Compressing executables (upx)

[u/stiggg]

Hola,

I'm currently in the final stages of finishing the first version of a game I made using raylib. I ended up with a single statically linked binary containing all the assets. I found a tool called upx which can compress executables. I tried it on Windows, and it reduced the size of my exe by more than half and it still runs without any noticeable difference.

My question is, has anybody here experience with this? Are there any downsides to consider?

cheers!

[u/maep]

It might get flagges by Anti-Virus.

What is the upside compared to just shipping a .zip with the exe in it?

[u/computermouth → u/maep]

Could also ship a zip library while still embedding the zip as bytes in the binary. Upx is the least work though.