Compress EXEs on Diamond (Faster loading and programs)

[intx]

Reading over on XDA, came across this.

A program called UPX Squeezer that compresses EXE files within Windows Mobile.

This program has been used to compress WM6 to work on older devices.

Someone tried it on a Touch HD and it worked well providing quicker loading times, and others have tried it on their Diamond and reported great success.

No issues have been claimed, and all stories have been "faster loading!".

It backs up your exe files automatically, don't worry.

I attached it here, there is a read me .txt inside.

COMPATIBILITY LIST(post here if you tried something not listed and it worked):

AdobeReaderLE.exe
ASyncKiller.exe
BCR.exe
Camera.exe
Destinator.exe
FMRadio.exe
GoogleMaps.exe
HTCAlbum.exe
iContact.exe
iDialer.exe
KeePassPPC.exe
kinoma.exe
Labyrinth.exe
LongPressEndKeyApp.exe
MobileNavigator.exe (Navigon MN7)
MP3Trimmer.exe
MusicID.exe
Opera9.exe
OperaL.exe
QuickGPS.exe
RSSHub.exe
s2p.exe
s2u2 Settings.exe
s2v.exe
SecondToday.exe
StreamingPlayer.exe
TomTom Navigator.exe
USBtoPC.exe
WMRegOptimizer.exe
YotaCenter.exe
YotaCenterUpdater.exe
YouTube.exe


DO NOT COMPRESS:
manila.exe
cprog.exe
thumbCal.exe
calculator.exe
wt5jetpr.exe
any DLL

But everything else should work great. Give it a go, let me know how it works.

Hit the thanks button if it helps you.

[intx]

I just tried it for myself, it works well. I tried someones Album, it worked. Opera seems good too.


A thought: ROM cookers precompress the EXEs before cooking and make their ROM overall faster/more memory?

[jonnythan]

... How does compressing a file make it load faster? If anything, it would load more slowly since it has to decompress first.

[intx]

I'm not exactly sure how it's working, but it is...

[mwalt2]

There's a couple threads on this in the software forum here. Here is one where people are posting their compressed exe's, so it's easy to get if you need the same version.

[tobeychris]

People are told they load faster, so they think they do...

[InvincibleLiving]

Originally Posted by mwalt2

There's a couple threads on this in the software forum here. Here is one where people are posting their compressed exe's, so it's easy to get if you need the same version.

Thanks for referencing my thread mwalt!

[OrBy]

Originally Posted by jonnythan

... How does compressing a file make it load faster? If anything, it would load more slowly since it has to decompress first.

It depends on how much the IO costs to load the file. Please realize that even the flash file systems used on out phones are fairly limited in how fast they can read files (mostly due to the fact that the data buses used are vary narrow). Pair that with the fact that the phones have very fast CPU's and you can start seeing the way this works.

Look at it this way:
(my numbers are not real but just being used to make my point)

Say it takes 1 seconds to load 1mb of data from flash to ram.

Say it takes .2 seconds to decompress 500kb of data to 1mb.

Now say the average file gets compresses 2:1.

Take a 2mb file and load it from flash - that's 2 seconds.
Now take that same file compressed is 1mb and load it from flash and decompress it - that's 1 second to load and .4 seconds to decompress to a total of 1.4 seconds.

You just saved .6 seconds by compressing the exe.

Gains like that can be noticeable!

If a perfect world IO would be as fast as the CPU can take - but in small limited resource systems like our phones - OEM's have made trade off's on cost, speed, power use, ect that open windows for optimizations like this to be explored.

We have already seen where compressing the manilla graphics files speeds up TF3D and most of the major ROM cookers are doing it now. This is really just the next step! (I don't know why some one has not thought of it sooner)

[SOHKis]

http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=58173

[mwalt2]

Originally Posted by tobeychris

People are told they load faster, so they think they do...

Yeah, I haven't noticed any speed difference (could just be me), but it does help gain some space.