Red Dead Redemption 2 PC patch 1.14

Discussion in 'Frontpage news' started by Hilbert Hagedoorn, Nov 21, 2019.

  1. Size_Mick

    Size_Mick Master Guru

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    I remember when the Mechwarrior 2 Mercenaries demo was first released on the internet. It took me 6 hours to grab it. It was 15MB. Now I can download at around 20MB/sec. I have no complaints about download speeds. Youngsters don't know how good they have it! Kids these days...
     
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  2. Digilator

    Digilator Master Guru

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    Umm... Things are relative. You know the word, right? 2.9 GB is A LOT for a patch with no new content.
     
  3. Digilator

    Digilator Master Guru

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    If the game is broken enough for them to have to replace so much, then sure...

    You missed my point with the first line.
     
    Last edited: Nov 25, 2019
  4. Aura89

    Aura89 Ancient Guru

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    Replace so much?

    They could edit 1 line in a 3GB file and the download would be 3GB if it doesn't have a patcher that opens up the 3GB file and edits the line manually (something that requires time and processing power).

    I don't think you understand what it is i said, or how different games patch differently which i feel i stated pretty clearly the first time.

    There are literally games out there where every time it updates you effectively have to redownload 90-99% of the game because they keep 90-99% of the game in one file rather then multiple files. Again, this can be done differently, where a patch unpacks the main game file, edits what needs to be edited, and repacks, but this isn't always a good thing, as that can take a lot of time and processing power from your PC to unpack and repack a file, and can ultimately take longer (depending on your internet connection) then simply re-downloading the updated file completely. Again, which way is better, is dependent on an individual bases, especially since some people have data caps and would rather take the longer route if they could.

    How big a patch is therefore has nothing to do with added content or how much was changed, but instead has to do with what files were edited, how big those files are and if they are replacing the file or editing the file via the patcher.

    An example of this is how Steam use to treat all of its games, by re-downloading all of the updated files with no option to simply edit the files with the patcher. This doesn't mean all steam games use the patcher now, as it's up to the developers to utilize the feature, which is why many steam games still simply re-download all the updates files, even if a very large file was edited with 1 line.

    https://store.steampowered.com/news/5856/

    "Another way that the new content system improves the bandwidth picture is by requiring each user to download less data. With the Steam content system that’s been in place for a few years now, if an individual file on disk were modified by a game update, your client had to download the whole file. That can be painful when the file in question is really large. The new system supports delivering only the differences between the old and new files, meaning game updates will be much smaller overall."

    This is often why on steam games now when you download an update, it'll sit at 100% downloaded for a couple seconds or even minutes depending on the game after the update has been downloaded, because it has more steps then simply "downloading", it now has installing/editing/etc. tasks to do.

    I've seen less than 1MB steam game updates take a few minutes to complete, even though it took me 1 second to download the 1MB.

    If this still doesn't make sense to you, i don't know how much more clear i can make it. Hopefully the above makes it clear.
     
    Last edited: Nov 25, 2019

  5. Astyanax

    Astyanax Ancient Guru

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    steam uses compressed delta patching, so that one line might be a few bytes, but then the delta has to shift one gb of data, confirm it was done right and still wind up being 3GBs.
     
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