[comp.sys.atari.st] pack and speed of execution

gng@spocom.UUCP (10/13/89)

Does the pack compression program slow down the execution of a program?  I've
been hearing things like this from some people, but I'm not entirely too sure
who to believe.  At the moment, I'm not packing any of my programs (flash,
wordup, etc) because of speed performances (loading) but with such savings in
'K', I'm very tempted to... ;-]

--
George Ng (Computer Science, Univ. of Toronto)   "Sure I would like Canadian
UUCP:  uunet!mnetor!{becker,hybrid}!spocom!gng    winters too...if it weren't
 or:   uunet!attcan!telly!ziebmef!spocom!gng      for the weather."

Bob_BobR_Retelle@cup.portal.com (10/14/89)

George Ng asks:
>Does the pack compression program slow down the execution of a program?

No...  PACK doesn't affect the execution speed of a program at all..
 
Essentially what PACK does is to create a "self dissolving" ARChive of
a program...  when you load it, it "unPACKs" itself into memory, and
becomes the same as if you'd loaded a normal version of the program..
 
In addition to the savings in disk storage space, LARGE programs may actually
load FASTER when they're packed...  this is because the smaller PACKed
file loads in less time than the original file does,  and the unPACKing takes
place in RAM, which is very fast...
 
Probably the best answer would be for you to try it yourself and see how
it works for you...
 
BobR