Reducing Build File Size - Assets only 1.8gb yet build is 8.5gb??

HI,

I have a predicament, my build for my game is currently at a massive 9 gig, yet the entire assets are only 1.8 gig. My library folder holds a whopping 19 gig, mainly found in the metadata folder (8 gig) and the PlayerDataCache folder (9 gig).

I have tried deleting these folders to varying results (mainly that unity crashes or the build is missing stuff).

Are there any particular folders/filed that can be deleted, or is there another way to reduce the file size/find out where the extra 7 gig is coming from?

Thanks!

James Lightfoot

 

Use something like "Build Report Tool" to figure that out:
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/8162

 

Mac and PC build

 

The library folder is whack. Has a tendency to keep unused stuff and balloon in size.

Copy the project folder to another location. Remove the library folder. Open the project in Unity. Double-check that functionality is not disturbed. Build and enjoy.

 

Go through any Resources folders and eliminate anything that does not belong in the build from them. Also remove any .dll's that are not being used. I did this recently and went from 500MB to 22MB on a build.

 

Ah, my bad.

 

Where is the extra 7 gig coming from then in your opinion?

 

Please see attached pictures of my files (Library - Metadata, PlayerData Cache). My assets for the game are just 1.8 gig. The Library folder is 19 gig.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/z8t1k1ic2lqyp8k/PlayerDataCache2.png?dl=0

 

The Library folder - still - has nothing to do with your Build as @superpig stated. It just contains files that are needed by/for the Unity Editor.

 

ok, i hear you. my assets are 1.8 gig but my build is 9 gig, any ideas what else i should be looking for that's adding this extra gigs on?

 

Describe your assets. My guess is all of them are compressed and get decompressed for the build.

 

The problem is that we don't know why your Build is that large. One of your used Assets could cause this, but which one? You could give the Asset "Build Report Tool" that @ShilohGames mentioned a try or use the program "altWinDirStat" for which @superpig gave you a link.

 

ok thanks, I will try the Build Report Tool asset and get back to you. Other one doesn't seem to work on my MAC. Cheers

 

ok, here is link to my build report;

https://www.dropbox.com/s/yuzkq1d3emutall/TMOWM_DEC17-MacStandaloneSupport-2017Nov27-190841.xml?dl=0

it seems that it its the textures...

 

however, when i click on the textures folders within my assets, they certainly do not add up to the size the report is calculating?

 

You have almost 8GB of textures. Try using a compressing format that reduces the file size, but not heavily impacting the quality of the textures itself.

 

They are all .png's as I need them to be this rather than jpg. I didn't realised these are a compressed format?

 

I guess under "compressed" people should rather think of something like .dds instead of .jpg. .jpg has lossy compression. There's other texture formats that allow much more efficient compression without loosing quality.

What I'd want to know, what else can be done to reduce build size on PC?

 

Files under the "Assets" directory do not reflect the size of the imported asset. Textures under the Assets directory are converted to a proprietary format for the selected target platform.

Using png is perfectly fine as it uses loss-less compression, but be aware that it's the source texture/asset and NOT what ends up in the build. Unity converts this png texture to its own format during import and generally stores the result in the Library folder.

The size of the imported texture, this is what ends up in your build, depends on the selected Texture Import Settings, such as eg "Max Size" and "Compression" and DOES NOT depend on the format or size of the source png asset.

If you you have a 2048x2048 png texture with very few colors, it might be just a few kilo bytes in your Asset directory. However, if it uses "Uncompressed" in the Texture Importer settings, the imported texture might become 21 MB.

I recommend...

• Check all Texture Import Settings and make sure textures are properly configured in terms of size and compression format.
• To further reduce the build size, enable LZ4 compression in the build settings window.

 

Thank you, please see images here for all my .png settings in Unity project:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ryhtnjxyswzt2qu/AADockgMy5HRf7B2kh4H857ma?dl=0

Should I change these settings?

Cheers

 

Thank you, please see images here for all my .png settings in Unity project:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ryhtnjxyswzt2qu/AADockgMy5HRf7B2kh4H857ma?dl=0

Should I change these settings?

Cheers

 

According to the screenshot, it displays the following warnings:

This means, Unity cannot compress the texture and falls back to an uncompressed format to make it at least "work".

POT stands for "power of two", which means the size must be 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, ... (you get the idea).

The second warning is about DXT compression, which works on 4x4 pixel blocks. If either the width or height is not a multiple of 4, DXT fails.

According to the screenshot, you seem to have at least these options:

1. Use the "Non power of 2" setting and select something other than "None". I'm not sure whether this works for sprites, it might cause references to this texture to be lost. Backup your project first.
   
2. Untick the "Generate mip-maps" checkbox. This has a significant impact on the visuals, so it might not work for many textures.
3. Select a "Max Size" that makes sense. The default is 2048, but depending your assets, a smaller resolution might be fine as well.
   
4. Reauthor your textures to meet the technical requirements. Technical requirements are met when Unity does not display any warning anymore.

 

I'm also going to try changing my files from 2048 to 1024, i have tried all in one scene and cannot see any change in resolution. I assume this will have a massive effect on file size? Then I will consider turning off mip maps

 

Your first priority should be to get rid of the texture warnings. That's most likely what will cause the most reduction in size.

 

I see. the problem is, no one told me about the power of two! (This is my first game) so for my thousands of pngs, I haven't considered this!

I tried removing the power of two to something other than none, but you were right, and it removed my sprite

So you think I should untick generate mip maps for sure then?

 

Or should I just bite the bullet and re link my sprites with the POT turned to something other than none?

 

If you have sprites (not "raw" textures), then maybe you could pack all your sprites into an atlas.
Sprites atlases are always made to be a power of 2. So that should work really well for you.

That way you can bypass the problem of changing the image sizes - at least for now, or until your next game...