ÛÛÛÛÛÛ» ÛÛÛÛÛ» ÛÛÛÛÛÛ» ÛÛÉÍÍÛÛ» ÛÛÉÍÍÛÛ» ÛÛÉÍÍÛÛ» RAR - What's new in the latest version ÛÛÛÛÛÛɼ ÛÛÛÛÛÛÛº ÛÛÛÛÛÛɼ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ÛÛÉÍÍÛÛ» ÛÛÉÍÍÛÛº ÛÛÉÍÍÛÛ» ÛÛº ÛÛº ÛÛº ÛÛº ÛÛº ÛÛº Èͼ Èͼ Èͼ Èͼ Èͼ Èͼ Version 2.00 - a "Major" release 1. The general compression algorithm has been significantly improved: Compression ratio and speed are both improved under normal conditions and adapt better to available memory. 2. A special "multimedia" compression method has been added. It is intended primarily to be used when compressing digital audio data and graphics (true color bitmaps). An improvement in the compression ratio, of up to 30%, can be expected over the normal compression algorithm. The use of multimedia compression is optional and may be switched on by the "Use multimedia compression" item in the configuration menu or by the command line switch -mm[f]. RAR performs intelligent data analysis and uses the general compression algorithm when multimedia compression provides no improvement. Optimum performance occurs when different data types are combined in the same archive. The switch -m "Set compression method" may also be used with multimedia compression. When multimedia compression is required for the entire archive (switch off data analysis when compressing certain multimedia files), the -mmf switch may be used "Force Multimedia Compression". 3. The OS/2 version of RAR 2.00 contains an option for changing the size of the sliding dictionary created when files are compressed. This may be set to 64Kb, 128Kb, 256Kb (default), 512Kb or 1Mb and results in a corresponding (significant) decrease in the size of the output archive, particularly when compressing large files. When compressing using a large (more than 64Kb) sliding dictionary, compression time will increase. 4. The RAR 2.00 version for Dos may be used to unpack archives created with RAR 2.00 on other platforms (currently OS/2 only) where the sliding dictionary size is greater than 64 Kb. As much memory (Conventional and EMS) as possible should be made available to the Dos version of RAR when unpacking archives created using a large sliding dictionary, in order to improve unpacking speed. Archives created with a large dictionary cannot be converted to SFX with the default SFX module in the Dos version. 5. Password encryption has been improved. 6. A Data Recovery facility has been implemented. Optionally, redundant information may be added to a RAR archive, incurring a small penalty in archive size, which will help to recover archived files in the case of floppy disk failure or other data losses. Use the option "Put recovery record" in the configuration or the Alt/F6 key in RAR to place the redundant recovery information into a created archive. The corresponding command lines switch is -rr[N], where N is the number of redundant data sectors (1 to 8). Default values are: Archive size Number of RR-sectors < 50Kb 2 50Kb-500Kb 4 > 500Kb 8 A damaged archive may be reconstructed using the "Repair" function of RAR (Alt/F8 key combination in RAR or the command line option "r"). The recovered archive will be named _RECOVER.RAR. If the old, pre-2.00 repair procedure was used (without data recovery records) or recovering was not completed, the reconstructed archive will be named _RECONST.RAR. The chance of successful archive reconstruction, using recovery records, is very high if the size of the continuous portion of damaged data is not greater than N*512 bytes, where N is number of RR-sectors initially placed into the archive. 7. RAR 2.00 is compatible with previous releases and handles archives created by older versions of RAR. The sole limitation of backward compatibility: you will need the old external SFX module to convert an old style archive to SFX or simply build it using RAR 1.5x. Archives created with RAR 2.00 cannot be unpacked by older versions of RAR. 8. RAR 2.00 for DOS determines the current CPU type and uses 386/486 CPU instructions code if possible. This option may be switched on/off using the option "Use 386 instructions" in the configuration menu. 9. The OS/2 version of RAR 2.00 has a new feature "Set task priority and sleep time". Use Alt/R in full-screen or the switch - ri

[:] on the command line to activate this option. The task priority

(possible values, 0 to 128) is the OS/2 task priority. Values of

are grouped as follows:

value OS/2 : 0 OS/2 default (i.e. 2:0, or

=33) 1-32 1:0-1:31 33-64 2:0-2:31 65-96 3:0-3:31 97-128 4:0-4:31 When

is equal to 0, the default OS/2 task priority is used. The sleep time is a value from 0 to 1000 (milliseconds). This is the period of time that RAR will give back to OS/2 after every read or write during the packing or unpacking operation. The sleep time setting is useful when several tasks with the same priority are running in the system. 10. Names of files produced by the 'R' command have been changed from $RECOVER.RAR and $RECONST.RAR to _RECOVER.RAR and _RECONST.RAR for better portability with future RAR/Unix with Unix shell. 11. In the fullscreen mode, information concerning method, dictionary size and ratio is displayed in the lower right corner. 12. The commands 'V' and 'L' can be suplied with the '-v' switch meaning "process all volumes starting from the specified". If these commands cause processing more than one archive (volume), total information concerning all archives will be shown. 13. OS/2 versions of RCVT and UNRAR have been added to the distribution archive. 14. The file order list for solid archiving in file RARFILES.LST is inroduced. There you may set up the user-defined sorting order for specific files or group of files. 15. The bug detected, located in old portable version 1.01 of unRAR source only, which caused CRC errors in some cases. If you are using unRAR 1.01 to unpack old archives (created with RAR prior to version 2.00) then fix the problem applying the following patch: Replace string 353 in the unpack.c: if (Distance > D->MaxDist3) Length++; with: if (Distance >= D->MaxDist3) Length++; 16. RCVT 1.01 is released. The scheme of processing archives is changed: first the program performs 'Del', then 'Add' operation.