TC v7.04a unpacked executable

[theosdikaios]

https://plugins.ghisler.com/img/unpack32_700.exe

[Genghis86]

And why is that important? The Exe is uncompressed once, not permanently, after that there is no difference.

Compressed exes are transfered faster to memory than uncompressed ones, because the hard disk is the bottle neck and not the CPU. The effect on the system performance is positive, not negative.

Icfu

Totally wrong. Read this: http://f0dder.reteam.org/packandstuff.htm

[Genghis86]

It's only important when a user starts several instances of a program.

It also makes a difference when Windows is running low on physical memory. When it runs low on physical memory, it has to page out whatever is in physical memory to disk.

If TOTALCMD.EXE is uncompressed, it simply removes its pages from memory, because it knows it can get them later by reading TOTALCMD.EXE.

If TOTALCMD.EXE is compressed, its pages on disk do not match pages on memory. When Windows wants to page out TOTALCMD.EXE, it will have to write the uncompressed pages to pagefile.sys! Of course, because it can't read them back from TOTALCMD.EXE (its compressed). That's even worse.

I hate compressed executables.

[Xtrician]

What is the diffrence bettwen unpacked or the normal exe?

And what is better recommended to use?

Thanks.

[Alextp]

Xtrician

http://f0dder.reteam.org/packandstuff.htm

[Xtrician]

2Alextp
Thanks, i read it.

But i still dosent understand what is the diffrence in the performance, it working same there is no diffrence.

[Alextp]

It depends on the speed of your HDD and CPU. It you have slow CPU fast HDD then unpacked EXE will start faster (somtimes). And etc.
You may not notice the difference as author wants

[m^2]

It depends on the speend of your HDD and CPU. It you have slow CPU fast HDD then unpacked EXE will start faster (somtimes). And etc.
Also the RAM size may count... You may not notice the difference as author wants

If you have fast hdd, with file like TOTALCMD.EXE you won't see any differece, even with Pentium 2.
But according to the article above, on slow drives (i.e. Connected via Bloetooth ), unpacked executable will also be faster.
His argumentation sounds well, I'll have to do my tests...

[icfu]

@Genghis86:
http://www.movsd.com/demo/freedom.htm
http://upx.sourceforge.net/#overview

>no memory overhead for your compressed executables because of in-place decompression.

This thread is from 2005 by the way...

Icfu

[gigaman]

Don't know what they mean by in-place decompression here, but there certainly is memory overhead in UPX; first, it places the compressed sections above the end of the original image (so the image is bigger - its virtual size, I mean), second - all written in the linked docs is valid (the sections are writable, so they cannot be shared, have to go into the swap file when low on memory, etc.)

[norfie²]

2icfu

This thread is from 2005 by the way...

Here is your sign.

[m^2]

Xtrician

http://f0dder.reteam.org/packandstuff.htm

I made a test on a real-world application. Skype. Uncompressed - 22.3 GB.
Compressed - 13.0 MB (upx --best).
I placed it on my old hard drive.
Time to show splash screen: 6 seconds for compressed and 7 - for uncompressed.
Memory usage: 32 MB for compressed, 20 - uncompressed.
Conclusion:
When you don't use (memory-wise) most parts of your exe, your load time will be shorter when the exe is uncompressed. But it's not likely to happen. Why is Skype.exe so big? Let's take look into it's resource section...:
- 2.4 MB of wav files
- 2.6 MB of bitmaps, probably c.a. 1/3 is used at startup.
Compression also provides a huge memory overhead.
- 650 KB of icons, c.a. 400 KB unused
- 3.6 MB of language files, at most 284.8 KB used
- 2.6 MB of binary files, mostly pngs that are not used (at startup, of course)
The assumptions above are probably highly inaccurate, but they say: Skype reads at most 70% of it's executable at staretup and even though it doesn't compress well, it's load time decreased when upx-ed.

The price was a huge memory overhead.

Thank you, Alextp, for this article. I'll still use compression in my programs, but I'll use it more wisely.

[icfu]

@gigaman:
If you don't run multiple instances of a program and have enough RAM so you can disable your swap file, the downsides – which are also mentioned in the article I posted – are irrelevant. It's nice to be able to save a few MB with uncompressed files of course, but I prefer memory to be used for making apps start and operate faster.

Nevertheless meanwhile I am against TC being delivered with compressed totalcmd.exe because of the negative side effects of realtime AV access scanning.

Icfu

[Giovanni]

Is there an unpacked TC 7.01 available?

[theosdikaios]

Is there an unpacked TC 7.01 available?

Not yet unfortunately. It should be available anyway here
https://plugins.ghisler.com/img/unpack32_701.exe
any time.