Best way to reduce PWAD filesize?

Hey there,

I've noticed that my patch wads I create retain the large filesize of the actual DOOM2 IWAD, if not become even more bloated (with some things I've been up to 20 megabytes, which is HUGE for a game like DOOM.)

This even still seems to happen when I delete all the DOOM2 components I will not be modding. Okay, well the filesize is sometimes smaller than the original IWAD but STILL, considering how little data is in it, something seems very wrong. Or I could just be remembering wrong.

So tell me, is there any good way to optimize PWADs?

Perhaps your WAD editing utility is not cleaning the PWAD after each edit, keeping "dead" information that's not listed in the WAD's directory and is not usable or useful.

myk said:

Perhaps your WAD editing utility is not cleaning the PWAD after each edit, keeping "dead" information that's not listed in the WAD's directory and is not usable or useful.

Not usable or useful? I use XWE, and as far as I know that's pretty useful. But thanks for the advice. Also, since it's used so often is there any commonly-used techniques for cleaning the PWAD in XWE?

The data, not the utility. XWE has a cleanup function. You can do it manually through the File menu, using Clean up. You can also have it do it every time you close a WAD, if you go to Options in the View menu and mark "Perform Clean Up on exit" in the General tab.

Dash said:

This even still seems to happen when I delete all the DOOM2 components I will not be modding. Okay, well the filesize is sometimes smaller than the original IWAD but STILL, considering how little data is in it, something seems very wrong. Or I could just be remembering wrong.

You mentioned you "delete all the DOOM2 components" you "will not be modding". Are you perhaps starting with the IWAD in XWE and making changes directly to it? Never work directly on the IWAD. Also, this may be what's causing your file to get bloated. You are unnecessarily including a whole bunch of DooM2.wad resources that will already be available to anyone who owns the game (and this group, presumably, is who you intend to release your mod to).

If for some reason you need to work with the DooM2.wad resources, make sure that you work only on a backup copy.