GGPK Defragmenter

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Dia_BOLIC wrote:

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soul4hdwn wrote:

i can't tell if this did anything o.o i clicked it, dos window appeared for a full second then poof XD.
*retard moment*

Hi soul4hdwn,

maybe you should read the whole post, that would give you some instructions on how to
do this. This description from radiatoren helped me out.

Oh radiatoren, by the way: Tanks! ;)

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radiatoren wrote:

1. You need to run cmd.exe

2. Go to the location of your client.exe in the command prompt by using cd.. and cd <foldername> as commands.

3. Write "ggpk_defragment.exe content.ggpk content2.ggpk"

The program will take several minutes to finish. After it has finished it will tell you.

4. Go to the folder of your client.exe.

5. Change name of content.ggpk to contentold.ggpk

6. Change name of content2.ggpk to content.ggpk

Then you have done it right! :)

ps. I assume you have moved ggpk_defragment.exe into the path of exile folder, I assume that Client.exe and content.ggpk is in the same folder and that folder is the path of exile folder - anything else would seem illogical.

Bump. Also OP should think about posting this to general discussion.

What if I am running Dual SSD drives in Raid 0. I've always heard NOT to defragment, however, I feel like my PoE folder could still be immensely fragmented as I have been playing since CB (lots of patches since then...). Would reinstalling serve the same purpose?

After using this program my game doubled in size to 12gb. I am not sure what to do now so any help is welcomed.

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cypherrage wrote:

What if I am running Dual SSD drives in Raid 0. I've always heard NOT to defragment, however, I feel like my PoE folder could still be immensely fragmented as I have been playing since CB (lots of patches since then...). Would reinstalling serve the same purpose?

You hear 'don't defragment SSDs' because it serves no purpose and shortens the life of the drive. On a standard HDD, defragmenting can speed up read/write times by moving data 'next to each other' on the drive, reducing the time it takes the physical R/W head to reach the data it needs. SSDs use an entirely different method of reading data, which is why they're so fast -- and why the location of stuff on an SSD is completely irrelevant. Furthermore, the tons of tiny writes caused by defragmenting will substantially reduce the life of your drive.

As far as I can discern, this defragmenting tool isn't to increase performance but to shave off wasted space caused by the inefficiency of Path of Exile's patching process; it shoves files all over the place when it updates and doesn't always make use of the leftover space, bloating your installation folder with each update, accumulating over time. So yes, completely reinstalling would achieve the same thing.

TLDR; Defrags on SSD bad, reinstalling will do the same thing.

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Sudoku1442 wrote:

After using this program my game doubled in size to 12gb. I am not sure what to do now so any help is welcomed.

When it defrags it creates an entirely new 6GB file (basically the same as installing and reinstalling.) If you followed radiatoren's instructions completely, your PoE installation folder will have content.ggpk and contentold.ggpk. Launch Path of Exile normally to verify it was successful, and you can delete the 6GB contentold.ggpk.

File dated from 9/20/2011
Win 7 64 bit
was 6.11 GB
First run of a game took ~3 minutes to boot
Second run took 75 seconds.

Ran this program, took 16 minutes.
Immediately ran the game, and it loaded in 45 seconds, and shaved a "whopping" .03 GB off the file size.

My file was obviously less bloated in size than many other people (since I typically play in spurts, I've probably missed 50-75% of the patch iterations). However, if the new load time is indicative, I'm definitely looking forward to seeing sub 2 minute loads on first reboot again.

I do really hope GGG updates whatever needs to change in order to trim loading times down. Honestly, anything over 20 seconds on today's computers is sub-optimal.

Thanks for the program!

before: 6,394,349KB
after: 6,375,952KB

thank you will enjoy gameplay much more now with less lag.

The defragger is kind of old now. Does it need to be maintained/updated, or is the nature of the defragger such that it will always work perfectly for the latest version of PoE?

Great tool, thanks for sharing.

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cypherrage wrote:

What if I am running Dual SSD drives in Raid 0. I've always heard NOT to defragment, however, I feel like my PoE folder could still be immensely fragmented as I have been playing since CB (lots of patches since then...). Would reinstalling serve the same purpose?

Reinstalling the game will indeed result in the same thing.

I'm not sure if anyone has covered this in the thread, but to save yourself some time with the dos prompt you can use this batch script ( save as .bat and double click to run )

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ggpk_defragment Content.ggpk Content2.ggpk
ren Content.ggpk ContentFragmented.ggpk
ren Content2.ggpk Content.ggpk
PAUSE

This automatically renames the files after the defrag is complete too and waits for user input to close so you can see the text in the console window.

edit: I should note that this will need to be placed in the folder with the game and the defrag tool