GP32 .GXB vs .FXE - why compile one or the other?

[Nutzo]

I tried LJohnGP today, my first time running a .gxb on my GP32. It worked great, I just ran it from GPFM (GPFM is simply amazing!).

I hope some programmers can answer this, because I'm very curious - why choose to compile a gxb instead of fxe? Are there advantages that each has over the other?

Thanks.

 

[Makenai]

Well, one takes the other. .GXB is what you actually always get when you compile something. .FXE is a compressed form of the previous with some meta information - such as capability to attach a long program name, author's name, and 32x32 icon bitmap. Also, only .FXE files currently work under freelauncher by default. As a rule of thumb, I guess you should usually compress to .FXE for a release unless you have a specific reason not to.

 

[mr.spiv]

Well, one takes the other. .GXB is what you actually always get when you compile something. .FXE is a compressed form of the previous

FXEs are not compressed but encrypted.. there is though a tool (b2fxec) to produce compressed FXEs or GXBs. GXB is the "native" GP32 executable binary format in a sense that BIOS can execute one but it only contains required size etc information. FXEs add icon, title, author etc meta info as Makenai said earlier. Also as said earlier FXEs are GXBs encrypted with a simple XOR method (Gamepark tools use the .elf file's data section as the encryption key). And finally... the official free loader understands only FXEs.