It’s basically a GUI to the built-in Windows 10 ‘Compact’ command-line program, that compresses folders in a manner transparent to anything accessing files within it.
I believe it’s similar to the NTFS compression you can enable via File Explorer advanced folder attributes and choosing to ‘Compress contents to save disk space’, except with more modern/performant algorithms.
I’ve been using it and it works wonders on poorly-compressed games, with no noticeable performance hit on modern cpus. Fit more games on that SSD (also works on apps of course)!
eg:
Also Assassin’s Creed Origins from 41.5GB to 27.5GB, and Nioh from 73.8GB to 22.4GB.
Some games are already well-compressed so it doesn’t make sense to use it in those cases. But plenty aren’t. :)
Well, the base tool is built into Windows so not overly suspicious.
The downside is, it takes a few minutes to initially compress the folder (depending on size), and there may be no savings so you have to then uncompress (the GUI gives estimates though based on online database of others results).
I’m sure there is also a performance hit as it decompresses dynamically when files are requested. But as I said, it’s not really noticeable on modern CPUs.
I read Compact was using more modern, performant algorithm? Is that not so?
You’re right, after a bit more research it actually isn’t the built-in NTFS compression-- it isn’t part of the filesystem, it uses NTFS reparse points to transparently point to your files. This was added in win10 for the compact OS feature so they could sell 16GB tablets. The xpress algorithms don’t seem worth the trouble, but LZX is much more effective than the built-in NTFS compression. Up to 60% better.
This compression may not be permanent - it’s a limitation of Windows itself, that the Xpress and LZX functions cannot be run live on new files that are added to the compressed folders. What this means is that over time, with updates to your games, you will experience compression decay; the folder will slowly but surely grow in size until it is back to its original size. You can somewhat get around this by first running Compact on any folder you choose, then run compact.exe /c /s on the folder afterwards which will mark it so that future files will get compressed
Note however that this will not use the Xpress algorithm, so the compression of new files won’t quite be as significant. This is still better than using the default NTFS compression in Windows (“compress this folder to save space”). HOWEVER, THIS WILL NOT COMPRESS FILES THAT ARE UPDATED IN THE FOLDER. ONLY NEW FILES ADDED WILL BE COMPRESSED.
Some games don’t like this compression - Guild Wars 2 is an example, it compresses down massively, but as soon as you run the game it will hang as it uncompresses the entire game again before it lets you play it.
Copying files to other systems or syncing to online services will not be compressed - According to two users’ test results, this means that you can safely use this on OneDrive and Google Drive folders, as only the local variant will be compressed. If you copy the files to another drive or computer, they will be decompressed. However If you’re compressing files on an external drive, note that those files will only be able to be read on a Windows 10 PC until they’re uncompressed again.
Works on Windows 10 Only - The features used in this program were only introduced in Windows 10. Earlier OSes will not be able to run this program.
MMOs are uniquely poor candidates for this sort of thing as the files are constantly being changed. And GW2 is the worst of 'em because it doesn’t need to do monolithic patches, it sends streaming updates.
I remember when everyone was using Stacker. I refused back then because I was convinced it would make games slower. We discussed this at length at the Babbages I worked at. Ah, the good ol days.
Don’t forget QEMM as well. The two together stopped me getting into my system one day.
Steam now has the ability to move games between drives. What I do is move the big ones I’m not playing to my old large mechanical drive. This way they stay up to date and I don’t have to re download them each time.
