Topic: Can you decompress the driver packs before integrating?

The 7zip decompression on method 2 in GUI setup is taking up a lot of time. Is there a way to have the packs already decompressed and ready to go at that point? Or is that already in method 1?

Re: Can you decompress the driver packs before integrating?

Hi

M1 decompressed the 7zips, then cabs them.
Last time I did that, it took well over 35 minutes to slipstream the DVD.
The Cabbed drivers are taking more space than the 7zip files.
To copy them during setup, will take (a bit?) more time than it  takes to copy the 7zips.

fully decrompressing them, that would use up to 1.5 Gigabyte on the DVD.
(more, if one also adds 3rd party)
Cabbing them all, well, you know that all drivers that were written to path in M1 and are beyond  the string lenght limit will NOT be used.
This is what has made M2 the preferred choice.
The Packs became too big for M1.

We will try shorten paths in the future.

The answer was 42?
Kind regards, Jaak.

Re: Can you decompress the driver packs before integrating?

hmmm,
we are actually already doing that, because we still recognise the usefulness of M1.

You will see more shortened paths in the future.
Once Overflow gets back to coding, we will be able to make progress on a couple things that stopped us from doing major cleanup in chipset.
Jeff wants shorter paths. I too, matter of fact.

The answer was 42?
Kind regards, Jaak.

Re: Can you decompress the driver packs before integrating?

I wonder if repacking the driver packs with little or no compression would speed things up?

Re: Can you decompress the driver packs before integrating?

Fragbert wrote:

I wonder if repacking the driver packs with little or no compression would speed things up?

And I wonder where I replied to that question already before (because I know I did!).
Thing is, you have to know what will work faster:
Transferring the uncompressed files (lots of space!) from a relatively slow medium such as CD/DVD saving any uncompressing time or transferring only a fraction of that but having the CPU/RAM do some work decompressing.

In the end, this cannot be answered ultimatively because it depends on your system.
With fast CPU/RAM I doubt you'd gain anything.
Also, I do not know whether DMA already works when the DriverPacks are being extracted (guess no), so the copying process would already be slow on the bus and also take a huge load of CPU.

Not having tested this (search and see the other thread for further inctructions), I'd say compressed drivers is faster unless it's a really old system (even then bus speed and drive speed will also be slower).

Re: Can you decompress the driver packs before integrating?

Helmi wrote:
Fragbert wrote:

I wonder if repacking the driver packs with little or no compression would speed things up?

And I wonder where I replied to that question already before (because I know I did!).
Thing is, you have to know what will work faster:
Transferring the uncompressed files (lots of space!) from a relatively slow medium such as CD/DVD saving any uncompressing time or transferring only a fraction of that but having the CPU/RAM do some work decompressing.

In the end, this cannot be answered ultimatively because it depends on your system.
With fast CPU/RAM I doubt you'd gain anything.
Also, I do not know whether DMA already works when the DriverPacks are being extracted (guess no), so the copying process would already be slow on the bus and also take a huge load of CPU.

Not having tested this (search and see the other thread for further inctructions), I'd say compressed drivers is faster unless it's a really old system (even then bus speed and drive speed will also be slower).

I'll do some informal testing on a shiny new Intel 3 series setup.

Q35 chipset board w/ E6850 (dual core 3ghz, 1333mhz FSB) and 2GB DDR2-800
150GB Western Digital Raptor
My trusted Samsung 16X DVD ROM that seems to be faster than any other reader I've had my hands on.

This will be interesting since I agree the copying from DVD will be slower and with such blazing speed of the raptor and Intel I/O the decompression should be nill - but I have noticed it takes quite a bit of time lately.

Re: Can you decompress the driver packs before integrating?

Fragbert, the new chipset with that heci will be available in 10 minutes or so.

viola
http://driverpacks.net/DriverPacks/changelog.php?pag=c

Last edited by Jaak (2007-10-10 08:22:25)

The answer was 42?
Kind regards, Jaak.

Re: Can you decompress the driver packs before integrating?

Also copying very large single files via DVD is much quicker than lots of small files of equal size - which is where I'm making a hunch there will be speed improvement overall when using no compression.

Re: Can you decompress the driver packs before integrating?

Yes, that's true, but nine 7zips totalling 282Mb are 9 big files, not over 8000 small ones.
At very low/zero compression, they would be over 1.4 Giga total. They would be very huge files.
smile

M1 cabs them. I don't know if it cabs all 8000... (Still, we see it then adds over 500Mb of very small files.)
During installation, the cabinets get uncabbed.

I think M2 is the faster during setup.
(sorry for the edit.)

Last edited by Jaak (2007-10-10 11:05:44)

The answer was 42?
Kind regards, Jaak.

Re: Can you decompress the driver packs before integrating?

I'll run an experiment.. I have to make an ISO anyhow.

The answer was 42?
Kind regards, Jaak.

Re: Can you decompress the driver packs before integrating?

errrrr, did you run an experiment........?
What method is faster during the installation of windows(i use 3rd party packs)?

cheers

Re: Can you decompress the driver packs before integrating?

jaak said the test results were the same almost to the minute... he tried this last night

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Re: Can you decompress the driver packs before integrating?

I had a quite fast DVD reader.. and I timed M1 and M2.
I noticed that T39 started with only a minute or so difference (with main packs.)
T39 starts after decompressing.
With third party present, (19 7zips) the M2 setup took a lot longer to decompress.
With third party present, (19 packs cabbed) M1 setup takes a lot longer to copy.
But, end result was only about two minutes difference before windows was ready to use.

With a SLOW DVD and a fast CPU, M1 would take a LOT longer. Copy of contiguous large files is faster than copy of thousands of small files.

My initial tests were with M1 and main packs and a path under 4096. smile
M1 with all main and all third party is a very good driver CD.. and setup copies those it cannot tell windows where they are (they are beyond the path limitation) as well.

M2 plus OverFlow/warmsnow could become the preferred solution.

Last edited by Jaak (2008-04-08 17:48:52)

The answer was 42?
Kind regards, Jaak.

Re: Can you decompress the driver packs before integrating?

OH, Helmi.
Jeff wants me to try something in M2.

I was asked to write something into M2 so it uses the INFs for chipset early on.

The answer was 42?
Kind regards, Jaak.

Re: Can you decompress the driver packs before integrating?

Jaak wrote:

OH, Helmi.
Jeff wants me to try something in M2.

I was asked to write something into M2 so it uses the INFs for chipset early on.

I'am awaiting your results! smile

Still need to do some tests myself...
(seeing as new BASE RC is out and whatnot)
Hopefully the weekend will give me some time for it.