Game file sizes could soon be 70% smaller

McManicMan

McManicMan

McManicMan

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So who needs Blu-Ray anyway!

A company known as Allegorithmic claim their software can help reduce the size of games by up to a massive 70%. It is said that if this is true, then the greatest application of all would be to the age of digital distribution, where downloads of content could become super quick.


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So what are the implications for you and I? In terms of traditionally packaged games that come in boxes, there probably won’t be much difference. Dr Deguy argues that if textures are smaller in file size and easier to create, then next-generation companies will be able to create even more textures for the games. We may then see a big leap forward in how richly detailed games are in the future as they triple the variety of textures the game includes.

The biggest impact however will be the benefits this will have to digital distribution. Games with texture quality and diversity matching Half Life 2 may soon be available in minutes of downloading rather than hours – for gamers this can only be a good thing.


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News Source: Bit-Tech
 
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An 70% improvement in compression techniques sounds hard to believe :)
 
When I worked in the games indusrty, this is exactly some of the stuff I did.

Actually, 70% is quite feasable really. It's not so much 'how' to compress it, it's the algorithm complexity and the speed at which it takes the 'compressed' format and how fast it can decompress it.

You're basically looking for a pattern, and how often it repeats and how well your code can look for a pattern that can be repeated.
 
I remember when jpeg started becoming the standard (Makes me feel old!), pretty amazing compression. Would be nice for something similar in the games industry to lower the size of downloads and to enable developers to fit more on a DVD if they needed to.

70% does seem rather optimistic but I'll look forward to seeing what happens.
 
Would be interested to know more about this. I'd like to know if it's a generic compression method or something that is somehow tailored for games.

Still not as impressive as that 96k game, but you have to use non traditional methods to create artwork for that system.
 
Rhys said:
What 96k game? Pong?
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.kkrieger I think it was called. It's much more impressive than pong believe me. It's a short FPS game with pretty good 3D graphics. Very impressive that it's only 96k.
 
dirtydog said:
hmmmkm7.gif


An 70% improvement in compression techniques sounds hard to believe :)
Click to expand...

They managed HUGE reductions in filesizes using large compression with the 7-zip format a couple of years ago, I don't see why they can't allow a similar algorithm (allbeit enhanced) to run a disc. If you can get files read from within a compressed file or folder then you're on your way.
 
As an example, and if anyone here uses SQL Server. Trying taking a database off line and zipping it. 90% reduction on average! :eek:
 
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