
Kraken: 3x faster decompression than zlib - dahjelle
http://www.radgametools.com/oodlewhatsnew.htm
======
rb2k_
Another interesting compression project is "Zstandard"

Open source, high performance, decent compression and a "dictionary mode"
that's especially fun when it comes to compressing a lot of small data.

[http://www.zstd.net](http://www.zstd.net)

Previous discussion over at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8941955](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8941955)

~~~
eln1
Also lzturbo is very interesting, closed source but you one can download exec:
[https://sites.google.com/site/powturbo/](https://sites.google.com/site/powturbo/)
[https://github.com/powturbo/TurboBench](https://github.com/powturbo/TurboBench)

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Johnie
There's too many projects named Kraken:

* [http://krakenjs.com/](http://krakenjs.com/) \- Javascript framework

* [https://www.kraken.com/](https://www.kraken.com/) \- BTC exchange

* [https://kraken.io/](https://kraken.io/) \- Image Optimizer

~~~
dwc
There are too many projects of any name (most never see the light of day), but
somehow all these Krakens get released.

~~~
loup-vaillant
Well, what is dead may never die… is what the Krakens say…

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userbinator
I guess it's yet another optimised LZ variant, and it's no surprise that LZ-
based/inspired algorithms are fast, because their main loop is very simple and
does not involve the intense bit manipulation of Huffman/Arithmetic
algorithms. That's how very carefully optimised LZ can end up being _faster
than memcpy()_ in some cases:

[http://www.oldskool.org/pc/lz4_8088](http://www.oldskool.org/pc/lz4_8088)

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mmozeiko
Few benchmarks from @rygorous:

[https://gist.github.com/rygorous/67c78fde615e078117ea1870472...](https://gist.github.com/rygorous/67c78fde615e078117ea187047291913)
(on PC)

[https://gist.github.com/rygorous/9563760e24463a37984c117b572...](https://gist.github.com/rygorous/9563760e24463a37984c117b5728638d)
(on PS4)

~~~
vardump
So slower than LZ4? I wonder how Kraken compression rate compares to LZ4.

~~~
eloff
Better, if you read the article.

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EvgeniyZh
How is it compared to Zstandard
[https://github.com/Cyan4973/zstd](https://github.com/Cyan4973/zstd) ?

~~~
wolf550e
Especially with level 22 with --ultra, I found the compression to be good and
decompression very fast. Can't wait for 1.0 for format freeze (currently
decompressor contains code for previous versions, but that's a hack).

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muizelaar
Unfortunately not open source.

~~~
vvanders
Feel free to downvote me but some people need to eat.

Game development doesn't really match well with the consultancy model of most
commercial Open Source companies.

Also the RAD guys are awesome, they've been putting out solid tools for years.

~~~
feduzi
And this world needs better algorithms. It depends on what you put first:
yourself or others.

~~~
vvanders
Does good will feed my family? Will my landlord let me pay the rent in GitHub
stars?

Or in the words of The Oatmeal:
[http://theoatmeal.com/comics/exposure](http://theoatmeal.com/comics/exposure)

~~~
alayne
Good luck feeding your family with the sales of a proprietary compression
algorithm.

~~~
corysama
This company did exactly that for a long time
[http://www.radgametools.com/bnkmain.htm](http://www.radgametools.com/bnkmain.htm)

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kazinator
Is this 3x faster than zlib at decompressing on zlib-compressed data, or 3x
faster on samples compressed with its own format versus the same samples
compressed with zlib?

~~~
mmozeiko
It is custom compression algorithm. It has its own format.

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Jerry2
Does anyone know how Apple's lzfse [0] compares to some of these other
compression algos?

>Beginning with iOS 9 and OSX 10.11 El Capitan, we provide Apple’s proprietary
compression algorithm, LZFSE. LZFSE is a new algorithm, matching the
compression ratio of ZLIB level 5, but with much higher energy efficiency and
speed (between 2x and 3x) for both encode and decode operations.

I'm interested because of the low energy characteristics...

[0] :
[https://developer.apple.com/library/tvos/documentation/Perfo...](https://developer.apple.com/library/tvos/documentation/Performance/Reference/Compression/)

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MichaelGG
What about LZHAM; I thought that was the top "slow compress, good ratio, fast
decompress" contender for games and such?

~~~
panic
This article has some comparisons between Oodle's LZNA and LZHAM (at least as
of a year ago): [http://cbloomrants.blogspot.com/2015/05/05-09-15-oodle-
lzna....](http://cbloomrants.blogspot.com/2015/05/05-09-15-oodle-lzna.html)

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iso-8859-1
It is no secret that vanilla zlib is slow. Would have been interesting if they
compared with [https://github.com/Dead2/zlib-
ng](https://github.com/Dead2/zlib-ng)

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noir_lord
Is the speed difference algorithmic, implementation optimization or a mix of
both?

~~~
mistercow
They say it's a mix of both.

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stellar2
Looking at the figures, it seems to have roughly the same performance as
Zstandard in high compression mode.

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Gratsby
But what is it's Weissman score?

~~~
gjkood
I was just watching Silicon Valley yesterday and this is exactly what I was
thinking when I read the title. 6.0+?

