ADOM download size

[Mobius]

... The version with NotEye integration is about 150 MB big, resulting in 150 times the traffic as before. Our server has a high traffic limit, but we estimate that it's not enough. ...

As an experienced programmer, can I suggest that 150MB is getting a bit big? I suspect there is something amiss. Ask us for ideas on fixing it, because I don't want your paycheck eaten up by bandwidth costs.

Is it pictures, audio, etc? Maybe make the music an optional download; I tend to disable music ASAP anyway.

[Al-Khwarizmi]

As an experienced programmer, can I suggest that 150MB is getting a bit big? I suspect there is something amiss. Ask us for ideas on fixing it, because I don't want your paycheck eaten up by bandwidth costs.

Is it pictures, audio, etc? Maybe make the music an optional download; I tend to disable music ASAP anyway.

Music takes a lot of space. Of course, it can usually be compressed so that it takes much less, but then you lose quality. I have also programmed some games and I don't see anything outrageous about 150 MB if one is picky about sound quality.

I'll gladly download 150 MB to get ADOM with great-quality audio and images. I prefer that to having a smaller download with crappier quality.

That said, making downloading music optional is fine by me. Choice is always good.

[jt]

Do you really think 150 MB is "big"? Just as an example, a Nvidia gfx driver has around 220 MB.

There is nothing wrong with the files... we're using OGG for the sound and PNG for the images. Optional music might be an idea, but this results in more work (building and uploading additional archives). Lets see how the torrent thing works out, if this isn't enough we have to think about other options.

[Elcs]

Does this mean that p14 is coming really *really* soon?

As far as NotEye integration goes, personally I'll not be using the sound (and I still have my fingers, toes, legs and arms crossed that we get a beautified ascii version of graphics) but I'll be downloading the full torrent with sound in just to help upload and take the burden away from the ADOM servers.

I quite like torrents when they are used appropriately and effectively. Will be supporting ADOM's torrents with any bandwidth I have spare (I'm UK-based so don't expect miracles )

[Mobius]

Do you really think 150 MB is "big"? Just as an example, a Nvidia gfx driver has around 220 MB.

There is nothing wrong with the files... we're using OGG for the sound and PNG for the images. Optional music might be an idea, but this results in more work (building and uploading additional archives). Lets see how the torrent thing works out, if this isn't enough we have to think about other options.

Big is, well, relative. My first HD was a monster of 67MB. Well, at the time it was. I've done HTML-ish layout in < 2mb

I would be interested to know the fraction devoted to graphics / audio / code.

[SirTheta]

One can look at DoomRL for a quick reference and see 150 MB is not very out of place. Though it would be nice to have a no whatever graphcis, etc. option, I doubt it will happen

[jt]

I would be interested to know the fraction devoted to graphics / audio / code.

Sure, it's around 100 MB graphics, 45 MB audio, 5 MB code and libs. Quite a lot of stuff (e.g. over 400 monster and 700 item images alone).

Thanks to all people who are seeding the files!

[Mobius]

Sure, it's around 100 MB graphics, 45 MB audio, 5 MB code and libs. Quite a lot of stuff (e.g. over 400 monster and 700 item images alone).

Thanks to all people who are seeding the files!

Hmm. 100 MB of graphics sounds a bit steep, even for ~1000 images. That's 100Kb each - have you done all the png optimizations known to man? Tiled the graphics for overhead savings? Once it comes out, I'll take a peek and file a bug with useful suggestions. (if I actually have them, mind you.)

e.t.a.
just tried an online png optimizer: http://www.pngoptimizer.com/ which reduced a graphic font file from adom p13 (fantasy-32.png) from 22,421 bytes to 13,548 bytes.
I know there are better tools, but it's a start. Smaller is Better!

[mrrstark]

Reminder: It's 2013

I'd rather see dev effort go into content and the kickstarter goals than shaving K off of sprite sizes.

At most, an option for a non-GFX version, but only if it's easy.

[jt]

There are 1410 images altogether (maps, decals, etc.). They are kept in separate files so that they can be easily replaced/modded.

I'm sure there are ways to optimize the size of the graphics... but it has no high priority right now (for me at least). I'll take a note to try some of the PNG optimizers (e.g http://pmt.sourceforge.net/pngcrush/ or http://optipng.sourceforge.net/).