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7-Zip for Windows can now use more than 64 CPU threads for compression

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Re: 7-Zip for Windows can now use more than 64 CPU threads for compression

#111

Post by martinald »

sidewndr46 wrote: post #69
cesarb wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone can open a ZIP file, and they don't really care if the file is a few MBs bigger. You can use ZSTD with ZIP files too! It's compression method 93 (see https://pkware.cachefly.net/webdocs/casestudies/APPNOTE.TXT which is the official ZIP file specification). Which reveals that "everyone can open a ZIP file" is a lie. Sure, everyone can open a ZIP file, as long as that file uses only a limited subset of the Z…

Same thing with "WAV" files. There's at least 3 popular formats for the audio data out there.

More 'useful' one is webp. It has both a lossy and lossless compression algorithm, which have very different strengths and weaknesses. I think nearly every device supports reading both, but so many 'image optimization' libraries and packages don't - often just doing everything as lossy when it could be lossless (icons and what not).

Re: 7-Zip for Windows can now use more than 64 CPU threads for compression

#112

Post by pjmlp »

conkeisterdoor wrote: post #90
pjmlp wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as it does a better job than whatever Windows team packs into the OS, they're safe. Even on latest Windows 11 takes minutes to do what 7-Zip does in seconds. Goes to show how good all those leetcode interviews turn out.

Glad I'm not the only one who feels this way. WinZip is a slow and bloated abomination, especially compared to 7-Zip. The right-click menu context entry for 7-Zip is very convenient and runs lightning fast. WinZip can't compete at all.

Mixing channels here, WinZip is a commercial product, unrelated to Windows 11 7-zip support, and my comment.

https://www.winzip.com

Re: 7-Zip for Windows can now use more than 64 CPU threads for compression

#113

Post by Night_Thastus »

d33 wrote: post #10

I worry that 7-Zip is going to lose relevance because lack of zstd support. zlib's performance is intolerable for large files and zlib-ng's SIMD implementation only helps here a bit. Which is a shame, because 7-Zip is a pretty amazing container format, especially with its encryption and file splitting capabilities.

7-zip is the de-facto tool on Windows and has been for a long time. It's more than fast and compressed enough for 99% of peoples use cases.

It's not going anywhere anytime soon.

The more likely thing to eat into its relevance is now that Windows has built-in basic support for zipping/unzipping EDIT: other formats*, which relegates 7-zip to more niche uses.

Re: 7-Zip for Windows can now use more than 64 CPU threads for compression

#114

Post by krapht »

tiagod wrote: post #97
1over137 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>how about people learn to use updated software? How about software developers learn to keep software working on old OSes and old hardware?

What stops you from running updated zip/unzip on an old OS or on old hardware?

Nothing, but what stops you from using DEFLATE64?

Installing new software has a real time and hassle cost, and how much time are you actually saving over the long run? It depends on your usage patterns.

Re: 7-Zip for Windows can now use more than 64 CPU threads for compression

#115

Post by izzydata »

Night_Thastus wrote: post #113
d33 wrote: post #10

I worry that 7-Zip is going to lose relevance because lack of zstd support. zlib's performance is intolerable for large files and zlib-ng's SIMD implementation only helps here a bit. Which is a shame, because 7-Zip is a pretty amazing container format, especially with its encryption and file splitting capabilities.

7-zip is the de-facto tool on Windows and has been for a long time. It's more than fast and compressed enough for 99% of peoples use cases. It's not going anywhere anytime soon. The more likely thing to eat into its relevance is now that Windows has built-in basic support for zipping/unzipping EDIT: other formats*, which relegates 7-zip to more niche uses.

Is there something different about the built in zip context menu functionality now than before? I'm pretty sure you could convert something to a zip file since forever ago by right clicking any file.

Re: 7-Zip for Windows can now use more than 64 CPU threads for compression

#117

Post by vlovich123 »

bracketfocus wrote: post #100
vlovich123 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

people tend to care about decompression speed - xz can be quite slow decompressing super compressed files whereas zstd decompression speed is largely independent of that. People also tend to care about how much time they spend on compression for each incremental % of compression performance and zstd tends to be a Pareto frontier for that (at least for open source algorithms)

This makes sense. A lot of end-users have internet speeds that can outpace the decompression speeds of heavily compressed files. Seems like there would be an irrational psychological aspect to it as well. Unfortunately for the hoster, they either have to eat the cost of the added bandwidth from a larger file or have people complain about slow decompression.

Well the difference is quite a bit more manageable in practice since you’re talking about single digit space difference vs a 2-100x performance in decompression.

Re: 7-Zip for Windows can now use more than 64 CPU threads for compression

#119

Post by malfist »

Night_Thastus wrote: post #113
d33 wrote: post #10

I worry that 7-Zip is going to lose relevance because lack of zstd support. zlib's performance is intolerable for large files and zlib-ng's SIMD implementation only helps here a bit. Which is a shame, because 7-Zip is a pretty amazing container format, especially with its encryption and file splitting capabilities.

7-zip is the de-facto tool on Windows and has been for a long time. It's more than fast and compressed enough for 99% of peoples use cases. It's not going anywhere anytime soon. The more likely thing to eat into its relevance is now that Windows has built-in basic support for zipping/unzipping EDIT: other formats*, which relegates 7-zip to more niche uses.

Windows has had built in zip/unzip since vista. 7zip is far superior (and the install base proves that)

Re: 7-Zip for Windows can now use more than 64 CPU threads for compression

#120

Post by jart »

dikei wrote: post #29
d33 wrote: post #10

I worry that 7-Zip is going to lose relevance because lack of zstd support. zlib's performance is intolerable for large files and zlib-ng's SIMD implementation only helps here a bit. Which is a shame, because 7-Zip is a pretty amazing container format, especially with its encryption and file splitting capabilities.

I use ZSTD a ton in my programming work where efficiency matters. But for sharing files with other people, ZIP is still king. Even 7z or RAR is niche. Everyone can open a ZIP file, and they don't really care if the file is a few MBs bigger.

Use the pigz command for parallel gzip. Mark Adler also has an example floating around somewhere about how to implement basically the same thing using Z_BLOCK.
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