How To Majorly Cut Down Project File Size!

[Leon Kennedy]

How would you like your games file size to decrease from the size on top example to the size of the bottom example?


[both sizes are after mvstripper]



This tut will cover every possible way for you to make your project as tiny as possible. First off is the very obvious go get MVstripper here on forums and use as it instructs that will cut down your project to somewhere around 50% of the original size but of course your are here to take it steps further than that.


Secondly every .png image in your project/img folder can be cut dramatically in size and still work just the same, you can do this by going to tinypng.com. Here is an example of a png image being cut down.





May not seem like much but after 100's of images that's an extra 10-30mb shaved off your project. Now you may say oh well it must be lowering the quality right? I kinda thought it would too but just as example.


<---compressed


<----original


Can you tell the difference? Me neither. Only downfall of this method is time it will take some time to convert all the images and replace them back in correct folder.


Third step you can do is lowering the quality of the .ogg files in audacity. This will of course effect how good your music sounds but maybe if you just want music in the background and such this will work for you and another way to shave off 10-30mb easily. When exporting .ogg files you will get a window that looks like this, it will also have a options tab to adjust sound quality. One notch under default is my suggestion if you put on lowest the quality it will just sound awful one notch down is pretty close to sounding the same.





Last but not least right click your finished game folder [not the project folder] click send to then compressed zip folder. Pretty simple but I've seen so many not do this and it cuts another good portion of mb's from your project.





And that's it! Hope this tut helps some people out.


EDIT: 7-zip will compress it more than regular zipped. But you have to get 7-zip so yeah thats another option.

 

[Phil32]

Excellent solution to cutting down file size! I'm not at a point where this is necessary, but it will be a great help in the future! Thanks so much!

 

[mcphersonsound]

Newbie here, but one thing I found to be really useful is to dump any resources you are not using. I know it sounds obvious, but since the engine dumps a games worth of assets when you first load a project, its important to discard what you are not using. I also suggest keeping a back up of your project folder since many assets (especially SFX assets) are really used a lot in a default setup.

 

[Hoppy]

Newbie here, but one thing I found to be really useful is to dump any resources you are not using. I know it sounds obvious, but since the engine dumps a games worth of assets when you first load a project, its important to discard what you are not using. I also suggest keeping a back up of your project folder since many assets (especially SFX assets) are really used a lot in a default setup.

Especially music, I use very little default music, only around 5 tracks since I'm slowly buying asset packs for music (I still have the DS+ pack to buy, and FES may get a pack).

 

[Dr. Delibird]

Not to be a downer but I can notice a difference between the compressed and original door. It is probably because I do art as to why I have noticed it.

The compressed ones colour are of different values than the original. Most people won't notice a difference but for the game makers who do notice the difference and did some (or more) of their own art, it is a big deal. 

 

[Leon Kennedy]

Not to be a downer but I can notice a difference between the compressed and original door. It is probably because I do art as to why I have noticed it.

The compressed ones colour are of different values than the original. Most people won't notice a difference but for the game makers who do notice the difference and did some (or more) of their own art, it is a big deal. 

mmmm compressed looks very slightly darker? and in your case that doesnt really destroy that method then they just wouldnt compress whatever art they wanted to not be as dark its very slight though. or they can just leave em full size.

 

[Leon Kennedy]

Just figured this deserves a bump seeing all these new demos that are half a gig in size. Lol.

 

[Andar]

@Leon Kennedy
The MV stripper itself became obsolete several MV-versions back then a similiar function was added to deployment.
And the second part is mostly obsolete because recompressed stock resources have also been added to the default downloads.

Only for custom resources the second part might still be usefull....

 

[Leon Kennedy]

@Leon Kennedy
The MV stripper itself became obsolete several MV-versions back then a similiar function was added to deployment.
And the second part is mostly obsolete because recompressed stock resources have also been added to the default downloads.

Only for custom resources the second part might still be usefull....

Did they actually update the function to not include files used by plugins? Last time I tried [version 1.5.1] that still hasn't been worked on. Also just tried to compress a default rtp file it was cut by 66% in size so they obviously didn't compress them very much as someone said above compressing to the max may make the picture a bit darker so I doubt they would do that with rtp. I don't mind them being darker though.

 

[Andar]

Did they actually update the function to not include files used by plugins? Last time I tried [version 1.5.1] that still hasn't been worked on.

Can you explain what you're referring to?
There is a function to register resources used by a plugin, and if the plugin writer uses that function then his required resources will be known to the engine for deployment.
If a resource is neither registered by the plugin nor used any where in the regular engine, then of course it will be removed.

 

[Leon Kennedy]

Idk @Andar I don't think it's cool of you to come bash my thread though. The rtp is not compressed very well, the quality of music doesn't need to be as high as it is and a lot of plugins are made by first timers so they may/may not include the resources that need to be exempt. Don't think this thread is useless as I just tested a stock game made with 1.5.1 with the not used resources removed and still managed to cut 150mb off the size...That's not included what the maker cut off the size...

 

[Andar]

@Leon Kennedy
I didn't bash your topic, i pointed out that a lot of the things that started this topic over one year ago have been worked on.
And when you claimed that something regarding plugins hasn't been worked on, I asked you to clarify what you meant by that.
Because the plugin writers had been given the tools to handle the exclude option from the time it was first introduced, and if there is something else to be done to make the deployment better, then we need to explore every idea.

So again, what do you think should have been worked on more in the quote of your post I made yesterday?

 

[Leon Kennedy]

Well the pictures could be compressed more-so. But some users do claim like above that it lowers the look of it, which I don't see besides it being a bit darker. Music could also be compressed a bit. Also yeah like I said I understand makers of plugins should include used assets but some don't so it should be encouraged more-so or if someone notices they didn't include assets it should be brought up.

Then the games can have the minimum size and minimum waiting game for it to download.

 

[Bryy Miller]

Yeah, I used this site, and it works incredibly well with very little drawback.