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Hayden Scott-Baron
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« on: January 19, 2009, 04:51:14 AM » |
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Why do people ever use .RAR files instead of .ZIP files?
Even more confusingly, why do some people offer files with both .ZIP and .RAR files?
Even if there is a smaller compression size, it's not all that significant. There is some foreign character support in RAR too, but this isn't relevant for most people either.
Using RAR files mostly serves to prevent people from unpacking your file without some other software installed first (WinRAR, 7zip, etc), as both MacOSX and Windows XP unzip files as standard, but do not support RAR.
Also, saying 'Rarr file' aloud sounds quite strange.
So, what gives? Why use RAR?
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William Broom
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« Reply #1 on: January 19, 2009, 04:55:25 AM » |
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You know I actually have no idea. I just do what everyone else does, I guess.
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jeb
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« Reply #2 on: January 19, 2009, 04:57:19 AM » |
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I like WinRAR... so I guess it's more convenient for me.
Also, we have ¤ characters in our filenames when we create gfx packages, and zip doesn't support them.
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Don Andy
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« Reply #3 on: January 19, 2009, 05:00:35 AM » |
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I tend to use RAR since it has a better compression (although as you say, it's not really that significant), but if I know the person I'm going to send a file might not have an Unpacker supporting RAR, or simply not the technical know-how to get one, I'll ZIP the file instead.
Sometimes I also use 7zip, since it does have an (imo) significantly better compression than both, but I kind of dislike the 7zip GUI, and self-extracting 7zips are usually very sluggish for me (dunno why).
But yeah, I think I primarily use RAR because that's what I'm used to.
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Hideous
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« Reply #4 on: January 19, 2009, 05:09:51 AM » |
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When I right click to pack something, the .rar option is above the .zip option.
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Soulliard
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« Reply #5 on: January 19, 2009, 05:28:17 AM » |
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I don't get it either. Unless there's some huge advantage of using RARs, you're losing a large portion of your potential audience.
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Hideous
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« Reply #6 on: January 19, 2009, 05:29:19 AM » |
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I do? I've unpacked rar's on linux before, it's not hard. Dunno about OS X.
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IndieBoy
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« Reply #7 on: January 19, 2009, 05:30:40 AM » |
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I use it. I don't know why  |
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Hayden Scott-Baron
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« Reply #8 on: January 19, 2009, 05:31:49 AM » |
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Hideous, if no-one used RAR there wouldn't be any need to install WinRAR. Are you confident that all your users have winRAR? Also, we have ¤ characters in our filenames when we create gfx packages, and zip doesn't support them. Why do you have ¤ characters in your filenames? That strikes me as asking for trouble. |
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Hideous
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« Reply #9 on: January 19, 2009, 05:37:46 AM » |
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They should get it, though  Really, though, WinRAR > Windows' standard zip-unpacking crap. Really, that thing sucks. |
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Don Andy
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« Reply #10 on: January 19, 2009, 05:40:05 AM » |
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Isn't Linux primarily using that tar-ball stuff anyway?
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Hayden Scott-Baron
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« Reply #11 on: January 19, 2009, 05:43:29 AM » |
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They should get it, though Really, though, WinRAR > Windows' standard zip-unpacking crap. Really, that thing sucks. It zips and unzips. What's wrong with that? Oh, it doesn't support RAR files...  |
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Jóhannes G.
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« Reply #12 on: January 19, 2009, 05:48:24 AM » |
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They should get it, though Really, though, WinRAR > Windows' standard zip-unpacking crap. Really, that thing sucks. RAR is better, but sometimes people have to make sacrifices to appeal to a broader audience. I know many people that know nothing about RAR and if they would download an indie game in the rar format they would probably just scratch their head and throw it away because it "didn't work". that's why I usually use "popular" compression formats. To make it easier for the end-user |
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Hideous
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« Reply #13 on: January 19, 2009, 06:06:11 AM » |
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It zips and unzips, yes, but it does it in a bad, slow way.
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gnat
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« Reply #14 on: January 19, 2009, 06:08:35 AM » |
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I remember rar compression being fairly significant back in my 33.6k, and even 56k modem days. Shaving a megabyte off of a file could mean an extra 5 minutes off of the download time.
Although nowadays with broadband everywhere, the size difference is much less significant; and there are superior opensource alternatives to the rar format such as 7z.
Although there are two advantages to using zip as opposed to either rar and 7z: Wider coverage and faster extraction (which can be useful for storing/loading game data quickly, ID uses this technique in Quake III).
[edit]
56kaaaaaaaaaaaaay
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« Last Edit: January 19, 2009, 06:14:38 AM by gnat »
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Akhel
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« Reply #15 on: January 19, 2009, 06:09:42 AM » |
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.rar is good for splitting files, which AFAIK .zip cannot do. .7z seems to be the best choice for compressing very large folders. Other than that I think you're right.
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Hayden Scott-Baron
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« Reply #16 on: January 19, 2009, 06:13:37 AM » |
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Kao, next time I'm distributing a software on floppy disk I'll consider RAR. It zips and unzips, yes, but it does it in a bad, slow way.
Slow, sure, if that matters to you. I've never had it take any significant amount of time, but if you're dealing with a lot of large zip files then I can see why you would want something faster. Please explain how is it 'bad' though? If I right-click on a file and extract the files using the windows standard dialogue, how is that a bad thing to do? Or if I double click on it, browse the contents (without loading any programs) and then click extract contents, is this a bad thing to do? |
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jeb
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« Reply #17 on: January 19, 2009, 06:18:17 AM » |
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Also, we have ¤ characters in our filenames when we create gfx packages, and zip doesn't support them. Why do you have ¤ characters in your filenames? That strikes me as asking for trouble. Uhm... well you asked why and I told you why. The thought process about the ¤ sign was something like this: - I need a marker sign in the filenames. Can't use # or @, so I use ¤ instead (shift+4 on Swedish keyboards). - Ah works great! - Oh, ZIP screws up, stupid zip, well let's use RAR for these files. ZIP bug avoided! When we publish stuff for the public we obviously use ZIP, of course, but that wasn't what you asked. |
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Hayden Scott-Baron
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« Reply #18 on: January 19, 2009, 06:39:19 AM » |
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Uhm... well you asked why and I told you why. The thought process about the ¤ sign was something like this:
- I need a marker sign in the filenames. Can't use # or @, so I use ¤ instead (shift+4 on Swedish keyboards).
- Ah works great!
- Oh, ZIP screws up, stupid zip, well let's use RAR for these files. ZIP bug avoided!
When we publish stuff for the public we obviously use ZIP, of course, but that wasn't what you asked. This question was more general!  I find myself avoiding extended characters, or OS specific characters. Macs can have some pretty fruity filenames that Windows doesn't like, and stuff like this, but because I'm so used to working cross platform I am habitual to avoiding problems such as these as broadly as I can. |
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Terry
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« Reply #19 on: January 19, 2009, 07:05:29 AM » |
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I use zips for anything I distribute, but I've got one big problem with them - windows generally just treats it like a folder unless you've got something like winzip or winrar installed, and for people who don't know to extract it that usually leads to problems like the application not running or not keeping save games or other issues like that  |
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Developer
