What is going on with the 12 GB patching for 50-100 MB download every 2 days?!

[nduka]

I'm assuming Steam is going over all game files rather than just the few that are downloaded in each patch, but why?! This (and ATS) is the only game in my library that does this.

Why is the patching done in this way (12 GB for me, every time it downloads a patch of any size)? And why is it every couple of days? Unlike my other titles which announce and release patches every couple of weeks, literally every single time I open Steam, ETS2 and ATS have to patch (because I'll open Steam once every couple of days), with rarely any explanation of what the patch is for, and then it takes a ridiculous amount of time for nominally a 50-100 MB patch. What on earth is going on?

[Wolfgang]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Frondator:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Wolfgang:

Just saying: You are always free to go. The door out is not locked.

Well, I was going to pick up a few DLCs during the Winter Sale, but maybe you're right. Imagine an SCS employee telling one of their games' players to uninstall!

When did I state that I am working for SCS? Do you see any "developer" next to my name?

[mojo_musica]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Wolfgang:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Frondator:

Well, I was going to pick up a few DLCs during the Winter Sale, but maybe you're right. Imagine an SCS employee telling one of their games' players to uninstall!

When did I state that I am working for SCS? Do you see any "developer" next to my name?

A lot of players commenting on here seem to be under the impression they are addressing the devs at SCS, they don't seem to realise that we are all just players like them.

[nduka]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von mojo_musica:

Steam isn't necessarily writing 13.5Gb when it installs a small patch, but it verifies all the game files after the patching process, as I would do myself after any update, to make sure that nothing was corrupted by a faulty download.

And herein lies the problem. That should be the choice of the user, as it is for other titles. You are free to decide to do that, but if it takes someone's system longer to verify 13 GB (not because there is a fault in their hardware, but just because it's slower), they shouldn't be forced to sit through such a process for every 50 MB patch. For example, my copy of Train Simulator, for which I have something like 80 GB of DLC, just updated itself in about 60 seconds (260 MB download, 2.3 GB patching). This is how updates can be efficiently handled. And if I wanted to then verify 80 GB of Train Simulator files after that, the choice should indeed be mine (of course, I wouldn't unless I noticed problems after the update, for exactly the reason that it takes time for nothing), which it is for all my other titles except ETS2/ATS.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von mojo_musica:

If that takes a while, it is because of your system, not because something is wrong with the patch. I have a dedicated Samsung EVO Plus NVme2 SSD just for Steam games, and another just for the operating system, so all hard drive operations are pretty quick, my other games are on a 3Tb spinning rust hard drive and very noticeably take a lot longer to do the same tasks.

No. If someone's patching takes longer than your own, sure it's because they have an HDD and you have an SSD, but if it just 'takes a while' period, that can be simply down to how the patch is being handled. A good way to know would be to see whether it's systemic or the problem only exists for one piece of software. Fortunately Steam users can compare patching between the different games they have to notice if one is slower than all the others, which is the case here. And as I said above, if this patching 'takes a while' because it forces a game file verification after each one, then that's not down to a user's hardware, it's how the patching is done. Again, if other games on Steam can install larger patches in a fraction of the time -- I'll reiterate, a 260 MB train simulator patch completing in about 60 seconds on my system, while these 50 MB ETS2 downloads are taking several minutes -- then the problem simply does not lie with a user's hardware, it's how the patch is implemented.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von mojo_musica:

There is a case for accepting that games will now always be updated and patched continuously over their life, though game devs may choose different strategies and timings, but I, personally, am thankful that this is now the case, and we no longer have interminable waits for errors and bugs to be fixed.

This misses the point, as it implies users having these issues with only ETS2/ATS are not accepting of games in general being continuously updated.

[Thunderbird]

If you have traditional spinning hard drive you should keep it always well defragged.
Current spinning hard drives suffer a lot if there's even slight amount of defragmentation. This is due tech used how data writings are done to platters.
At that point drive performance drops completely and it starts to live it's own life (usage 100% read / write speeds vary between from 0 to something.

[Irascible_SAP]

nah, no way, I'm not buying this "thats how Valve have done the updates since forever" rubbish.

Fact of the matter is ETS2 and ATS used to take a very brief amount of time to update (to the point where disk activity stops again), even when the update size was into 3 figures...

Now it takes 10-20 minutes to do a 50mb patch, because it wants to verify the whole install with every bloody update!

WHY CANT IT JUST VERIFY THE BITS IT CHANGED like every other game does???

And because every other game doesnt take this long to patch, it stands to reason that it has NAFF ALL to do with Valve's methods anyway - it is something SCS have changed - and its a change for the worse IMO

[hackintoshchap]

It took under a minute to download, install, complete file verification on my system - not surprise that I don't understand why people still use spinning rust for games.

[Sandhill]

Nothing has changed for me, the patching takes moments, like always.

[Lethal Mitch]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Sandhill:

Nothing has changed for me, the patching takes moments, like always.

Yeah, not changed anything for me either. The info is presented differently for sure but it says how much the patch download is i.e my patch today was 75mb.

Look closely next patch and you will see.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2691489581

[NM_Coot]

ETS2 has become unplayable for me. The latest download crashes immediately I enter driving mode. The constant download situation means I can rarely complete a long trip. I'm tired of being a beta tester for SCS. SCS needs to go back to the old format of occasional updates. Until they do I'm going to sit on the sidelines.

[jeremyj621]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von NM_Coot:

ETS2 has become unplayable for me. The latest download crashes immediately I enter driving mode. The constant download situation means I can rarely complete a long trip. I'm tired of being a beta tester for SCS. SCS needs to go back to the old format of occasional updates. Until they do I'm going to sit on the sidelines.

If you're using mods, then yes, the constant updates can be problematic, which is why I don't use mods. No issues with the game.

[hackintoshchap]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von NM_Coot:

ETS2 has become unplayable for me. The latest download crashes immediately I enter driving mode. The constant download situation means I can rarely complete a long trip. I'm tired of being a beta tester for SCS. SCS needs to go back to the old format of occasional updates. Until they do I'm going to sit on the sidelines.

Assuming that you have done due diligence with Promods, so start a new thread and after a crash event, link your game.log file after you upload it to Pastebin.com - provide the pastbin link for your text and someone can assist you.

[NM_Coot]

In my experience the current situation is multifaceted. The latest is a crash to desktop just by changing to driving mode during start-up. Often the updates send me back to the garage and I lose the progress and potential income while paying expenses for fuel and repair. This would not show anything in a game log.
Perhaps I need enlightening about why a properly tested new version should require updating on an almost daily basis, often with a new version number. (I shouldn't say it but I will. Sloppy QA/QC.)

[Sandhill]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von NM_Coot:

In my experience the current situation is multifaceted. The latest is a crash to desktop just by changing to driving mode during start-up. Often the updates send me back to the garage and I lose the progress and potential income while paying expenses for fuel and repair. This would not show anything in a game log.
Perhaps I need enlightening about why a properly tested new version should require updating on an almost daily basis, often with a new version number. (I shouldn't say it but I will. Sloppy QA/QC.)

There are strategies to avoid being sent back to your garage, if that happens a lot, perhaps you should employ some of them.
The cause of a CTD would probably show up in game.log, if you'd like help with that

[hackintoshchap]

game.log does normally show an issue unless it is hardware issue.

Only game daily updates were last week - Krone trailer update, then DAF XF update. You may have also had mod updates on a daily basis.

It is odd that tens of thousands of users have no problems, but a literal handful of folk have issues.

This thread was about the number of updates and their 12GB size (which isn't even a thing)
For a good moan, start your own thread. For actual assistance, again start your own thread.

Happy holidays.

[timaiv]

From support.
__
Hello,

The Steam platform uses a binary patching system - this means that only changed parts of the file are replaced.

For example the changes in this update are about 140 megabytes spread across various files.

In such case the Steam client download the 140 megabytes of changes and then applies the changed data across all game files (12 GB).

This process may be compared to when you make a mistake in a line of text, you correct only one incorrect letter instead of deleting the sentence and writing if from the start again.

Let us know if you have any further issues.



Best regards,
SCS Software Tech Support