Why are game file sizes so stupidly huge now?

Anything to do with games at all.
jawafour
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PostRe: Why are game file sizes so stupidly huge now?
by jawafour » Sun Nov 26, 2017 2:20 pm

Dual wrote:Why is my gut so stupidly huge now?

5 - 10 minute jog, piss easy to do and the only thing you could say was hassle would be putting on some shorts and then showering again. Fine if you have semi-decent pavements.

Edit: New page. Context lost :fp: .

Last edited by jawafour on Sun Nov 26, 2017 2:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Errkal
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PostRe: Why are game file sizes so stupidly huge now?
by Errkal » Sun Nov 26, 2017 2:21 pm

For pc stuff the issue is probably a combination of the fault of steam, origin, uplay etc. If these platforms details of device resolution and performance capabilities game companies would be able to hold multiple asset sets for different resolution levels then you client pulls the appropriate sets. It would mean not needing to pull the largest and scale it and let only what you need to be downloaded.

Plus most people are in the modern age and have decent internet and bug hard drives so it doesn't matter that stuff is massive as it downloads in a reasonable time.

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KjGarly
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PostRe: Why are game file sizes so stupidly huge now?
by KjGarly » Sun Nov 26, 2017 2:33 pm

Dual wrote:Why is my gut so stupidly huge now?


Basically when you see food in glorious 576 megapixels and it looks as good as it tastes you want need more. Hence larger sizes.

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Green Gecko
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PostRe: Why are game file sizes so stupidly huge now?
by Green Gecko » Mon Nov 27, 2017 3:20 am

576 is the number of lines in PAL video. Fun fact, well done subconscious.

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OrangeRKN
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PostRe: Why are game file sizes so stupidly huge now?
by OrangeRKN » Mon Nov 27, 2017 8:59 am

Death's Head wrote:By contrast, I just downloaded Cuphead on the PC last night and it was only 1.9GB, making my first thought, "this can't be very good".


I don't understand why you'd think that

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Knoyleo
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PostRe: Why are game file sizes so stupidly huge now?
by Knoyleo » Mon Nov 27, 2017 9:49 am

OrangeRakoon wrote:
Death's Head wrote:By contrast, I just downloaded Cuphead on the PC last night and it was only 1.9GB, making my first thought, "this can't be very good".


I don't understand why you'd think that

DOOM 2016: 80GB and game of the generation
No Man's Sky: 6GB and biggest disappointment of the generation

Just imagine how awful a <2GB game would be :dread:

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Death's Head
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PostRe: RE: Re: Why are game file sizes so stupidly huge now?
by Death's Head » Mon Nov 27, 2017 12:21 pm

OrangeRakoon wrote:
Death's Head wrote:By contrast, I just downloaded Cuphead on the PC last night and it was only 1.9GB, making my first thought, "this can't be very good".


I don't understand why you'd think that
Just seems very small for a current gen game.

Yes?
bear
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PostRe: Why are game file sizes so stupidly huge now?
by bear » Mon Nov 27, 2017 12:42 pm

Errkal wrote:For pc stuff the issue is probably a combination of the fault of steam, origin, uplay etc. If these platforms details of device resolution and performance capabilities game companies would be able to hold multiple asset sets for different resolution levels then you client pulls the appropriate sets. It would mean not needing to pull the largest and scale it and let only what you need to be downloaded.

Plus most people are in the modern age and have decent internet and bug hard drives so it doesn't matter that stuff is massive as it downloads in a reasonable time.

Yeah because net neutrality is definitely not something that has come under threat recently.

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Errkal
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PostRe: Why are game file sizes so stupidly huge now?
by Errkal » Mon Nov 27, 2017 12:44 pm

bear wrote:
Errkal wrote:For pc stuff the issue is probably a combination of the fault of steam, origin, uplay etc. If these platforms details of device resolution and performance capabilities game companies would be able to hold multiple asset sets for different resolution levels then you client pulls the appropriate sets. It would mean not needing to pull the largest and scale it and let only what you need to be downloaded.

Plus most people are in the modern age and have decent internet and bug hard drives so it doesn't matter that stuff is massive as it downloads in a reasonable time.

Yeah because net neutrality is definitely not something that has come under threat recently.

I'm not sure how that is relevant ?

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Trelliz
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PostRe: Why are game file sizes so stupidly huge now?
by Trelliz » Mon Nov 27, 2017 2:03 pm

I think a big factor is that many games today are 'asset tours' - big linear experiences where you pass through lots of areas with specific geometry, textures, sound etc. Games with procedural generation are inherently smaller because of how they're built on algorithms instead. Frontier Elite 2 fits the entire galaxy onto a few floppy discs and No Man's Sky wasn't huge for what it was.

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Peter Crisp
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PostRe: Why are game file sizes so stupidly huge now?
by Peter Crisp » Mon Nov 27, 2017 3:12 pm

I wish more games would go the procedural content route.
I think Destiny could really use a section where (the new infinite forest could so easily have been the location) we can have procedural maps in the style of Diablo 3 with a raid style 6 man fireteam and loot depending on the difficulty selected at the start.
It wouldn't need to mess with the lore of the game as it could be just explained as a simulation by the Vex to all sorts of random possibilities and would help the longevity of the game hugely and just letting people have another game type with up to 6 people involved would be a bonus.

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Green Gecko
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PostRe: Why are game file sizes so stupidly huge now?
by Green Gecko » Mon Nov 27, 2017 3:18 pm

Errkal wrote:
bear wrote:
Errkal wrote:For pc stuff the issue is probably a combination of the fault of steam, origin, uplay etc. If these platforms details of device resolution and performance capabilities game companies would be able to hold multiple asset sets for different resolution levels then you client pulls the appropriate sets. It would mean not needing to pull the largest and scale it and let only what you need to be downloaded.

Plus most people are in the modern age and have decent internet and bug hard drives so it doesn't matter that stuff is massive as it downloads in a reasonable time.

Yeah because net neutrality is definitely not something that has come under threat recently.

I'm not sure how that is relevant ?

The more gratuitously sized downloads are, the greater the impact of favouring certain types of traffic on fair competition.

Pretty vague reference though.

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jawafour
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PostRe: Why are game file sizes so stupidly huge now?
by jawafour » Mon Nov 27, 2017 3:46 pm

I remember upgrading my VIC-20 from the base 3.5k to a massive 32k. Felt like I’d made it in life 8-) .

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Death's Head
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PostRe: RE: Re: Why are game file sizes so stupidly huge now?
by Death's Head » Mon Nov 27, 2017 4:07 pm

jawafour wrote:I remember upgrading my VIC-20 from the base 3.5k to a massive 32k. Felt like I’d made it in life 8-) .
Bah. Just 16k for me, but I was cool too!

Off topic, but remember how certain games would only work with the 3k expansion? I seem to remember at some point there was a Poke you could use to trick the Vic into thinking it only had the 3k expansion.

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jawafour
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PostRe: RE: Re: Why are game file sizes so stupidly huge now?
by jawafour » Mon Nov 27, 2017 4:13 pm

Death's Head wrote:
jawafour wrote:I remember upgrading my VIC-20 from the base 3.5k to a massive 32k. Felt like I’d made it in life 8-) .
Bah. Just 16k for me, but I was cool too!

Off topic, but remember how certain games would only work with the 3k expansion? I seem to remember at some point there was a Poke you could use to trick the Vic into thinking it only had the 3k expansion.

You are spot-on, Deaths. Albeit - TECH POWER BOASTING ALERT - my Vic’s RAM pack was the Vixen 32k switchable one, meaning that you could choose whether to use an extra 8, 16 or 32k of RAM according to the game requirements :) .

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Death's Head
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PostRe: Why are game file sizes so stupidly huge now?
by Death's Head » Mon Nov 27, 2017 4:20 pm

Your decadence disgusts me.

Yes?
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BID0
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PostRe: Why are game file sizes so stupidly huge now?
by BID0 » Mon Nov 27, 2017 6:18 pm

Probably because most of it is uncompressed. Uncompressing files for most people these days would take longer than the actual download, plus you have to make extra space on your hard drive for the compressed stuff while it's being uncompressed.

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KjGarly
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PostRe: Why are game file sizes so stupidly huge now?
by KjGarly » Mon Nov 27, 2017 10:43 pm

BID0 wrote:Probably because most of it is uncompressed. Uncompressing files for most people these days would take longer than the actual download, plus you have to make extra space on your hard drive for the compressed stuff while it's being uncompressed.


I think it was Titanfall on PC that had the problem of uncompressing the audio which was the longest thing about the download and install.

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Green Gecko
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PostRe: Why are game file sizes so stupidly huge now?
by Green Gecko » Tue Nov 28, 2017 12:01 am

It's true that the vast amount of data used by games these days, both compression and decompression takes strawberry floating ages even on a good CPU when we're talking many gigs of data. It also depends on the type of asset. Videos and audio files don't compress very well in a normal lossless ZIP sort of compression, for example, whereas text and code compresses very well and textures quite well (because really they are just maps of co-ordinates and colour/depth values that's actually quite similar to text). It's mostly these media components that fatten up the file size. Unpacking them would take forever and BID0 makes a very good point that you actually need about 30% more harddisk space available while the compressed files are uncompressed, meaning there are momentarily two copies of everything. This is one reason you can't install windows updates even when you have space on your hard disk to download the installation files - they need to be unpacked and then the compressed archive deleted (and it sometimes hangs around to, for example, rollback or is replaced with a copy of the old data as a backup). Going down the compressed route would mean everyone would need say 5-10% of their storage space free all the time and nobody would understand why.

"It should be common sense to just accept the message Nintendo are sending out through their actions."
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Tomous
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PostRe: RE: Re: Why are game file sizes so stupidly huge now?
by Tomous » Tue Nov 28, 2017 12:22 am

Death's Head wrote:
OrangeRakoon wrote:
Death's Head wrote:By contrast, I just downloaded Cuphead on the PC last night and it was only 1.9GB, making my first thought, "this can't be very good".


I don't understand why you'd think that
Just seems very small for a current gen game.


Well Super Mario Odyssey is only 5.7GB and that's one of the best games of the year...

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