!!!!!!!! PLEASE DISTRIBUTE THIS FILE AS WIDELY AS POSSIBLE !!!!!!!! This is a benchmark comparison of the following archive programs: ARCA version 1.21 & ARCE version 2.06 by Vernon Buerg/Wayne Chin/A. Kumar PKARC version 1.2 & PKXARC version 3.3 by Phil Katz ZOO version 1.22 by Rahul Dhesi The following tests were performed on an 8MHz IBM AT clone with a Seagate 4051 40 megabyte hard disk and DOS 3.1. Even though PKARC supports the use of a RAMdisk for temporary files, this option was not used in these benchmarks. Each program was tested on three criteria: archive creation speed, archive extraction speed, and archive size. Ten archives were chosen. One archive was made up of purely ASCII files. One archive contained purely binary files. The commercial software packages SideKick and Turbo Lightning were archived. The fifth archive contained the plans and artwork for the PC-SPRINT kit. In order to perform a fair benchmark, the remaining five archives were chosen from the five most popular archives downloaded from the Exec-PC bulletin board for the period 10-6-86 to 11-10-86. A public message was sent to Bob Mahoney, Sysop of Exec-PC, requesting the download frequency on his board prior to performing these benchmarks. Which files were most popular, and how each archive program would perform with these archives was not known beforehand. These five archives represented 909 downloads totaling 139 Megabytes for that period. THE FIRST ARCHIVE ----------------- The following files consist the first archive to be tested. It contains 39 miscellaneous ASCII text files. 300_450 TXT 6962 3-15-84 2:32a 60MINS TXT 11096 3-24-86 12:48a ATOM TXT 7167 3-24-86 12:48a COOKIES DOC 17160 3-04-86 6:47a COOKIES TXT 902 2-05-86 10:57p FASTAT TXT 13448 3-05-86 11:47p FASTBACK TXT 2512 10-20-85 11:00p FIDO DOC 1849 1-27-85 4:01p GUIDE DOC 56401 8-09-86 6:45p GURU TXT 7325 4-07-85 11:10p HISTORY DOC 8448 3-24-86 12:53a HITCHSOL TXT 21955 6-30-85 12:23a IBM DOC 2886 9-26-85 7:19a IBMNET TXT 9970 10-22-84 12:41a IDEAS TXT 5431 10-02-84 10:24p INFONET TXT 7737 4-23-86 9:36p INSURE TXT 2111 8-29-85 10:29p MARKET TXT 6705 6-02-85 8:45p MURPHY DOC 7521 11-19-84 12:48a NEPTUNE DOC 5157 8-19-84 1:02a NOECHO DOC 452 5-03-84 11:57p PCAT TXT 10053 10-22-84 12:46a PCPRICES DOC 4983 9-17-84 11:13p PCTURBO TXT 9600 3-24-86 12:48a PEOPLE TXT 1976 6-12-85 10:34p PIRATES TXT 12267 10-22-84 12:47a POPUP DOC 10417 4-01-86 12:19a PSIBURN TXT 15682 3-24-86 12:48a PUBLISH TXT 1093 4-23-86 9:33p QUOTES TXT 20065 6-17-85 9:30p REALPROG TXT 3654 10-27-84 12:51a TRUTHS DOC 5008 10-27-84 12:52a UASMLST DOC 3421 10-15-84 12:31a VOLTS TXT 4675 8-15-84 10:26p XENIX-AT TXT 9154 10-22-84 12:42a XMAS TXT 1592 12-22-85 8:26p XMODEM DOC 7680 3-28-86 12:17a XMODEM TXT 8832 3-28-86 12:19a YMODEM DOC 44214 3-24-86 12:53a creation extraction archive Results: time time size -------- --------- ---------- ------- ARCA/ARCE 0:42.4 0:30.7 192,864 PKARC/PKXARC 0:30.5 0:26.5 192,505 ZOO 0:45.9 0:42.7 192,908 Creation Time Winner: PKARC Extraction Time Winner: PKXARC Archive Size Winner: PKARC THE SECOND ARCHIVE ------------------ The following files consist the second archive to be tested. It contains 17 executable binary files, all public domain games. CENTI EXE 17536 3-08-85 11:57p FLIGHT COM 25472 1-06-85 9:40p GAFFE EXE 36224 4-15-85 2:05a GOTIT COM 16512 12-22-85 8:25p LANDER EXE 32384 1-05-85 10:30p PCMAC EXE 34816 7-17-84 8:29p PITFALL EXE 28160 9-07-80 10:20p POLYMAZE EXE 28672 1-14-85 12:26a PTROOPER EXE 16512 4-30-85 10:39p SCIFLYPC EXE 25088 5-28-86 9:03p SCIFLYPC SCR 128 9-18-86 9:33p SOLITAR EXE 35072 12-11-84 12:01a SPACEINV EXE 9216 8-04-84 11:55p SPACEWAR EXE 22528 2-27-85 9:55p STARFIRE EXE 24320 3-09-85 12:02a creation extraction archive Results: time time size -------- --------- ---------- ------- ARCA/ARCE 0:45.3 0:27.4 275,324 PKARC/PKXARC 0:33.5 0:22.8 270,900 ZOO 0:55.1 0:37.3 279,035 Creation Time Winner: PKARC Extraction Time Winner: PKXARC Archive Size Winner: PKARC THE THIRD ARCHIVE ------------------ The third archive consists of the commercial software package SideKick. NOTES 1647 9-02-84 4:58a PHONE DIR 1358 5-03-85 2:01p READ-ME SK 12928 8-14-85 11:10a README COM 16074 8-02-85 10:27a SK COM 39515 8-06-85 1:57p SK HLP 53632 8-02-85 12:40p SKC COM 28049 8-06-85 1:57p SKINST COM 54574 6-25-85 7:49p SKINST MSG 4224 6-14-85 4:19p SKM COM 17642 8-06-85 1:57p SKN COM 34009 8-06-85 1:57p creation extraction archive Results: time time size -------- --------- ---------- ------- ARCA/ARCE 0:32.5 0:19.8 200,380 PKARC/PKXARC 0:29.5 0:14.5 196,414 ZOO 0:41.7 0:27.2 198,027 Creation Time Winner: PKARC Extraction Time Winner: PKXARC Archive Size Winner: PKARC THE FOURTH ARCHIVE ------------------ The fourth archive consists of another commercial software package, Turbo Lightning. FLP-DISK DIC 108544 10-08-85 9:00a FLP-THES DIC 161792 10-08-85 8:59a AUXI DIC 58 10-26-86 7:52p DISK DIC 179712 10-26-85 3:37p ENVI COM 1539 1-30-86 3:50p INSTALLH BAT 1024 11-12-85 9:58p KEYBOARD MAC 1075 11-14-85 6:00p LIGHT COM 34592 11-03-86 8:30p LIGHT HLP 19584 10-26-85 11:16a LIGHT TRN 1152 10-05-85 3:08p LIGHTINS COM 60425 1-30-86 12:15p LIHARD BAC 1024 11-12-85 12:34a PCWRITE ENV 128 12-17-85 4:42a RAM1 DIC 16384 9-03-85 8:34p RAM2 DIC 29184 9-03-85 3:16p RAM3 DIC 38912 9-06-85 3:04p READ ME 15065 1-30-86 3:51p README COM 427 11-10-85 9:22p SYMPHONY ENV 128 12-18-85 10:36a THES DIC 162304 10-25-85 3:50p THNKTANK ENV 128 12-17-85 4:29a VOLKSWTR ENV 128 12-17-85 5:22p WS2000 ENV 128 1-01-80 12:05a creation extraction archive Results: time time size -------- --------- ---------- ------- ARCA/ARCE 3:05.7 0:47.7 786,600 PKARC/PKXARC 2:05.4 0:40.6 734,706 ZOO 3:08.1 0:39.9 792,095 Creation Time Winner: PKARC Extraction Time Winner: ZOO Archive Size Winner: PKARC THE FIFTH ARCHIVE ----------------- The fifth archive consisted of the files for the PC-SPRINT kit. These files contain printer graphics, highly repetitive sequences of characters, a good test of any compression program. 1STREAD ME 1066 11-09-85 11:10a ARTWRK1X BOT 2742 11-09-85 10:08a ARTWRK1X TOP 2742 11-09-85 10:05a ARTWRK2X BOT 56306 11-03-85 8:40a ARTWRK2X TOP 56306 11-03-85 8:31a FEEDTHRU 39936 11-03-85 7:56a NOPRTYCK COM 512 11-09-85 9:23a PARTLIST 60928 11-03-85 11:27a PCSPRINT BAT 180 11-09-85 10:13a PCSPRINT DOC 41494 11-09-85 10:41a SCHEMATC 76800 11-03-85 7:45a WARMBOOT COM 13 11-09-85 9:20a creation extraction archive Results: time time size -------- --------- ---------- ------- ARCA/ARCE 0:14.7 0:13.8 49,693 PKARC/PKXARC 0:12.6 0:10.7 49,622 ZOO 0:23.2 0:21.4 52,888 Creation Time Winner: PKARC Extraction Time Winner: PKXARC Archive Size Winner: PKARC THE SIXTH ARCHIVE ----------------- The sixth archive is the download file list for Exec-PC. XFERLIST TXT 381952 creation extraction archive Results: time time size -------- --------- ---------- ------- ARCA/ARCE 0:36.3 0:19.0 172,683 PKARC/PKXARC 0:30.2 0:14.3 172,514 ZOO 0:36.8 0:24.7 164,008 Creation Time Winner: PKARC Extraction Time Winner: PKXARC Archive Size Winner: ZOO THE SEVENTH ARCHIVE ------------------- The seventh archive contained Buerg's popular LIST program. LIST60J COM 6845 10-13-86 2:14p LIST60J DOC 32356 10-13-86 2:47p creation extraction archive Results: time time size -------- --------- ---------- ------- ARCA/ARCE 0:04.7 0:03.1 20,028 PKARC/PKXARC 0:04.1 0:02.8 19,873 ZOO 0:05.0 0:04.2 19,389 Creation Time Winner: PKARC Extraction Time Winner: PKXARC Archive Size Winner: ZOO THE EIGHTH ARCHIVE ------------------ The eighth archive contained a slide-show type program. LLSHO000 PIC 5120 10-07-86 9:36a LLSHO003 PIC 7168 10-07-86 9:36a LLSHO004 PIC 8192 10-07-86 9:36a LLSHO005 PIC 9216 10-07-86 9:36a LLSHO006 PIC 10240 10-07-86 9:36a LLSHO007 PIC 9216 10-07-86 9:36a LLSHO008 PIC 9216 10-07-86 9:36a LLSHO009 PIC 6656 10-07-86 9:36a LLSHO010 PIC 7168 10-07-86 9:36a LLSHO011 PIC 8192 10-07-86 9:36a LLSHO012 PIC 8192 10-07-86 9:36a LLSHO013 PIC 8192 10-07-86 9:36a LLSHO014 PIC 8192 10-07-86 9:36a LLSHO015 PIC 6144 10-07-86 9:36a LLSHO016 PIC 8192 10-07-86 9:36a LLSHO017 PIC 9216 10-07-86 9:36a LLSHO018 PIC 8192 10-07-86 9:36a LLSHO019 PIC 9216 10-07-86 9:36a LLSHO020 PIC 7168 10-07-86 9:36a LLSHO021 PIC 6656 10-07-86 9:36a LLSHO022 PIC 6144 10-07-86 9:37a LLSHO023 PIC 6144 10-07-86 9:37a LLSHO024 PIC 6144 10-07-86 9:37a LLSHO025 PIC 8192 10-07-86 9:37a LLSHO026 PIC 7680 10-07-86 9:37a LLSHO027 PIC 7680 10-07-86 9:37a LLSHO028 PIC 8192 10-07-86 9:37a LLSHO029 PIC 8192 10-07-86 9:37a LLSHO030 PIC 8704 10-07-86 9:37a LLSHO031 PIC 6144 10-07-86 9:37a LLSHO032 PIC 7168 10-07-86 9:37a LLSHO033 PIC 7680 10-07-86 9:37a LLSHO034 PIC 8192 10-07-86 9:37a LLSHO035 PIC 7680 10-07-86 9:37a LLSHO036 PIC 8192 10-07-86 9:37a LLSHO037 PIC 6144 10-07-86 9:37a LLSHO038 PIC 7168 10-07-86 9:37a LLSHO039 PIC 5632 10-07-86 9:37a LLSHO040 PIC 7168 10-07-86 9:37a LLSHO041 PIC 7680 10-07-86 9:37a LLSHO042 PIC 8704 10-07-86 9:37a LLSHO043 PIC 9216 10-07-86 9:38a LLSHO044 PIC 8704 10-07-86 9:38a LLSHO045 PIC 8704 10-07-86 9:38a LLSHO046 PIC 6656 10-07-86 9:38a LLSHOW GO 810 10-07-86 9:25a PRESENTS COM 7780 9-15-86 12:32a RUN-ME BAT 1701 10-07-86 11:18a creation extraction archive Results: time time size -------- --------- ---------- ------- ARCA/ARCE 0:41.9 0:30.9 205,634 PKARC/PKXARC 0:30.3 0:25.4 205,547 ZOO 0:47.3 0:44.2 206,919 Creation Time Winner: PKARC Extraction Time Winner: PKXARC Archive Size Winner: PKARC THE NINETH ARCHIVE ------------------ The nineth archive contained another slide-show type program. BBOOBS PIC 11264 10-11-86 12:42a BRUTH1 PIC 3584 10-11-86 12:42a BRUTH2 PIC 4608 10-11-86 12:42a BRUTH3 PIC 4096 10-11-86 12:42a BRUTH4 PIC 3072 10-11-86 12:42a CHAIRI1 PIC 8192 10-11-86 12:42a CHAIRI2 PIC 13312 10-11-86 12:42a CHROMA COM 34913 7-22-86 3:25a CHROMA PIC 2720 7-22-86 12:47a CHROMAP PIC 2171 10-11-86 12:42a COMPRESS COM 1549 5-22-86 11:35p FLATE1 PIC 12288 10-11-86 12:42a FLATE2 PIC 12288 10-11-86 12:42a GIG1 PIC 11776 10-11-86 12:42a GIG2 PIC 12288 10-11-86 12:42a GIG3 PIC 12800 10-11-86 12:42a GIG4 PIC 11776 10-11-86 12:42a GIG5 PIC 12288 10-11-86 12:42a HRDCORE 576 10-10-86 11:23p KILLER PIC 7168 10-11-86 12:42a MARILYN1 PIC 10240 10-11-86 12:42a MARILYN2 PIC 10240 10-11-86 12:42a NUDIE PIC 5120 10-11-86 12:42a NUDIE0 PIC 5120 10-11-86 12:42a NUDIE3 PIC 4096 10-11-86 12:42a POS1 PIC 2048 10-11-86 12:42a POS1OUT PIC 2048 10-11-86 12:42a POS2 PIC 2560 10-11-86 12:42a POS2A PIC 2560 10-11-86 12:42a POS3 PIC 3584 10-11-86 12:42a POSITION PIC 2048 10-11-86 12:42a PRESENTS COM 7780 9-15-86 12:32a RUN-ME BAT 1724 10-11-86 12:28a SONIA1 PIC 7168 10-11-86 12:42a SONIA2 PIC 11776 10-11-86 12:42a SONIA3 PIC 11776 10-11-86 12:42a SONIA4 PIC 11264 10-11-86 12:42a THATSALL PIC 3584 10-11-86 12:43a creation extraction archive Results: time time size -------- --------- ---------- ------- ARCA/ARCE 0:42.7 0:29.6 241,258 PKARC/PKXARC 0:38.7 0:22.8 235,975 ZOO 0:50.4 0:41.7 242,193 Creation Time Winner: PKARC Extraction Time Winner: PKXARC Archive Size Winner: PKARC THE TENTH (and final) ARCHIVE ----------------------------- The tenth archive contained version 2.42 of the popular communications program PROCOMM. CMDCNVT EXE 19160 9-22-86 11:51a LICENSE DOC 8908 9-22-86 1:31p PRCM242 NEW 5127 10-17-86 9:52a PROCOMM EXE 165296 10-17-86 10:46a creation extraction archive Results: time time size -------- --------- ---------- ------- ARCA/ARCE 0:21.4 0:12.7 124,532 PKARC/PKXARC 0:16.3 0:10.8 123,021 ZOO 0:26.6 0:17.6 123,955 Creation Time Winner: PKARC Extraction Time Winner: PKXARC Archive Size Winner: PKARC SUMMARY ------- Adding up the number of first place finishes for each program gives: creation extraction archive Results: time time size -------- --------- ---------- ------- ARCA/ARCE 0 0 0 PKARC/PKXARC 10 9 8 ZOO 0 1 2 Adding up the total times and sizes for all ten archives gives: creation extraction archive Results: time time size -------- --------- ---------- ------- ARCA/ARCE 7:47.6 3:54.7 2,268,996 PKARC/PKXARC 5:51.1 3:11.2 2,201,077 ZOO 8:40.1 5:00.9 2,271,417 The total archive creation speed for PKARC was 33% faster than ARCA and 48% faster than ZOO. The total archive extraction speed for PKXARC was 23% faster than ARCE and 57% faster than ZOO. The sum of the archive sizes created by PKARC was 3.0% smaller than ARCA and 3.1% smaller than ZOO. COMPARISON OF FEATURES ---------------------- ARCHIVE CREATE PROGRAMS: ARCA PKARC ZOO ---- ----- --- Stores files alphabetically.... YES YES NO Allows archive comment......... NO YES NO Allows file comments........... NO YES YES Can add files to archive....... YES(1) YES YES Can move files to archive...... YES YES YES Can delete files from archive.. NO YES YES Can update files to archive.... NO YES YES Can freshen files in archive... NO YES YES Add only files not in archive.. NO NO YES Can use RAMdisk for temp files. NO YES NO Uses Ziv-Lempel crunching...... YES YES YES Uses Huffman squeezing......... NO YES NO Uses non-repeat packing........ YES YES NO Uses storing................... NO YES YES Can list files in an archive... NO(2) YES YES S.E.A. ARC compatible(3)....... YES YES NO ARCHIVE EXTRACT PROGRAMS: ARCE PKXARC ZOO ---- ------ --- Allows output drive/path spec.. YES YES NO Can overwrite when extracting.. YES YES YES Can extract to console......... NO YES YES Can extract to printer......... NO YES NO Can extract single files....... YES YES YES Can test files w/o extracting.. NO YES YES S.E.A. ARC compatible(4)....... YES YES NO Notes: (1) Does not check for multiple copies of the same file. (2) Buerg provides another program to list the contents of an archive. (3) Creates archives that can be extracted with Software Enhancement Associates ARC 5.12 program. (4) Can extract archives created with any version of Software Enhancement Associates ARC program. CONCLUSION ---------- While the Ziv-Lempel crunching used in all three programs typically performed about the same, the Huffman Squeezing used in PKARC yielded signifcantly better compression for the fourth and nineth archives. Neither ARCA nor ZOO uses Huffman Squeezing as an alternative to Ziv-Lempel crunching. Overall, PKARC & PKXARC were the fastest programs and created the smallest archives. While ARCA & ARCE didn't perform best on any of the archives, it's overall performance was close to that of PKARC & PKXARC. ZOO was the slowest of all three packages, and created the largest archives overall. In addition, ZOO is not compatible with .ARC files. -Phil Katz (11/13/86) For more information about these programs contact: ARCA/ARCE --------- Vernon Buerg 456 Lakeshire Drive Daly City, CA 94015 CompuServe: 70007,1212 Data/RBBS: 415-994-2944 PKARC/PKXARC ------------ Phil Katz PKWARE, Inc. 7032 Ardara Ave. Glendale, WI 53209 Data: Exec-PC Shorewood WI 414-964-5160 ZOO --- Rahul Dhesi Arpanet/CSnet: dhesi%bsu@csnet-relay.ARPA UUCP: ...!seismo!csnet-relay.ARPA!bsu!dhesi