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Amaster

Wad Size

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So, I've been working on my first big production, and it's comming along nicely, but there's one small issue. My wad currently weighs in at 1.39 mb. It only has 4 new patches , and no new music or sounds. What I do have, is almost 900 sectors. Should my file really be this large? I tried running it through Wintex's "clean wad" function, but that didnt do anything. Will combining sectors that are completely identical (giving them the same sector number) help?

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Assmaster said:

So, I've been working on my first big production, and it's comming along nicely, but there's one small issue. My wad currently weighs in at 1.39 mb. It only has 4 new patches , and no new music or sounds. What I do have, is almost 900 sectors. Should my file really be this large? I tried running it through Wintex's "clean wad" function, but that didnt do anything. Will combining sectors that are completely identical (giving them the same sector number) help?


It should help assuming you have a fair number of sectors with identical properties.

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Assmaster said:

Will combining sectors that are completely identical (giving them the same sector number) help?


Yes. the size of a wad is based on the number of linedefs, sidedefs, sectors and things as well as the nodes data. if you have a bunch of sectors with the exact same properties then merging them will decrease the size of the map.

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Merging redundant sectors is always a good idea, but don't be scared of high numbers. Space Station Omega had something like 3300 sectors IIRC.

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Assmaster said:

Will combining sectors that are completely identical (giving them the same sector number) help?

Unless you have a large number of identical sectors, sector merging will only marginally reduce the file size for smaller maps. As map size increases, so does the complexity of the nodes/bsp tree, and consequently the size of the wad file. Therefore sector merging could noticeably reduce file size in larger maps with many identical sectors.

A note of caution, however. Sector merging means that any player attacks within "hearing" distance of a given sector will be heard clear across the map if there are merged sectors there. This drawback can be overcome to some extent with block sound linedef properties and deaf enemies. But it's still something to consider.

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Assmaster said:

My wad currently weighs in at 1.39 mb... almost 900 sectors. Should my file really be this large?

900 sectors is relatively small. The size is probably due to the physical X/Y dimensions of your level - and this creates a large REJECT.

If you can't change the dimensions and you still want to make it smaller, there are 2 easy ways to make big size reductions:

1. Just pack the sidedefs, since that's usually the biggest contributor to size. Do not do this until you have your level ALL done though, since it's a bitch to edit a level with packed sidedefs. If pack sidedefs then you may want to merge the sectors first [assuming you have no special tricks going on] and then pack sidedefs.

Some nodebuilders pack sidedefs and DeePsea can pack and merge.

2. If you are making this for ZDOOM, then you can -0- both the BLOCKMAP and REJECT for size.

All of the above will probably makes your level 1/3 the size.

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Are you sure you ran in through Wintex? When you run it through, it creates a file called "xxxxx.new" (xxxx being the wad name). You have to rename xxxxx.new to xxxxxx.wad and overwrite the original wad. I am creating a wad right now and so far I have 5 maps, all with custom music, a custom titlepic, and a custom interpic. My wad size was around 1.8mb but Wintex dropped it down to just 500k! And when I zip it up it's down to 150k! Amazing.

If you already did all this, just ignore this post. Just trying to help.

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