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XCom -> For multiplayer - Can compression of league files be improved? (8/11/2006 4:06:31 AM)
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This was brought up in another post and I felt it was worth giving it's own topic so it doesn't get lost. It concerns the size of the league files that need to be uploaded/downloaded by commissioners and owners of online multiplayer leagues. Currently, these archives are on the order of 20+mb and this can be overload for the many people who are still on dialup connections and can be tough on bandwidth limitations for webservers.
I think Puresim currently uses the zip compression format to archive the league files for transfer. Is it possible to switch to a more efficient compression format (such as the open source and free 7z format) which would make the file transfers much easier to do for many of us and make online multiplayer leagues much more prevalent?
I think this question is mainly for Shaun and relates to whether this is feasible. I think you would see several online leagues start to popup if the file transfers were less cumbersome. You can follow the relevant posts below for further background.
Thanks!
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8/10/2006 3:27:22 PM
Well, I did a quick experiment.
The psa.zip file for an 18 team multiplayer league that I just created and uploaded to my server was 20.3mb. After it was decompressed, the .psa file was 68.2mb and the .psx file was 1.6mb. Using the 7z compression format that same archive (now called psa.7z) is only 5.3mb. Much easier to handle for dialup users!
The 7z compression format is open source and free to all.
http://www.7-zip.org
I think it could be easily incorporated into the multiplayer mode in place of whichever zip program is being used now. The owners never see the compression/de-compression take place when updating their league file in Puresim. This could make it much easier for multiplayer leagues to exist. This issue could be one of the reasons why you don't see many online multiplayer leagues popping up.
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8/10/2006 4:53:24 PM
quote:
ORIGINAL: akcranker
It's been awhile since I did a multiplayer league but I don't remember zip files. Was puresim zipping up the files automatically and sending them and then unpacking them without the user noticing or having to interact with the zip file? With this tool you mention do we have to zip the file ourselves each time we send it or does puresim automatically use it?
Yes, I believe so. What I think goes on is that Puresim zips up the league files and then uploads them via FTP to the server when the commissioner wants to send a new file to the league. The team owners then click inside Puresim to update their league file, which prompts Puresim to download the zip file from the server, decompress it, and place the league files into the /psa folder on the local computer.
I am hoping that we can replace the zip format inside Puresim with the 7z format. So, Puresim would just use a different compression utility to compress/de-compress the league file when the transfers take place. It would be (hopefully) behind the scenes and the user wouldn't have to do anything different.
Otherwise, I do think that the compression and FTP steps could be done manually by the commissioner, placing the .7z file on his server and having a link for all the owners to download the file. Then each owner could have their own local copy of 7-zip to decompress the files to their /psa folder. I don't think roster and tactics changes submitted to the server from the owners use the compression sequence, so that would stay the same. Just the sending/updating of the league files would have to be done manually outside of Puresim.
Some of this is just speculation on my part. I'm hoping Shaun will take a look at this possibility and comment on whether it is possible or not...either to change the compression format inside Puresim, or whether manually compressing and uploading/downloading would work.
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