cmix is a lossless data compression program designed to maximise compression ratios rather than processing speed. It employs sophisticated context-mixing techniques and is particularly relevant to compression research and benchmarking.
The compressor combines predictions from numerous statistical models and refines them using neural-network-based techniques. This approach can achieve strong compression but imposes substantial computational and memory requirements.
cmix is not intended as a convenient everyday archive manager. It operates on individual files and can require very large amounts of RAM. Its principal appeal is to users investigating advanced compression methods or comparing the performance of different statistical coding techniques.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Lossless compression focused on maximising compression ratios.
- Combines predictions from thousands of statistical context models.
- Uses context mixing to combine predictions from different models.
- Includes LSTM-based neural-network prediction refinements.
- Employs secondary symbol estimation to improve probability predictions.
- Uses arithmetic coding for the final compression stage.
- Provides specialised preprocessing for certain data types.
- Can process text, executable data and image content.
- Compresses and decompresses individual files.
- Can be combined with tar when multiple files need to be processed together.
- Supports experimental comparisons with other high-ratio compressors.
- Requires substantial memory, with at least 32GB RAM recommended.
- Prioritises compression density over execution speed and low resource consumption.
- Cross-platform support – runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows.
Website: github.com/byronknoll/cmix
Support:
Developer: Byron Knoll
License: GNU General Public License v3.0
cmix is written in C++. Learn C++ with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
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|---|---|
| LZ4 | Focused on compression and decompression speed |
| Zstandard | Fast compression algorithm, providing high compression ratios |
| brotli | Generic-purpose lossless compression algorithm |
| lzop | File compressor favoring speed over compression ratio |
| pigz | Parallel implementation of gzip |
| ouch | CLI tool for compressing and decompressing for various formats |
| pixz | Parallel, indexed xz compressor |
| gzip | Provides the standard GNU file compression utilities |
| BZip3 | Spiritual successor to BZip2 |
| bzip2 | Freely available, patent free, high-quality data compressor |
| PBZIP2 | Parallel implementation of bzip2 |
| lrzip | Achieve very high compression ratios and speed when used with large files |
| lbzip2 | Multi-threaded implementation of bzip2, suited for serial and parallel processing |
| ZXC | High-performance lossless compression library and command-line tool |
| plzip | Massively parallel lossless data compressor |
| p7zip-zstd | p7zip fork with additional codecs and improvements |
| 7-Zip | File archiver with a high compression ratio |
| ncompress | Fast, simple LZW file compressor |
| PXZ | Runs LZMA compression on multiple cores and processors |
| crabz | Like pigz but written in Rust |
| Lzip | Lossless data compressor aimed at Unix-like systems |
| cmix | Optimize compression ratio at the cost of high CPU/memory usage |
| bsc | High-performance block-sorting compressor for large files |
| rapidgzip | Parallelized decompression of gzip files |
| Kanzi | Modular lossless compressor with multithreaded processing |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
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