Should the BIC files be compressed?

[Mike Breitkreutz FIRAXIS]

Does anyone think the BIC files are too large? Does anyone want the BIC files to be compressed (in the same manner as the saved games)? Or are you all happy with the size of BIC files?

[Gramphos]

Well, they aren't very big... Mybe BICs with maps could be compressed, and when you start to add units and cities to them they will grow, so it might be good to compress them just to be sure they don't grow.


*sigh* My keybord layout just swiched to English, I hate this XP bug. Good that I know both...

[MarkG]

/me wants to send a "no comment" t-shirt to Mike for making this thread

/me thinks it's better to leave bic files uncompressed, only to have it easier for fan-made tools too edit them

[Gramphos]

/me thinks it might be time to release the decompressor exe with a readme...

/me thinks it's bad that & is where / used to be... and > that is were : used to be...

[Jaybe]

You knew that you would have to do this eventually:
BIC files can be compressed in the Editor. Option is in Preferences and the game automatically takes care of decompression as needed.

.SAV file compression is also an option in the game Preferences. Of course, the game automatically takes care of decompression as needed.

[PGM]

Re: Should the BIC files be compressed?

Originally posted by Mike Breitkreutz FIRAXIS
Does anyone think the BIC files are too large? Does anyone want the BIC files to be compressed (in the same manner as the saved games)? Or are you all happy with the size of BIC files?

First of all, I'd like to thank Firaxis for coming out to make questions to us players. Thank you.

I'm definitely not happy with compression.
Since the v1.21 patch the save files are compressed, and that makes start-up and loading times much longer. I think that people who have problems with file size should either delete the unwanted save files or compress them manually.
Please remove compression, don't add some more!

[Admiral PJ]

I voted yes to compression , but only compress them if it won't take longer to save them.. I guess it'll be useful to reduce save file spaces so why not.

What i'm more worried about is saving the Bic file with each save game, I think there should be an option to reload it each time to help scenario editors.
Its quite a pain.. I'd suggest you have an option when you start a game/scenario if you want to save the bic with the save files, so then noone else playing it can modify the rules.
Otherwise the bic file would be reloaded each game load, so scenario editors can modify rules to test things easier.

Well done on compressing the save files, they were taking tonnes of space.. slows down us scenario programmers though possibly.

[player1]

The MOD I made is 109KB uncompressed and 26KB compressed.

Why should this be compressed?
100KB is not much.

And for transfer via web, you'll ZIP it anyway.


P.S.
Although I would love to have BIC editor which could change rules in SAVE files (could help in playtesting my MOD). In that case there should be some lock function to prevent altering rules for various tounrnament games.

[WarpStorm]

Have an option to dump them out in a xml format and reload them from this format. Yes, Mike, I know the size will be huge. I also know that there are things I can do with that, that your editor won't easily support without a lot of changes.

[WarpStorm]

Originally posted by player1
The MOD I made is 109KB uncompressed and 26KB compressed.

Why should this be compressed?
100KB is not much.

Looking at the unfinished mod I made this afternoon, 439KB and I haven't added everything yet. Mods with maps are lots bigger. Marla's map is over 600kb. Mods that will have a huge map, units, and cities will be around 1500 kb. Is this a lot? Not for me, but some people don't have large disk drives.

[Gramphos]

Originally posted by player1
The MOD I made is 109KB uncompressed and 26KB compressed.

Why should this be compressed?
100KB is not much.

Well, your MOD has no map, and morw importent, the editor is not finished yet. KI think that with full Scenario abilities (PTW) the BICS can easaly become 1.5 MB+ If you add many units and cities to a map.

Rules only BICs are not that big, and will probably never be. (There aren't that many rules)

[Bane Star]

Too big??

Lol, doubt it, If the save file is less than a 1.4 floppy, who cares, If they take longer to save and load, then NO dont do it, and If it makes it hard to change them with an editor, then Definately NO dont do it, But the average computer that'd requires to Run the game has at least a 5Gb H.D.D. So whats 1Mg when it comes down to it

(I have 2x30Gb HDD at 10K Rpms so I dont care if the file is 5Mg per save, just as long as its fats to load and save and editable)

[Gelvan]

How many people have a PC which meets the requirements and don't have Gigabyte Harddisks? I don't know it really, but I suppose most people have enough hard disk space. And for sending it around the web, they can be zipped easily. So I don't think it's a good idea to compress them, makes tools more difficult to produce and use and will entail longer loading times.

And I agree, that there should be an option available for NOT saving SAV's together with the BIC of this SAV, because this is a real pain for creating scenarios/mods. (intrduced with 1.21 for unknown reason?)

[The Viceroy]

My advice is , make it optional

Quite a few people have had problems with speed, and to introduce yet more slow down (even if it is only at load time) would not make much sense, unless the user actually wanted to save space on there disk.

So I vote .. NO .. don't compress it ..

but would say YES, make it optional for those that need to save space, and dont have any issue with slow down.

[Imp. Montezuma]

1. Need option for compressing in both game and editor.
2. For maps need separate file.