I presume you have a custom file format.
You might consider adding run length encoding for compression. It would make large levels load faster. I don't reccomend encoding run length for each type of tile, but rather just runs of tiles, and empty space.
I reccomend an encoding scheme like this:
0 10 64 52 36 0 5 32 22 17
In english, the decoder hits a 0, and then the next number indicates how many empty tiles are in a row. Those are written, then the next 3 tiles written are 64 52 and 36. Then the decoder hits another 0, reads 5 after it, and write 5 blanks. Then it writes tiles 32 22 and 17.
This sort of scheme doesn't force you to use numbers of any particular size either, because if you need a run of 100 blank spots, but your values can only go up to 10, you can go 0 10 0 10 0 10.
It also assumes you won't have lots of runs of the same tile in a map, which compared to the blanks, you probably won't. Trying to RLE encode everything would make all the single tiles take up twice as much space.
You might consider adding run length encoding for compression. It would make large levels load faster. I don't reccomend encoding run length for each type of tile, but rather just runs of tiles, and empty space.
I reccomend an encoding scheme like this:
0 10 64 52 36 0 5 32 22 17
In english, the decoder hits a 0, and then the next number indicates how many empty tiles are in a row. Those are written, then the next 3 tiles written are 64 52 and 36. Then the decoder hits another 0, reads 5 after it, and write 5 blanks. Then it writes tiles 32 22 and 17.
This sort of scheme doesn't force you to use numbers of any particular size either, because if you need a run of 100 blank spots, but your values can only go up to 10, you can go 0 10 0 10 0 10.
It also assumes you won't have lots of runs of the same tile in a map, which compared to the blanks, you probably won't. Trying to RLE encode everything would make all the single tiles take up twice as much space.