5 ms·

If I were working on such a thing I'd want the patch to be downloaded as the smallest possible delta from what's on the disc.

ben_jones 3y ago
Call of Duty updates are 200gb regardless of pre existing installs. It’s absurd.
- Hamuko 3y ago
  Some Call of Duty discs contain basically no data at all. >Game disc only contains 1GB of data (In some regions it has even less data on disc) forcing you to download a 40+GB patch (at launch) and another 40GB of data packs in order to play the game. https://www.doesitplay.org/game/Call%20Of%20Duty%3A%20Modern%20Warfare%20II/ps4/CMOS%20Base%20PS4?region=ESRB https://www.doesitplay.org/game/Call%20Of%20Duty%3A%20Modern...
  - phatfish 3y ago
    That is a nice site. I was first made aware of this issue with Switch games. Some publishers will cut content on the memory card and force a download to stop their game requiring a card with larger capacity which costs more. These aren't even new games that it is reasonable to expect to be patched. Re-releases like "Spyro Reignited Trilogy" require a download which is just a cost saving exercise.
    - fourfour3 3y ago
      It’s also an plausible anti-leaks measure - if the gamecard contains everything needed to play the game, the game can easily leak early when the cards are going to retail. If a day1 patch is required, then it can’t leak until that patch is available?
      - anticensor 3y ago
        day -1, not day 1
        gabeio 3y ago
        Actually it’s called day one patches. Similar to zero day vulnerabilities (in the name sake only) these patches are usually required to play day 1 of the game… example: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/why-you-should-want-day-one-patches https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/why-you-should-want-d... (Only linking this article for it’s referencing them as day one patches) another example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_video_game_terms#day_one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_video_game_terms#d...
    - catchnear4321 3y ago
      if the cart/d isn’t playable as-is, you only bought a license, and eventually the game itself won’t be available. but that’s ok, the next console will likely have a re-re-release.
    - amluto 3y ago
      I wonder how many publishers use S3 for this. Because, at current retail (quantity 1) prices, a bigger card looks like it will pay for itself after a whopping two downloads. I assume that the game downloading ecosystem uses something that’s actually cost-effective. At AWS prices, it seems like it would be basically impossible to be a profitable publisher of multi-gigabyte games at any scale.
      - fourfour3 3y ago
        Each of the console manufacturers operates their own CDNs, typically. Valve do too on PC. They often have some kind of proof-of-ownership (like a license ticket) required to download game data or updates, too.
    - crtasm 3y ago
      That also has the effect of preventing pre-release leaks, though as we've seen some of Nintendo's own games shared on the internet weeks before release I don't imagine it's a big part of the reason for requiring a download.
      - ace2358 3y ago
        Tears of the Kingdom leaked a week or so early from the cart, full game.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
        crtasm 3y ago
        Yes, that's one of the games I'm referring to.
hs86 3y ago
Are delta patches still viable given the current sizes of games? I'm not sure if this is the state of the art, but according to https://www.daemonology.net/bsdiff/ https://www.daemonology.net/bsdiff/, bspatch would require more memory than most systems can offer.
- asveikau 3y ago
  You would probably do the deltas in batches. Not input the entire disc in a single chunk.
- ASalazarMX 3y ago
  I'd expect the patch generation to be memory hungry, not the patch aplication, which should be only data and offsets. If it uses maximum compression it might generate a huge data dictionary, but since it has to be distributed too, that would be contraproducent to patch size.
lazide 3y ago
Since figuring THAT out might require reading the whole disk and doing byte by byte comparisons (or a whole disk checksum), easier to just download the whole thing. Unless they track literally every single DVD variant perfectly, which ain’t happening. And that is ignoring that many disks are basically just a hardware license dongle, and don’t actually have a full playable version of the game.
- asveikau 3y ago
  You can't imagine a patch format that avoids this? It sounds like you lack some creativity. If you need to lookup patches by pre-patched hash of the source file, you could, for example, precompute hashes and store them on the disc.
  - lazide 3y ago
    It’s an info theory thing. But nice try. Why don’t you propose something better? Besides what I already proposed anyway. The ways to optimize/‘solve it’ all require degrees of rigor in information control and tracking that aren’t realistic given the market conditions and supply chains. At least unless people stop being okay with paying for $40+ games that download 40G patches anyway. Which would require severe changes in trajectory of bandwidth availability, which isn’t likely.
    - asveikau 3y ago
      No sir, excuse my bluntness but you are full of shit trying to claim that information theory blocks this from being practical. I worked on stuff like this. I worked on the format that Windows setup uses for installation media for example. It has delta patches too. I think the same exact idea used there would work. It has a hash of every file precomputed and only stores what's unique.
      - lazide 3y ago
        HN rated limiting sucks. And client crashes suck more. You’re not reading my comment, or thinking about the game distribution problem. MS can get benefit from reading all the files, verifying hashes, etc. And in a typical OS update scenario, MS can trust that a files contents haven’t been updated since the hash was checked. Which reading from a DVD/BluRAY, scratches are a problem and it isn’t that simple. Games typically don’t, especially those on a DVD or BluRAY. Because they are slow, and have terrible seek times. So, like I pointed out - it doesn’t make sense to do the work you need to do in info theory to actually apply a delta patch in these scenarios.

ben_jones 3y ago

Call of Duty updates are 200gb regardless of pre existing installs. It’s absurd.

Hamuko 3y ago
Some Call of Duty discs contain basically no data at all. >Game disc only contains 1GB of data (In some regions it has even less data on disc) forcing you to download a 40+GB patch (at launch) and another 40GB of data packs in order to play the game. https://www.doesitplay.org/game/Call%20Of%20Duty%3A%20Modern%20Warfare%20II/ps4/CMOS%20Base%20PS4?region=ESRB https://www.doesitplay.org/game/Call%20Of%20Duty%3A%20Modern...
- phatfish 3y ago
  That is a nice site. I was first made aware of this issue with Switch games. Some publishers will cut content on the memory card and force a download to stop their game requiring a card with larger capacity which costs more. These aren't even new games that it is reasonable to expect to be patched. Re-releases like "Spyro Reignited Trilogy" require a download which is just a cost saving exercise.
  - fourfour3 3y ago
    It’s also an plausible anti-leaks measure - if the gamecard contains everything needed to play the game, the game can easily leak early when the cards are going to retail. If a day1 patch is required, then it can’t leak until that patch is available?
    - anticensor 3y ago
      day -1, not day 1
      - gabeio 3y ago
        Actually it’s called day one patches. Similar to zero day vulnerabilities (in the name sake only) these patches are usually required to play day 1 of the game… example: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/why-you-should-want-day-one-patches https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/why-you-should-want-d... (Only linking this article for it’s referencing them as day one patches) another example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_video_game_terms#day_one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_video_game_terms#d...
  - catchnear4321 3y ago
    if the cart/d isn’t playable as-is, you only bought a license, and eventually the game itself won’t be available. but that’s ok, the next console will likely have a re-re-release.
  - amluto 3y ago
    I wonder how many publishers use S3 for this. Because, at current retail (quantity 1) prices, a bigger card looks like it will pay for itself after a whopping two downloads. I assume that the game downloading ecosystem uses something that’s actually cost-effective. At AWS prices, it seems like it would be basically impossible to be a profitable publisher of multi-gigabyte games at any scale.
    - fourfour3 3y ago
      Each of the console manufacturers operates their own CDNs, typically. Valve do too on PC. They often have some kind of proof-of-ownership (like a license ticket) required to download game data or updates, too.
  - crtasm 3y ago
    That also has the effect of preventing pre-release leaks, though as we've seen some of Nintendo's own games shared on the internet weeks before release I don't imagine it's a big part of the reason for requiring a download.
    - ace2358 3y ago
      Tears of the Kingdom leaked a week or so early from the cart, full game.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - crtasm 3y ago
        Yes, that's one of the games I'm referring to.

hs86 3y ago

Are delta patches still viable given the current sizes of games? I'm not sure if this is the state of the art, but according to https://www.daemonology.net/bsdiff/ https://www.daemonology.net/bsdiff/, bspatch would require more memory than most systems can offer.

asveikau 3y ago
You would probably do the deltas in batches. Not input the entire disc in a single chunk.
ASalazarMX 3y ago
I'd expect the patch generation to be memory hungry, not the patch aplication, which should be only data and offsets. If it uses maximum compression it might generate a huge data dictionary, but since it has to be distributed too, that would be contraproducent to patch size.

lazide 3y ago

Since figuring THAT out might require reading the whole disk and doing byte by byte comparisons (or a whole disk checksum), easier to just download the whole thing. Unless they track literally every single DVD variant perfectly, which ain’t happening. And that is ignoring that many disks are basically just a hardware license dongle, and don’t actually have a full playable version of the game.

asveikau 3y ago
You can't imagine a patch format that avoids this? It sounds like you lack some creativity. If you need to lookup patches by pre-patched hash of the source file, you could, for example, precompute hashes and store them on the disc.
- lazide 3y ago
  It’s an info theory thing. But nice try. Why don’t you propose something better? Besides what I already proposed anyway. The ways to optimize/‘solve it’ all require degrees of rigor in information control and tracking that aren’t realistic given the market conditions and supply chains. At least unless people stop being okay with paying for $40+ games that download 40G patches anyway. Which would require severe changes in trajectory of bandwidth availability, which isn’t likely.
  - asveikau 3y ago
    No sir, excuse my bluntness but you are full of shit trying to claim that information theory blocks this from being practical. I worked on stuff like this. I worked on the format that Windows setup uses for installation media for example. It has delta patches too. I think the same exact idea used there would work. It has a hash of every file precomputed and only stores what's unique.
    - lazide 3y ago
      HN rated limiting sucks. And client crashes suck more. You’re not reading my comment, or thinking about the game distribution problem. MS can get benefit from reading all the files, verifying hashes, etc. And in a typical OS update scenario, MS can trust that a files contents haven’t been updated since the hash was checked. Which reading from a DVD/BluRAY, scratches are a problem and it isn’t that simple. Games typically don’t, especially those on a DVD or BluRAY. Because they are slow, and have terrible seek times. So, like I pointed out - it doesn’t make sense to do the work you need to do in info theory to actually apply a delta patch in these scenarios.