Not Enough Disk Space issues explained

[His Quivzness]

I must admit I'm not entirely sure of this, but from other games that use packages this is how it goes...

First the original packages (which is not actually compressed like a zip or rar, rather is just a single file or set of files containing a large amount of assets) must be unpackaged somewhere. So now you have 1 copy of the original packages and one copy of all the files those packages contain. Then the changes override and add to the files in the unpackaged version. Now you have 1 copy of the packages, and one unpackaged set of files that have been updated. Then the new files are re-packaged into their packaged format. Now you have the original package, the unpackaged and updated assets and the new package. Thats 3 copies of the game assets, 2 of which are slightly larger as they contain more assets than the original. Finally the original packages are overwritten and the unpackaged files are deleted.

Now perhaps the repacking may overwrite the original meaning that there will only be 2 copies instead of 3, but nonetheless, this sort of patching is extremely heavy on disk space.

Now if you dont have the space for these operations you can instead uninstall ark and redownload it. It is a 28 gig compressed archive which unpacks to around 135ish gig (my previous estimates of 120 gig was a bit low apparently, but now i've finished my re-install), but this metod only requires 1 copy of all the packages.

Best of luck in aberration.

[roknrol]

NOT thrilled with this. I'm on QUITE limited (rural) bandwidth - to get home after work, looking forward to a rousing series of failures in ARK, I discover a mandatory update.

Only two days left on the download. Hope I don't fall in love with another game in the interim...

[heroicidiot]

Początkowo opublikowane przez roknrol:

NOT thrilled with this. I'm on QUITE limited (rural) bandwidth - to get home after work, looking forward to a rousing series of failures in ARK, I discover a mandatory update.

Only two days left on the download. Hope I don't fall in love with another game in the interim...

If you do find a new game, no one will care, no one will miss you

[B2own]

Well looks like i get freespace to playt some othergames, only game ive EVER seen that needed 2x its HDD space just for a tiny ass update.........retarded all around no matter how you try butter it up...... played games with better physics and graphics that arent even 1/8 the size of this game

[a Teemo Mushroom]

What's the magic ratio of used/free space? It seems like I need double the space of Ark to patch? I've got 135 used/85 free and can't update an 8 GB patch.

If I go with the uninstall/reinstall route, what do I risk losing? Player profiles and local .ark map saves? Could I connect to a dedicated server and assume I won't have to restart the character?

Sorry for the gauntlet of questions : )

[a Teemo Mushroom]

This did the trick for me. I used The Center for all examples but the same should work for Ragnarok, Scorched Earth, etc.

1). Reduce patch size by unselecting DLC:
Steam Library -> Click Ark -> DLC (under achievements; center screen) -> Unselect The Center.

2). Delete DLC you don't want:
Steam Library -> Right-click Ark -> Properties -> Local Files -> Browse Local Files -> ShooterGame -> Content -> Mods -> Delete "The Center" folder.

3). Delete old backups you don't need:
Steam Library -> Right-click Ark -> Properties -> Local Files -> Browse Local Files -> ShooterGame -> Saved -> TheCenterSavedArksLocal -> Delete any .ark file that isn't the most recent/the one you want to keep.

Not responsible for anything that breaks : )

Good luck!

[His Quivzness]

I know what i said in my original post... But I've gone through the files and cant find any huge packages. So it make no sense to me why the patches require massive free space. If packages of at least 40-50 gig aren't being handled, then i dont know whats taking up all the room. Possibly each change is made without aplying to the original until all changes are complete. But then i dont know the reason why each file isn't applied as it finishes. Then the required free space (above that required for the new content of course) would be the same size as the largest file needing to be patched.

So now i dont know whats going on.

[B2own]

Początkowo opublikowane przez His Quivzness:

I know what i said in my original post... But I've gone through the files and cant find any huge packages. So it make no sense to me why the patches require massive free space. If packages of at least 40-50 gig aren't being handled, then i dont know whats taking up all the room. Possibly each change is made without aplying to the original until all changes are complete. But then i dont know the reason why each file isn't applied as it finishes. Then the required free space (above that required for the new content of course) would be the same size as the largest file needing to be patched.

So now i dont know whats going on.

they prob have it so it copy pastes the game back in with the updated files hench why you need enough space for 2arks..... kinda lazy programming imo, id rather just get the files and put them where they need to be myself then save 60+gigs just so ark can have its little updates

[His Quivzness]

Początkowo opublikowane przez B2own:

they prob have it so it copy pastes the game back in with the updated files hench why you need enough space for 2arks.....

Yeah thats what i was thinking... Maybe its a requirement of Steam to handle it this way? Or maybe the patch process is prone to bugs so they need to error check it before applying the paste. Either way there must be a way to make it more space efficient...

I dont have enough space on my SSD anymore when these patches come out. After i couldn't patch for abberation i just uninstalled and reinstalled. The total download for base+SE+Abberation is still under 30 gig and then installs to its ~150 gig normal size. But for people with internet limits thats a pain you just dont need.

[ArtemisNZ]

If you are getting the NOT ENOUGH DISKSPACE ERROR you will find that if you go to the Steam Downloads view and hover the mouse over the NOT ENOUGH DISKSPACE message, it will usually tell you how much space the patch will require to install. Mine said 62gb (I think).

To install the patch if you have have a smaill SSD like I do, try setting your default Steam Library Folder to another drive that has the required amount of free space. Thats under Settings, Steam Library Folders. Right click the Folder with enough space and click Make Default Folder. You may need to create a new library folder if you dont already have one on a bigger harddrive. You can probably set the default back to your C Library once the patch is installed. But you will get the same error next time.

Worked for me. Hope that helps.

[PureG]

Think its more to do with unreal engine developer kit games. As this is also how they update. Some how i cant imagine this happing on xbox or PS4. Think it really just comes down to them not being the best devlopers, After alll they still did not change the exe to be Ark, Shootergame.exe is the exe the unreal dvloper kit gives the demo FPS game that this is based on.

[a Teemo Mushroom]

Początkowo opublikowane przez His Quivzness:

Początkowo opublikowane przez B2own:

they prob have it so it copy pastes the game back in with the updated files hench why you need enough space for 2arks.....

Yeah thats what i was thinking... Maybe its a requirement of Steam to handle it this way? Or maybe the patch process is prone to bugs so they need to error check it before applying the paste. Either way there must be a way to make it more space efficient...

I dont have enough space on my SSD anymore when these patches come out. After i couldn't patch for abberation i just uninstalled and reinstalled. The total download for base+SE+Abberation is still under 30 gig and then installs to its ~150 gig normal size. But for people with internet limits thats a pain you just dont need.

I have a gigabit internet connection and rarely get more than 20 Mb/s through Steam. I realize I'm fortunate in that regard but Steam downloads seem to be disappointing no matter what your bandwidth is.

[Hellmet]

I woke up this morning to find that I needed 52.6 GB of free disk space to update ARK. Surprised that I didn't have the space available, I checked my drive to discover I only had 10 GB free despite having over 80 GB free prior to the last two patches. I moved all of my other games and backup files to my data storage drive which only freed up 37 GB. I then had to delete my SeekFreeContent folder which cleared up another 50ish GB. After doing so, I noticed that my entire ARK folder took up 52.6 GB of space, the exact same amount of space that I needed to download a 12 GB patch. An amazing coincidence? I think not. I don't know if it is Steam, WC, or UE4, but somebody is reaming us hard... right in the SSD.

[PureG]

its not steam. If you get stuck you can uninstall the game then when you reinstall it will have the latest patch

[Hellmet]

(Update)

Before starting today's download I had 97 GB of free space on my SSD. The patch was 12.2 GB and the SeekFreeContent folder rewrote itself, as expected, adding another 52.1 GB of data. Subtracting 12.2 and 52.1 from 97 leaves me with a grand total of... 85.7 GB of free space. Now I am pretty good at math and I just have one question. What even is life right now?