulse RX5700 8GB
    Yes for me I found that if the files are already in an archival format .BSA for example for Skyrim they were the ones not compressed by this program
     
  19. Texter

    Texter Guest

    Messages:
    3,275
    Likes Received:
    332
    GPU:
    Club3d GF6800GT 256MB AGP
    Back in the day there was Stacker...brought those 286 clones nearly to a standstill at times LOL...
     
    Athlonite likes this.
  20. BuildeR2

    BuildeR2 Ancient Guru

    Messages:
    3,207
    Likes Received:
    437
    GPU:
    ASUS 4090 TUF OG OC
    I can't speak to BO3, but I wouldn't waste the time or SSD cycles on UWP/MS store games. I used this tool @ the 16k setting on Forza Apex, Horizon 3 and Gears 4 last night. I saved ~1GB on apex, ~4GB on H3 and ~9GB on GoW4. I like this tool and will continue to follow it, but it is funny to me that all the games I have installed get nearly zero benefit. GoW4, FH3, GTAV, Shadow of War, Fallout 4, Civ VI and Wildlands. I could spend hours compressing all of them to save less than 20GB. Maybe one day I'll install a game that benefits. To be clear, Fallout 4 with the high res texture pack and all DLC did see a big space savings, but the game would constantly get stuck down at around 5 FPS for no reason until I uncompressed it.

    Like I said above, I tried it out on several of the games I have installed last night and unfortunately get next to no benefit. I'll keep up with the tool and recommend it to a few friends.
     

Share This Page