Cheat Engine

[mgr.inz.Player]

Hi DB.

Do you consider changing storage method of:
- "lua files" added to cheat table via [table] -> [add file]. (we can access them with findTableFile function)
- forms created inside "Form Designer" ?

You are currently using "compress luafile or form, then BinToHex" method. And if saving to cetrainer file, summary is: "compress luafile or form, then BinToHex, then compress whole XML, then protect".


I tried "Base85" thing and I made few tests.

I created new form with ceimage with picture inside, then I saved it.
Results here:

416KB PNG

- CT file has 825KB
- CT file (base85 instead of HEX) has 515KB (37.5757% less)

- CETRAINER file has 470KB
- CETRAINER file (base85 instead of HEX) has 419KB (10.85% less)



2.25MB BMP

- CT file has 968KB
- CT file (base85 instead of HEX) has 605KB (37.5% less)

- CETRAINER file has 543KB
- CETRAINER file (base85 instead of HEX) has 490KB (9.76% less)




Another test, 5.73MB mp3 file added to table:

- CT file has 9.51MB
- CT file (base85 instead of HEX) has 5.94MB (37.53% less)

- CETRAINER file has 5.41MB
- CETRAINER file (base85 instead of HEX) has 4.83MB (10.72% less)




For CT files it is close to expected result: 100% - (5/4) / (2) * 100% = 37.5%, 37.5% smaller
and for CETRAINER files, about 10% smaller.


Here pas file I made (BinToBase85 and Base85ToBin procedures):
http://pastebin.com/EUfGFpZ9


Usage:

[Csimbi]

Nicely done, thanks for the update and the benchmarks!

So, it is going to be part of the next release? (Asking Dark Byte here).

[mgr.inz.Player]

A small update of this old thread.

We are successfully using Base85 since 18 Jan 2013


I decided to write base91 encoding (original basE91 by Joachim Henke - base91.sourceforge.net) in place of base85 and check if this is worth implementing in the next CE version or not.

Some facts:
- base64 has 33% overhead (1MB embedded to CT will result in 1.33MB CT file),
this is why I dropped that idea and went straight to base85 in OP.

- base85 has 25% overhead. It still uses printable characters.

- base91 has variable overhead - 14% up to 23%, (average is about: 22.8%, depends on data type)
And it also uses printable characters.



For testing purposes I changed few lines in source code (luafile.pas) and added custombase91.pas (my implementation)
https://github.com/mgrinzPlayer/cheat-engine/commit/a9ccc71f6da506ef7b4d9c54da953dac4630f62c




I made some tests, here the results:

[Csimbi]

[mgr.inz.Player]

It won't break backward compatibility.

You will be able to open CT files created by older CE versions ( CE6.2 and below, hex instead of base85), CT files created by CE6.3 - CE6.5 (with base85).

[Csimbi]

For a while

Well, if there is no reason not to do it, then go ahead.

[gfetgkh]

hi! mgr.inz.Player, Why CE has not adopted custombase91.pas so far ?

[Dark Byte]

because most people have high speed bandwidth and huge storage space and custombase91 would just save a few bytes for complete incompatibility with older version