File Size for GZDoom WADs

[shroomzy5000]

Hello Doomworld! 

 

My first map is very VERY close to release!  Im hoping to drop it on the 21st or 22nd...

 

That being said, I just finished putting the custom song I wrote for the map into the WAD, and it goes from 34mb, to about 180mb...

 

Now I know we live in 2023 and these sizes are laughable by modern standards, but as far as Doom modding I am unsure due to just how new I am to all this.

 

If i post a WAD and its a few hundred mb, is that something that would turn people away or raise concerns?

 

I can't imagine anyone running GZDoom would be faced with hardware limitations, just wondering if there is a kind of etiquette for this?

 

Thanks again!

[Shepardus]

Converting it to Doom sound format is probably lowering the sample rate and/or converting stereo to mono sound, hard to say without knowing the original sound. Maybe you don't hear too much difference in quality, but there definitely is a difference.

 

For music files you'd want to encode in FLAC (lossless) or Ogg Vorbis (lossy, but probably fine if the Doom sound format didn't sound too bad to you), or offer it in a separate file as plums said (based on your screenshots it looks like there's a MIDI version anyway, just put the MIDI version in the main download and offer the larger version as a separate download).

 

You might also want to look into packaging your map as a PK3 so you can take advantage of zip compression, that'll help reduce the size of your map data too.

[plums]

You definitely shouldn't convert the music back and forth between Doom format; all that does is convert it to 8-bit, and (I think) makes it mono instead of stereo. I'm assuming this is what happened given the reduction in filesize (maybe 24-bit stereo to 8-bit mono?) This isn't strictly the worst way to reduce music filesize but there are much better options.

 

Though first you should reduce the bit depth down to 16-bit if it is 24-bit or higher currently, should be possible using any audio editor.

 

 

OGG encoding is pretty good if you don't mind some lossy compression. I don't know the easiest way to do this on Windows but OggDrop looks pretty good?

https://www.rarewares.org/ogg-oggdropxpd.php

If you right-click the window that pops up you can select some parameters, I'd recommend a quality of 6 to 8 personally, though the default of 4 should be fine for background music.

 

FLAC is lossless compression (exactly the same audio, down to the byte) and with maximum compression will cut the filesize roughly in half. Try this one for an encoder maybe:

https://flacfrontend.sourceforge.net/

[plums]

How is a song 140+ mb? Is it just a wav file? You could at least compress it with FLAC, if so.

 

But to answer your question you probably would lose out on a few downloads but likely not too many. You will probably get a few people criticizing you for having such a large filesize but they will also be the most vocal. I would personally recommend that when you post it you explain why the size is so large, as files that size are uncommon and could have people thinking it's full of other custom content. Ultimately if you get too many complaints you might want to encode the song into an MP3 or OGG, or at least offer a separate version with that as the music.

Edited December 20, 2023 by plums

[shroomzy5000]

15 minutes ago, plums said:

How is a song 140+ mb? Is it just a wav file? You could at least compress it with FLAC, if so.

 

But to answer your question you probably would lose out on a few downloads but likely not too many. You will probably get a few people criticizing you for having such a large filesize but they will also be the most vocal. I would personally recommend that when you post it you explain why the size is so large, as files that size are uncommon and could have people thinking it's full of other custom content. Ultimately if you get too many complaints you might want to encode the song into an MP3 or OGG, or at least offer a separate version with that as the music.

Thanks so much for the quick answer!

 

I actually have 0 issue compressing the song file.  Its why I made this post, Im super ignorant to compression tactics so let me ask your opinion on this.

If I open up the WAD in slade, and you can see the file size for the WAV is about 165mb.  One thing I noticed, is that slade will allow me to convert to DOOM SOUND, then I can just convert the doom sound back to a WAV, and it magically compresses it down to about 30mb without deteriorating the audio quality too much

 

Do you think this is acceptable?

 

BEFORE

 

AFTER

[shroomzy5000]

OH and to answer your first question, its like 10 mins lol im gonna go shorter on the next one

[shroomzy5000]

23 minutes ago, Shepardus said:

Converting it to Doom sound format is probably lowering the sample rate and/or converting stereo to mono sound, hard to say without knowing the original sound. Maybe you don't hear too much difference in quality, but there definitely is a difference.

 

For music files you'd want to encode in FLAC (lossless) or Ogg Vorbis (lossy, but probably fine if the Doom sound format didn't sound too bad to you), or offer it in a separate file as plums said (based on your screenshots it looks like there's a MIDI version anyway, just put the MIDI version in the main download and offer the larger version as a separate download).

 

You might also want to look into packaging your map as a PK3 so you can take advantage of zip compression, that'll help reduce the size of your map data too.

 

15 minutes ago, plums said:

You definitely shouldn't convert the music back and forth between Doom format; all that does is convert it to 8-bit, and (I think) makes it mono instead of stereo. I'm assuming this is what happened given the reduction in filesize (maybe 24-bit stereo to 8-bit mono?) This isn't strictly the worst way to reduce music filesize but there are much better options.

 

Though first you should reduce the bit depth down to 16-bit if it is 24-bit or higher currently, should be possible using any audio editor.

 

 

OGG encoding is pretty good if you don't mind some lossy compression. I don't know the easiest way to do this on Windows but OggDrop looks pretty good?

https://www.rarewares.org/ogg-oggdropxpd.php

If you right-click the window that pops up you can select some parameters, I'd recommend a quality of 6 to 8 personally, though the default of 4 should be fine for background music.

 

FLAC is lossless compression (exactly the same audio, down to the byte) and with maximum compression will cut the filesize roughly in half. Try this one for an encoder maybe:

https://flacfrontend.sourceforge.net/

You guys are SO helpful!

 

This is all really good info, and thank you so much @plums for the links - im gonna give FLAC a shot

 

@Shepardus - you are 100% right about quality, i didnt notice the difference at first playing the map, but if you stop shooting demons for even a minute, you hear the ugly static buzz and volume on the song drops immensely.

 

As you pointed out, I do have a MIDI for the song, but the gimmick or idea I was going for is to have both.  Since I was a musician before being a doom mapper, I want to use my maps as a medium to release some songs.  I've also been thinking of ways I can have a "personal" shroomzy5000 kind of a signature in all my maps.  Since creating music is second nature for me, I wanted my signature to be a togglable switch in the map as soon as you load in, which alternates the song file.  MIDI if you want that old school doom vibe, but the WAV was intended to be a high fidelity mixed version of the song, then outside the map, I was going to have the music posted for free download from itunes, which would essentially be the song as it was originally written without all the extra loops and repeats from the in-game version, along with full vocals, real instruments... ya know, the works.  Youll see this idea implemented if you decide to check it out in a day or 2 when i launch.

 

I think for this first wad of mine, Im gonna just drop the 1 file.  im going to use @plums link to try and get it to be a FLAC with less size.  Ultimately though if i cannot, i will post the same slade screenshot in the post and be as transparent as I can to explain the file size and why I wanted the music to sound a certain way.

 

Thank you all for your time and advice!  I hope you will try my map in a few days!

[Doom-X-Machina]

Convert it to MP3 instead.