Convert Text Resources to Binary on Export --> BIGGER file?

duthomhas

I checked the appropriate box in the Project Settings: Editor options, and my APK grew by 32.5K bytes. I thought that binary .tscn files, etc. were supposed to be SMALLER as well as load faster.

Did I do something wrong?

Godot 3.3.2-stable, compiled from source using MSVC 19.

Calinou

One reason this might happen is that compressing binary files might be less effective than text-based files. This is just a wild guess though.

If you can reproduce this in a minimal project that you can upload here, we could look into troubleshooting this :)

duthomhas

Minimal project: Main scene with a centered label that says "Hello world!"

Directory of C:\m\Programming\Godot\exports\unzipped-apk-with-non-binary\assets

08/22/2021  09:41 AM    <DIR>          .
08/22/2021  09:41 AM    <DIR>          ..
08/22/2021  09:41 AM    <DIR>          .import
08/22/2021  09:39 AM                62 _cl_
08/22/2021  09:39 AM               163 default_env.tres
08/22/2021  09:39 AM             3,305 icon.png
08/22/2021  09:39 AM               640 icon.png.import
08/22/2021  09:39 AM               261 Main.tscn
08/22/2021  09:39 AM               477 project.binary

Directory of C:\m\Programming\Godot\exports\unzipped-apk-with-binary\assets

08/22/2021  09:41 AM    <DIR>          .
08/22/2021  09:41 AM    <DIR>          ..
08/22/2021  09:41 AM    <DIR>          .import
08/22/2021  09:41 AM                62 _cl_
08/22/2021  09:41 AM               254 default_env.tres.converted.res
08/22/2021  09:41 AM                53 default_env.tres.remap
08/22/2021  09:41 AM             3,305 icon.png
08/22/2021  09:41 AM               640 icon.png.import
08/22/2021  09:41 AM               866 Main.tscn.converted.res
08/22/2021  09:41 AM                46 Main.tscn.remap
08/22/2021  09:41 AM               542 project.binary

comparing

Directory of C:\m\Programming\Godot\exports

08/22/2021  09:41 AM         8,985,985 hello.binary-resources.apk
08/22/2021  09:39 AM         8,985,814 hello.non-binary-resources.apk

In this example the difference is very small, but for a project of any size it grows. Mine is a fairly simple puzzle game and the difference was noticeable.

IMHO the ZIP algorithm is unlikely to be significantly affected by the difference between the binary and textual scene file. The difference is simply that the binary scene resource file has a whole lot of padding absent in the textual file, and the padding is a more variable length than the textual delimiters are in the textual file.

(As it is, I am still using the convert-text-resources-to-binary-on-export files, since 30K+ isn't a deal breaker, but it was surprising.)