Decompressing data doesn't really cost much time. Bitbuster's decompressor can decompress (output) about 45KB per second. Plus, if that extra second annoys you, some interrupt based effect (for example, the text 'GAME START' blinking when starting a new game) can mask the delay.
Bitbuster Extreme has an extremely small depacker.
Pletter is a compression scheme based on bitbuster, it has somewhat better compression and it supports variable offset lengths (ranging from 8 to 14 bit), which really helps on smaller data.
And today I have seen a very nice ROM -> VRAM bitbuster decompressor. It does not use a RAM buffer, just one additional variable in RAM. Not very fast, but good enough for full screen still images. Very interesting, I should say. Until now, I was a poor ROM -> RAM -> VRAM believer!
hmm, for a ROM->VRAM bitbuster decompressor it can be worth while to use a small buffer (say, 64bytes) to store strings in. This will improve decompression speed dramatically, as the vram pointer doesn't have to be changed for each byte anymore.
And today I have seen a very nice ROM -> VRAM bitbuster decompressor. It does not use a RAM buffer, just one additional variable in RAM. Not very fast, but good enough for full screen still images. Very interesting, I should say. Until now, I was a poor ROM -> RAM -> VRAM believer!
Hi. You can download this routine from Karoshi forum (Snippets)
