crinkler

[taj]

http://www.crinkler.net/

This is the current best tool to compress 4k exes. Ok only of interest to a few people here but there is a new version released last week.

[Rbz]

That's a fantastic tool, tried this new version and it compress much better than the last version 

[ferris]

Yes!!

Haven't checked that site in awhile; I'm very glad you posted!

[taj]

You are welcome!

Honestly its crashing for me but its certainly my fault so no results yet but from what I hear it might give as much as 200 bytes more in 4k than version 0.4a.

[Shockwave]

That's quite an improvement considering how much space gl takes to set up. The bar for 4kb intros will be raised now I expect.

[taj]

Shockie,

actually you are right but it already was raised. Loonies used this tool for most of this year (eg at Evoke) and I believe that a few other 4k makers have been beta testing it. This is one of the strong reason to be in with the in-crowd. I'm amazed they release it at all, I mean its such a strong advantage for them! I'm just glad they do.

++++karma for loonies members if they ever join us :-)

[Rbz]

Version 1.2 is online and it is Windows 7 compatible.

Pouet thread:
http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=18158

Download:
http://crinkler.net/crinkler12.zip

[Jim]

Thanks for the link!  Great news this is updated!

Jim

[TinDragon]

Great that its been updated so exe's run on win7, but I still cant get it to compress on any mode other than instant when used on vista. I guess I am doomed to compressing on xp lol

[ferris]

Thanks rbz, I've been anticipating this

[va!n]

cool =) thx for info n link
btw, why does packed files no longer runs on win2k? (so different PE header?)

[hellfire]

btw, why does packed files no longer runs on win2k? (so different PE header?)

Because you didn't interfere.

[Jim]

Who on Earth uses win2k any more?  And then, reduce that number by the fraction that like to run 1kb crinkler compressed demos.  And then reduce that by the fraction who are too stubborn to upgrade to an OS that was made in the last decade.

Jim

[ferris]

Va!n: The new .exe's won't work under win2k for two reasons:

1. Crinkler's .dll import code retrieves kernel32.dll (for LoadLibrary etc) using something called the PEB trick. Basically, the PE loader loads a list of some lib's by default when any .exe is started, and kernel32.dll just so happens to be in said list. However, Win7's loader loads the lib's in a different order, so the original trick won't work. So the new Crinkler uses a similar method to the PEB trick, though it reads from a different list of lib's than before. This method works on Win2k SP4 MOST of the time, but unfortunately not all the time.

2. Win2k PE files are required to have at least 1 proper .dll import (which was lz32.dll in earlier versions of Crinkler...the lib isn't important; just has a short name). But due to instability issues from above, it's rather pointless to still have this in the structure, so it was removed (and this is why new Crinkler files are about 14 bytes smaller than before).

So those are the two reasons why the new Crinkler is incompatible on win2k - it was sacrificed for win7 compatibility.

[energy]

great!!
Saves 20bytes against the version 1.1  on my testet appz..   
Thanx for this cool tool!!