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Game size is a perennial talking point and some games earn it and some games don’t. There was a phase of games shipping with uncompressed audio in every langua

Game size is a perennial talking point and some games earn it and some games don’t. There was a phase of games shipping with uncompressed audio in every language they support for no good reason that ballooned file size (Titanfall) Some games have gotten around this problem by having higher resolution textures or additional languages being optional installs within whatever ecosystems DLC implementation is. I think this is the smart way to do it. Examples of games shrinking I are hard to come by but special credit to IO interactive and Hitman 3. The install size with all the content of the previous games included (If you own them) is less than the install size of the first game. That is impressive and commendable. Games are weird and some people will look at the file size and think it means the game is better, just the way some people think games with more hours are better. The psychology of people who play video games is weird. Duplication of assets on disk was a very weird byproduct of HDD file access conventions, but we shouldn’t need that anymore. There is still a shrinking, but valid crossover window between devs being able to assume all storage is solid state. I think things will get better but the debate of file size vs average/expects storage capacity vs Network speed will never end but there is certainly work to be done.

RajT88 3y ago
The .kkreiger devs really showed how far you can go to reduce download size: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.kkrieger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.kkrieger https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ya_MUKc343U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ya_MUKc343U It is dated, but looks pretty good by 2004 standards.
- thequux 3y ago
  While I'm all for reducing download sizes, perhaps lekktor[1] is a bridge too far. [1]: https://fgiesen.wordpress.com/2012/04/08/metaprogramming-for-madmen/ https://fgiesen.wordpress.com/2012/04/08/metaprogramming-for...
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    Sure. Focus on the procedural textures and see where that gets you.
- spatulon 3y ago
  Note that one of the .kkreiger devs (ryg aka Fabian Giesen) works at Epic Game Tools on the Oodle compressors mentioned in OP's post.
kevingadd 3y ago
Titanfall shipped uncompressed audio on purpose to cut out audio decompression CPU usage. You can disagree with the decision, but it wasn't an accident or negligence.
- haswell 3y ago
  I realize they’re trying to optimize for a wide base, but I have plenty of spare cores to decompress audio, and SSD space is limited. For me, the net result is that Titanfall was one of the first games to go when I needed space. Low hanging fruit. Even if it was deliberate, I have to question the logic and wonder how much usage they enabled vs. uninstalls from file size over time.
  - kristianp 3y ago
    You've already bought it, so the game studio got their money, despite having a "bloated" install. So the incentives aren't quite there to reduce the size. I was thinking about buying Mass Effect yesterday, the recent update, but it requires 150GB and I don't have a Windows partition that big! (I'm Dual booting Linux) So I think money is being lost in people who aren't often gamers and haven't bought big disks for gaming.
    - yellowapple 3y ago
      Do you have a big enough Linux partition? Mass Effect Legendary Edition runs pretty great via Proton.
    - haswell 3y ago
      > You've already bought it, so the game studio got their money, despite having a "bloated" install. So the incentives aren't quite there to reduce the size. They may have some of my money, but not much (discount!), and they’re not getting money for DLCs, arguably the reason the base game was so cheap, and I’m not in a rush to buy more stuff that I can’t fit on my PC. Prior to the era of the initial game purchase being just the entry point I’d have agreed with you, but many modern games have monetization strategies that make uninstallation a problem. And if they have a strong enough incentive to care about CPU usage, they’re clearly putting effort into optimizing for some audience.
hinkley 3y ago
Blizzard sorted the high res textures and some of the raids last so that you could start playing the game halfway through the download. Another problem is chunking the data properly so that incremental updates are not hugs.
- rvba 3y ago
  Blizzard us a bad example. Their games take incredible amounts of time to start. I think they dont play their own games and nobody gives a shit. The launcher is bugged and downloads either empty or 137mb patches (maybe bad CRC at some server? Different CRCs at some?). Every time. Starcraft remastered was bugged at some point and couldnt be played for a week. If you statt Heroes of the storm, it takes few minutes to download some 600 byte ghost patch, then does some (antihack?) processing... then you can start the queue after like 10 minutes. It's probably like the GTA5 that also took ages to start due to poorly done code and devs not caring at all.
  - saberience 3y ago
    Your experience is not my experience at all. Blizzard is the gold standard for me in starting games faster than any other launcher. In fact they are the only one I’ve seen that lets you play the game part way into the download. No other dev seems to have this technology. I waited hours to play Witcher 3, Cuberpunk, Assassins Creed Odyssey. With WoW I was playing within minutes.
    - lakomen 3y ago
      You waited hours... to play those games? From double clicking the icon to launch? I find that extremely hard to believe. If you include download time, even that doesn't hold up to your claim.
      - lathiat 3y ago
        Assassins creed odyssey was apparently 44-50GB at launch. That’s 3 hours @ 45 megabits/second. This is not an uncommon internet download speed even today (let alone 5 years ago when it launched) according to the steam download stats (it varies by country, check australia for example, US is a little over 100 average): https://store.steampowered.com/stats/content/ https://store.steampowered.com/stats/content/ Even at 100Mb, 45GB is 1 hour. Witcher 3 looks to be about 30GB but Cyberpunk is apparently 70-100GB. Do the math next time :)
BlueTemplar 3y ago
It's so different from game to game, some games are still only a couple Go despite having "4k" graphics...

RajT88 3y ago

The .kkreiger devs really showed how far you can go to reduce download size: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.kkrieger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.kkrieger https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ya_MUKc343U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ya_MUKc343U It is dated, but looks pretty good by 2004 standards.

thequux 3y ago
While I'm all for reducing download sizes, perhaps lekktor[1] is a bridge too far. [1]: https://fgiesen.wordpress.com/2012/04/08/metaprogramming-for-madmen/ https://fgiesen.wordpress.com/2012/04/08/metaprogramming-for...
- Dylan16807 3y ago
  Sure. Focus on the procedural textures and see where that gets you.
spatulon 3y ago
Note that one of the .kkreiger devs (ryg aka Fabian Giesen) works at Epic Game Tools on the Oodle compressors mentioned in OP's post.

kevingadd 3y ago

Titanfall shipped uncompressed audio on purpose to cut out audio decompression CPU usage. You can disagree with the decision, but it wasn't an accident or negligence.

haswell 3y ago
I realize they’re trying to optimize for a wide base, but I have plenty of spare cores to decompress audio, and SSD space is limited. For me, the net result is that Titanfall was one of the first games to go when I needed space. Low hanging fruit. Even if it was deliberate, I have to question the logic and wonder how much usage they enabled vs. uninstalls from file size over time.
- kristianp 3y ago
  You've already bought it, so the game studio got their money, despite having a "bloated" install. So the incentives aren't quite there to reduce the size. I was thinking about buying Mass Effect yesterday, the recent update, but it requires 150GB and I don't have a Windows partition that big! (I'm Dual booting Linux) So I think money is being lost in people who aren't often gamers and haven't bought big disks for gaming.
  - yellowapple 3y ago
    Do you have a big enough Linux partition? Mass Effect Legendary Edition runs pretty great via Proton.
  - haswell 3y ago
    > You've already bought it, so the game studio got their money, despite having a "bloated" install. So the incentives aren't quite there to reduce the size. They may have some of my money, but not much (discount!), and they’re not getting money for DLCs, arguably the reason the base game was so cheap, and I’m not in a rush to buy more stuff that I can’t fit on my PC. Prior to the era of the initial game purchase being just the entry point I’d have agreed with you, but many modern games have monetization strategies that make uninstallation a problem. And if they have a strong enough incentive to care about CPU usage, they’re clearly putting effort into optimizing for some audience.

hinkley 3y ago

Blizzard sorted the high res textures and some of the raids last so that you could start playing the game halfway through the download. Another problem is chunking the data properly so that incremental updates are not hugs.

rvba 3y ago
Blizzard us a bad example. Their games take incredible amounts of time to start. I think they dont play their own games and nobody gives a shit. The launcher is bugged and downloads either empty or 137mb patches (maybe bad CRC at some server? Different CRCs at some?). Every time. Starcraft remastered was bugged at some point and couldnt be played for a week. If you statt Heroes of the storm, it takes few minutes to download some 600 byte ghost patch, then does some (antihack?) processing... then you can start the queue after like 10 minutes. It's probably like the GTA5 that also took ages to start due to poorly done code and devs not caring at all.
- saberience 3y ago
  Your experience is not my experience at all. Blizzard is the gold standard for me in starting games faster than any other launcher. In fact they are the only one I’ve seen that lets you play the game part way into the download. No other dev seems to have this technology. I waited hours to play Witcher 3, Cuberpunk, Assassins Creed Odyssey. With WoW I was playing within minutes.
  - lakomen 3y ago
    You waited hours... to play those games? From double clicking the icon to launch? I find that extremely hard to believe. If you include download time, even that doesn't hold up to your claim.
    - lathiat 3y ago
      Assassins creed odyssey was apparently 44-50GB at launch. That’s 3 hours @ 45 megabits/second. This is not an uncommon internet download speed even today (let alone 5 years ago when it launched) according to the steam download stats (it varies by country, check australia for example, US is a little over 100 average): https://store.steampowered.com/stats/content/ https://store.steampowered.com/stats/content/ Even at 100Mb, 45GB is 1 hour. Witcher 3 looks to be about 30GB but Cyberpunk is apparently 70-100GB. Do the math next time :)

BlueTemplar 3y ago

It's so different from game to game, some games are still only a couple Go despite having "4k" graphics...