MDMA: A Total Annihilation fan site
Optimisation guide
A Windows batch-script that optimizes the game's files.
Warning: Anything discussed on this page might break your installation of Total Annihilation! My script does make a backup off all files used, but I can never be sure the script won't trash your installation!
While I was browsing the web for Total Annihilation MOD's, I came across this site, mentioning something about condensing Total Annihilation. So I got interested. And the rest you can read below.
Why?
- Total Annihilation uses archives in the form of files with extensions like .HPI, .CCX and .UFO. These files are compressed with ZLib.
- Since the latest patch (3.1c), Total Annihilation supports a higher compression ratio. But all the archives from the original CDs are still compressed with the old compression.
- It also seems some junk was left behind in those archives. Some of this stuff was not removed after the betas, and some errors were made (Big thanks to Draconious for looking up all of these files!)
- If you are up to it, unpacking those archives (HPIview), removing all the junk files and repacking (HPIpack) those archives with the highest compression ratio can save quite some space and make the game run faster!
But doing all of this manually can take quite some time. I was busy for at least an hour or so. As you can imagine, I wasn't really looking forward doing this every time I re-installed Windows!
And the Good Thing(TM): The tools used to do all of this manually, support command-line parameters! Which means I was able to write a batch-file, which does everything for you!
Download
All you need to do is download the ZIP-file (112 KB), extract the files in the directory in which Total Annihilation is installed, and run optimize.bat.
Updates in 1.1
- Files are processed one by one. This means you're not required to have 5GB of free drive space anymore :).
- Each file is packed with it's original filename. Meaning you won't just get one big archive (of more then 500 MB, which could lead to a less stable experience on some computers), but the original files, just cleaned up and packed with the highest compression ratio.
- Everything's automated, except downloading the actual file.
- It's more portable and easier to update for me.
I also keep the old version online for anyone interested.
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