Compression

[Vetinari (engine)]

Since finalgen is faster in uncompressed mode (at least for my position on my PC) I wondered, is it possible to finalgen a position uncompressed and then later compress it? Would that work or would some data get lost?

[pPerez]

If the program runs faster with uncompressed folders in your system, you can generate tablebases in an uncompressed folder and then compress it by using the standard Windows option.
Data will remain good.
Finalgen has not native compression capabilities. This is just a windows feature and Finalgen does not even know if the folder is compressed or not.

[duncan]

is that expected that finalgen runs slower in compressed folders ?

[pPerez]

The difference between compressed and uncompressed folders in terms of speed can depend on the disk access speed.
In general, when the disk drive is slow, generating with compressed folders is faster.
When the disk drive is very fast, uncompressed folders are faster.
But, I didn't notice significant differences during my tests.

[Vetinari (engine)]

Well, that could be since my disc is new and probably very fast then. For me it took only 3/4 of the time with uncompressed folder.