Are game patch sizes becoming excessive?

Discussion in 'Games, Gaming & Game-demos' started by CJ3D, Jan 21, 2015.

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Are game patch sizes becoming excessive?

  1. Not for me, I have an unlimited plan

    45 vote(s)
    72.6%
  2. Not really, I have plenty of data left over anyway

    4 vote(s)
    6.5%
  3. Yes, my wallet is suffering

    4 vote(s)
    6.5%
  4. Yes, but they shouldn't force you to download patches right here and now

    7 vote(s)
    11.3%
  5. Other.. post your opinion

    2 vote(s)
    3.2%
  1. CJ3D

    CJ3D Guest

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    Not everyone has unlimited internet, some countries or regional areas are limited to 5GB/10GB/20GB per month.

    For these unfortunate people, downloading a 4GB patch blows away half their monthly cap, having to pay $10+ for every extra GB can hurt bad.

    The largest game patch I'm aware of is currently 13GB, Dead Rising 3.
    For those on a 5GB plan, they would have to pay an extra $80 on top of their $30-odd base plan.

    Are game patch sizes going out of control?
    Do game developers need to create smarter patch systems that only patch portions of the files that have changed instead of dumping the whole GB sized files into the patch?
     
  2. CalculuS

    CalculuS Ancient Guru

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    Data caps are the problem and not patch sizes.

    Besides filesizes will grow exponential, thats evolution for you.
     
  3. vbetts

    vbetts Don Vincenzo Staff Member

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    I don't have a data cap on my plan thankfully, but speeds are what kill me. I don't have a very high connection, 7 down 3 up. I'm lucky to get 5 down.

    You gotta think a patch that's like 10gb in size, that's gonna take all night to download. Which is why I usually run my PC bare minimum power settings at night when downloading. I have only 2 cores going, throttled down, one hard disk going, and that's more than enough to download games.

    Applications and games are getting bigger, but internet speeds are keeping the same rates for speeds. We're finally being introduced high speeds such as 50mbps at a consumer price, but even still I'm not looking to shell out $85 a month for that.
     
  4. Repo Man

    Repo Man Ancient Guru

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    On an unlimited plan so the patch size isn't that big of a deal but sometimes the frequency of updates or the way the updates are applied completely puts me off from playing some games.

    Gran Turismo 6 on the PS3 is one of the worst offenders, granted I don't play it that much anymore but every now and again I get the urge to jump in and drive around a bit or tune some cars and BAM! there's a patch to download... ok so its only 300-500mb, not a big deal right ? wrong! Sony's servers have pretty crappy speeds and combine this with a poor PS3 wireless adapter and chances are you'll be downloading for 1h+ on a bad day. But it doesn't end there, once the patch is applied ( which usually takes 5-10 mins ) you launch the game and you have to download another update through the ingame patcher!

    The above has happened every time in the past 4 or 5 times I've booted up GT6 so in the end I gave up on the game for now as I however am on a limited free time plan and I ain't spending it downloading updates after updates after updates.

    One other game the same sort of thing happened was TF2, the patching itself is smooth and fast thanks to Steam but the sheer frequency of the updates at one stage just put me off. I took a break from playing it as I was busy with other games, I decide to jump in one afternoon and you got a shop in game now, a crafting system which I just don't get and find it the single most user unfriendly feature ever implemented to a game ( sorry, I know a lot of people probably get lots out of it, I'm just a bit thick :p ) and then they added some Mann vs. Machine coop mode which I never tried because I can't quite figure out how to get in ( lol ), I once got into a queue which was supposed to last 4 mins+, got kicked out of the queue and never bothered again.

    Hmm turned into a bit of a rant... But yeah, patch sizes are also getting a bit out of hand. I'm still trying to find my jaw somewhere on the floor when I read about the AC:Unity patch which was supposedly almost 50 gigs or something silly.
     

  5. fantaskarsef

    fantaskarsef Ancient Guru

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    Still devs don't seem to be interested in limiting patch size anymore. Back in the day with slow modems they tried to keep it as small as possible... these days they build engines that can't patch single things, or games that require extensive patching.

    I've got an unlimited plan, and upgraded my internet to 20 down, but it's only a matter of time until that'll be too small all again. BF4 with it's expensions has about 55 or 60GB? Still takes forever on 20Mbit...
     
  6. CJ3D

    CJ3D Guest

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    Repo Man you have a good point, sometimes you just want to play the game from the get go. Having to wait 30 minutes to download a patch is ridiculous especially when they force you to patch the game in most cases.

    Game devs should at least allow you to postpone the patch until a later time, but it seems more common to force us to download the latest patch no matter what. Sure this resolves online compatibility to ensure everyone is on the same game version, but for single player games this is not acceptable. If the game works fine, why patch it? If I dont want to wait 30 minutes, why can't I just play it now in offline mode? If I can't afford a 10GB patch, why don't I have the option to download it later when feasible on a limited cap plan? If my internet provider is down or is extremely slow, why can't I skip the patch and just play the game now? Why can't I have the option to download the patch overnight when it suites me?

    Things need to change. Again, not everyone has the luxury of unlimited broadband or a stable connection.
     
    Last edited: Jan 21, 2015
  7. Extraordinary

    Extraordinary Guest

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    Disconnect the net before running single player and you won't be prompted to update - I had to do that with GTAV on my 12GB PS3 for a while before I got a HDD because the patch was too big for the drive
     
  8. Vipu2

    Vipu2 Guest

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    Well when they release some alpha test of AC unity of course they have to put "patch" out to fix all kind of things.
    Like lots of games come out these days, buggy and not working before you DL 200 gigs of patches.
     
  9. drandiiski

    drandiiski Maha Guru

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    No problem with traffic or speed on my end, so not a problem in general. Though the frequency or the exact moment I need to download them can be frustrating.

    Can agree with GT6 patches – they take forever. But if you are not going to play online you can leave it for other time. Wasn’t it also an option for the PS3/PS4 to download and install patches while in rest mode if you are a PS+ subscriber? Need to check this.
     
  10. CJ3D

    CJ3D Guest

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    True in most cases, I do that already, but in some situations I am forced to be online to play the game.

    For example with Uplay, I have six games in total, but only two of them appear when in offline mode. I must be online for the other four to appear in the game list for some reason. So I have no choice with Ubisoft games.

    No idea why this happens, you would think going online would update the local game list, but it doesn't. Every time, only two games appear in offline mode.
     

  11. Extraordinary

    Extraordinary Guest

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    Find a no-cd (crack) for those games that don't work offline, or run them direct from the exe when that happens, you'll still be able to find them in their install dir
     
  12. Damien_Azreal

    Damien_Azreal Ancient Guru

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    As game's install sizes grow, it only makes sense that patch/update sizes will grow as well.
    Technology changes. A 100mb patch used to be considered excessive... now, such a patch is almost laughed it.
    Thinking it's not big enough to fix anything.
     
  13. Agent-A01

    Agent-A01 Ancient Guru

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    For the ones complaining about disk space, you do know that these patches are mostly replacing files right?
     
  14. Dorlor

    Dorlor Guest

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    A limited internet connection? Do you live in africa or what?

    Get yourself a proper connection, and this wont be a problem.
     
  15. Corrupt^

    Corrupt^ Ancient Guru

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    This is actually still common practice in southern/middle sections of Europe.

    For me the issue is my speed, not the cap:
    12 mbit / 740 kbit

    I tend to boot up a large update before I go to work and shutdown the PC remotely when it's done. By the time I get home I can eat and play xD

    I agree with this and keeping this in mind you could say that the issue is rather that the "average" internet connection is becoming a bottleneck and this is the REAL issue. Average as in: not everyone can get the best internet possible, some people have it even worse then me.
     

  16. thatguy91

    thatguy91 Guest

    The reason for the large patches is that complete files are included. Having a game made up of 40,000 small files is far from ideal, having these in a few files is generally much better. However, if there is a few bytes of code needing change in three files of say, 2 GB each, you have a 6 GB patch, even if there's really only 10 KB of code change. They're have been delta patches in the past. These analyse the difference between the updated and original files, and saves the change descriptor file only. When running the patch, the changes are then applied on the target systems files. This is of course, only useful for going from the versions of the files the patch is designed for. That said, since the patch system is so efficient it could support multiple versions of existing files and still only be a few megabytes. In the other way, if the next patch requires more changes, it could mean another 6 GB. Through a properly done delta patch, it could still only be say, 10 MB, that's including overhead. Of course, the size of the delta patch is directly related to the number of differences between the files.
     
  17. umeng2002

    umeng2002 Maha Guru

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    Not really the patches.

    It's the game sizes.

    Look at the visual difference between a 8 GB 360 game and a 50 GB X1 game and tell me it needs the extra space.
     
  18. cerebus23

    cerebus23 Guest

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    Are mod sizes becomming excessive? :p i got 3 games now that top 50 gigs due to 200 meg here 100 meg there mods.

    I expect my assetto corsa folder will balloon to ludacris sized sizes as the months and years go on.

    And then there is star citizen which i think will support mods.

    Still redoing skyrim on occassion.

    And arma 3 is still in its infancy for mods really always is until the ace mods come out.

    Gonna need a several terabyte drive just for the mod games.
     
  19. Corrupt^

    Corrupt^ Ancient Guru

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    I was thinking something like this would be possible.

    In the end alot of games have just a bunch of small files bundled into larger *.DB files (or if anyone remembers the Quake 3 engine: .PK3 files) or something similar.

    Would be much more interesting to just single out the specific file inside it and then remake the *.DB file again.
     
  20. (.)(.)

    (.)(.) Banned

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    The largest patches are always for the poorly developed games. Unless theres a content upgrade (maps, items etc) due to season passes, free patches or early access content upgrades, then its more often than not just the games from the AAA that have to scramble to fix their broken games.

    Largest patch I've downloaded over the years was probably 1-2gb at the most as I avoid the AAA market.

    We have pc gamers blaming the console market for holding back the pc, yet you want games to be held back just because you live somewhere with limited internet. Thats not the fault of anyone except your own. Take it up with your ISP or accept it.

    This thread is pointless. If it where about actual install sizes of games and even though a game can be 35gb+ yet only has low quality, blocky 720p cutscenes, then yeah, youd have an argument.

    Avoid the AAA games and you'll not have this problem outside of game content upgrades, even then, content is usually already there in the initial installation and you just pay for access to unlock it.

    I cant even contribute a vote as even though I dont have unlimited internet (500gb plan), patches are still not a problem.
     

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