Reducing game size (How to)

[Caldor]

I found a way to reduce the size of this game. That is, how to take away sounds you do not need and levels + resource files you do not need.

What I have done is just remove all of the multiplayer stuff, all the snapmap stuff and all the localization that I could find. 24,2 gigabyte. Might be more that can be taken away, but from here it would become less obvious.

So which files can be removed?

In the Doom installation folder there are a folder called "base" and one called "virtualtextures".

In the "base" folder all files starting with "snap_" are SnapMap files you do not need unless you want to play SnapMap maps or make them. Removing these and launching the editor or a SnapMap map will make the game crash though, which should make sense.

Also in the "base" folder all files starting with "mp_" are multiplayer files. You can remove them if you do not want to play multiplayer. I am not certain whether multiplayer or snapmap uses single player resources though, but if not, you should be able to remove all files starting with "sp_" if you only want to play multiplayer or snapmap.

In the "base" folder, you can also find a "sound" folder, which contain other folders. Go into the next two folders, the last one should be a "pc" folder. This is the folder with all the music and sounds for the game. This folder has a folder for each language, so you can delete all the folders with languages you do not use.

In this "pc" folder there are a few more files you can remove. They all contain "_mp", "_dlc" or "_snap" in the filename. You can remove these if you do not play mutliplayer or snap map. If you do play multiplayer, you can just remove the "_snap" files, and if you do play "_snap" you can just remove the "_mp" files. The "_dlc" files are likely used in both MP and Snap.

Now to the "virtualtextures" folder. It has a "maps" folder, which contains a "game" folder. In the game folder there is a "classic", "sp" and "mp" folder. You can remove the "mp" folder if you do not play mutliplayer. If you do not play single player, you can remove the "sp" folder. The mp folder should be 5.3 gb now, and the sp folder is 8,5 gb. If you only play SnapMap I do not think either of these folders are used.

That should help trim down the install size of this game. After every update, if any more DLC are released and such, you can probably repeat this process if any new files gets added. I doubt the game would redownload all the files you removed, but depends on how the updater works.

edit:

Found another thing to remove. In the "virtualtextures" folder there is the "maps" folder and it contains both a "modules" and a "game" folder. Seems you can delete "modules" also. This makes the total data removed 30.7 gb, and the game is now only 46gb total if you only want the single player part of this game.

edit regarding new update in July 2017:
The game now got updated, and this update actually reduced the total game size 10 gb... and all the DLC is now included with the game, so if you bought the DLC I hope you have enjoyed getting it early. Now everyone has the DLC. This guide still works same as before, you will now reduce the game size with about 19gb but since the overall game size is reduced 10gb, this makes it same size you end up with, if you only play Single Player. I think the same thing goes if you just want to delete all the single player files. The DLC was always required for MP anyway.

Update:
Another trick that can be used to reduce the amount of disk space Doom takes up by another 10 GB is to use Windows 8 or Windows 10 NTFS file compression. Majestic Turkey suggested this:

Using the updated ntfs compact feature in win8? win10
compact /c /s /a /i /F /exe:lzx *
at command prompt once in game directory

What this does, is that it compresses all the files in the DOOM installation folder as much as possible. Things to consider when using this method is that if any of these files are changed, they will stop being compressed and return to their original size. Another thing is that if you compress this with Windows 10 you cannot use these files in earlier versions of Windows. I am pretty sure the same goes if you do this in Windows 8, but if you do it in Windows 8 you should be able to run the game in Windows 10... not exactly sure how it will be relevant, since it must be very rare for someone to use the same disk with Windows 8 and Windows 10.

It might increase load times a bit, but should not be by much with todays multi core CPUs. Also, if the game does get updated and you want to make sure all the files that got changed or added also get compressed you just need to run this command next:
compact /c /s /a /i /exe:lzx *
The same command as before, just without the /F. Another thing that is relevant, is that if you measure the size of the Doom game folder, it will still show up as the uncompressed size of the folder, but if you look at the properties of the folder, it will then say the size of the folder AND how much disk space it is using. Its due to how Windows uses this type of NTFS compression. Of course the disk you have installed Doom to needs to be NTFS formattet for this to be possible.

My Doom folder is now only 36.7 GB measured in use of disk space.

[Majestic Turkey]

Originally posted by Caldor:

I just tested all this. Had some trouble because I tried installing some of the drivers in the DOOM installation folder and I ended up having to reinstall Windows 10... but it was a German version of Windows anyway, so I was planning to do that at some point anyway.

Good news, you can still reduce the game size with about 19gb if you follow the guide and only want single player and one language. Since the overall game size after the last patch was reduced 10gb, this means you still end up at the same game size as you did before, just with less files to delete.

Did some compression comparison,
Baseline size 57.9GB
ntfs default compression 56.5GB
ntfs lzx compression 40.8GB

have not removed language files etc yet

[Caldor]

Originally posted by Majestic Turkey:

Originally posted by Caldor:

I just tested all this. Had some trouble because I tried installing some of the drivers in the DOOM installation folder and I ended up having to reinstall Windows 10... but it was a German version of Windows anyway, so I was planning to do that at some point anyway.

Good news, you can still reduce the game size with about 19gb if you follow the guide and only want single player and one language. Since the overall game size after the last patch was reduced 10gb, this means you still end up at the same game size as you did before, just with less files to delete.

Did some compression comparison,
Baseline size 57.9GB
ntfs default compression 56.5GB
ntfs lzx compression 40.8GB

have not removed language files etc yet

You are changing the compression of files that the game use into compressed files that the game can still use?

I can see I wrote before that I reduced the game size to about 46gb, this time I have reduced it to 48gb. So I guess there is a 2gb difference.

You sure you did not delete any game files though? My baseline size is 69 gb. According to Steam anyway and it still thinks this is the size of the game after I have removed these files.

[mcc]

Originally posted by Caldor:

Originally posted by Majestic Turkey:

Did some compression comparison,
Baseline size 57.9GB
ntfs default compression 56.5GB
ntfs lzx compression 40.8GB

have not removed language files etc yet

You are changing the compression of files that the game use into compressed files that the game can still use?

I can see I wrote before that I reduced the game size to about 46gb, this time I have reduced it to 48gb. So I guess there is a 2gb difference.

You sure you did not delete any game files though? My baseline size is 69 gb. According to Steam anyway and it still thinks this is the size of the game after I have removed these files.

I noticed this 2.
This seems 2 be a Steam-bug.
The size of the games is not updated if u remove files.

[Caldor]

Originally posted by mcc:

Originally posted by Caldor:

You are changing the compression of files that the game use into compressed files that the game can still use?

I can see I wrote before that I reduced the game size to about 46gb, this time I have reduced it to 48gb. So I guess there is a 2gb difference.

You sure you did not delete any game files though? My baseline size is 69 gb. According to Steam anyway and it still thinks this is the size of the game after I have removed these files.

I noticed this 2.
This seems 2 be a Steam-bug.
The size of the games is not updated if u remove files.

Not sure if it is a bug, it just knows how big the game was after its last update or after it got installed. If Steam checked and found the game to be smaller, it would probably begin downloading the "missing files".

[Taki]

is not a bug, steam downloaded N and show the game occupy N, steam dont check the file unless you told him to do so, and if you make steam checkthe game file will download again automatic the missin one.

so, is perfectly normal steam dont " automatically update" the game size.
for steam the game is still the same as steam downloaded it.

if steam would automatically check game we will be unable to delete or modify stuff, so is better steam behave this way.

[mcc]

Ok,
so it is not a bug but a feature
:D

[Phobos]

Originally posted by Caldor:

I found a way to reduce the size of this game. That is, how to take away sounds you do not need and levels + resource files you do not need.

What I have done is just remove all of the multiplayer stuff, all the snapmap stuff and all the localization that I could find. 24,2 gigabyte. Might be more that can be taken away, but from here it would become less obvious.

So which files can be removed?

In the Doom installation folder there are a folder called "base" and one called "virtualtextures".

In the "base" folder all files starting with "snap_" are SnapMap files you do not need unless you want to play SnapMap maps or make them. Removing these and launching the editor or a SnapMap map will make the game crash though, which should make sense.

Also in the "base" folder all files starting with "mp_" are multiplayer files. You can remove them if you do not want to play multiplayer. I am not certain whether multiplayer or snapmap uses single player resources though, but if not, you should be able to remove all files starting with "sp_" if you only want to play multiplayer or snapmap.

In the "base" folder, you can also find a "sound" folder, which contain other folders. Go into the next two folders, the last one should be a "pc" folder. This is the folder with all the music and sounds for the game. This folder has a folder for each language, so you can delete all the folders with languages you do not use.

In this "pc" folder there are a few more files you can remove. They all contain "_mp", "_dlc" or "_snap" in the filename. You can remove these if you do not play mutliplayer or snap map. If you do play multiplayer, you can just remove the "_snap" files, and if you do play "_snap" you can just remove the "_mp" files. The "_dlc" files are likely used in both MP and Snap.

Now to the "virtualtextures" folder. It has a "maps" folder, which contains a "game" folder. In the game folder there is a "classic", "sp" and "mp" folder. You can remove the "mp" folder if you do not play mutliplayer. If you do not play single player, you can remove the "sp" folder. The mp folder should be 5.3 gb now, and the sp folder is 8,5 gb. If you only play SnapMap I do not think either of these folders are used.

That should help trim down the install size of this game. After every update, if any more DLC are released and such, you can probably repeat this process if any new files gets added. I doubt the game would redownload all the files you removed, but depends on how the updater works.

edit:

Found another thing to remove. In the "virtualtextures" folder there is the "maps" folder and it contains both a "modules" and a "game" folder. Seems you can delete "modules" also. This makes the total data removed 30.7 gb, and the game is now only 46gb total if you only want the single player part of this game.

edit regarding new update in July 2017:
The game now got updated, and this update actually reduced the total game size 10 gb... and all the DLC is now included with the game, so if you bought the DLC I hope you have enjoyed getting it early. Now everyone has the DLC. This guide still works same as before, you will now reduce the game size with about 19gb but since the overall game size is reduced 10gb, this makes it same size you end up with, if you only play Single Player. I think the same thing goes if you just want to delete all the single player files. The DLC was always required for MP anyway.

Found you.
pastebinned for future reference.

[Majestic Turkey]

Originally posted by Caldor:

Originally posted by Majestic Turkey:

Did some compression comparison,
Baseline size 57.9GB
ntfs default compression 56.5GB
ntfs lzx compression 40.8GB

have not removed language files etc yet

You are changing the compression of files that the game use into compressed files that the game can still use?

I can see I wrote before that I reduced the game size to about 46gb, this time I have reduced it to 48gb. So I guess there is a 2gb difference.

You sure you did not delete any game files though? My baseline size is 69 gb. According to Steam anyway and it still thinks this is the size of the game after I have removed these files.

Using the updated ntfs compact feature in win8? win10
compact /c /s /a /i /F /exe:lzx * at command prompt once in game directory

Yes lzx is transparent to the system, compact was updated with several new algorithms since ntfs compression is decades old and could be improved. Lzx is the strongest compression but its the one with the flaw where any altering of the file decompresses it, and you'd have to manually redo it, but most game files never change so its fine.

There are limits though, don't run this on your windows or user/appdata files etc. Only program files and other non system, or you will no boot your system.

http://woshub.com/lzx-file-compression-on-the-ntfs-level-in-windows-10/

[Caldor]

Originally posted by Majestic Turkey:

Originally posted by Caldor:

You are changing the compression of files that the game use into compressed files that the game can still use?

I can see I wrote before that I reduced the game size to about 46gb, this time I have reduced it to 48gb. So I guess there is a 2gb difference.

You sure you did not delete any game files though? My baseline size is 69 gb. According to Steam anyway and it still thinks this is the size of the game after I have removed these files.

Using the updated ntfs compact feature in win8? win10
compact /c /s /a /i /F /exe:lzx * at command prompt once in game directory

Yes lzx is transparent to the system, compact was updated with several new algorithms since ntfs compression is decades old and could be improved. Lzx is the strongest compression but its the one with the flaw where any altering of the file decompresses it, and you'd have to manually redo it, but most game files never change so its fine.

Interesting. But there must be some downside to this? Longer load times or something?

[Majestic Turkey]

Originally posted by Caldor:

Originally posted by Majestic Turkey:

Using the updated ntfs compact feature in win8? win10
compact /c /s /a /i /F /exe:lzx * at command prompt once in game directory

Yes lzx is transparent to the system, compact was updated with several new algorithms since ntfs compression is decades old and could be improved. Lzx is the strongest compression but its the one with the flaw where any altering of the file decompresses it, and you'd have to manually redo it, but most game files never change so its fine.

Interesting. But there must be some downside to this? Longer load times or something?

http://woshub.com/lzx-file-compression-on-the-ntfs-level-in-windows-10/
Not really a noticeable burden, because this level of compression is still trivial to a modern cpu with so many cores.

Some games compress better than others of course

/F because if you have ntfs compression already flagged on the directory it will be confused.

[Caldor]

Originally posted by Majestic Turkey:

Originally posted by Caldor:

Interesting. But there must be some downside to this? Longer load times or something?

http://woshub.com/lzx-file-compression-on-the-ntfs-level-in-windows-10/
Not really a noticeable burden, because this level of compression is still trivial to a modern cpu with so many cores.

Some games compress better than others of course

/F because if you have ntfs compression already flagged on the directory it will be confused.

I should probably try it out... just to try it out. I bought an extra 3 tb hard disk, so its not much of a problem for me yet with the size of games these days. It is a nice option though, and on a HDD it might even benefit from it since you got less data to load, then decrompress it in the much faster RAM and CPU... but I doubt it would actually help. Would recude the space needed though. I guess the real problem would be when the game needs an update?

[Majestic Turkey]

Originally posted by Caldor:

Originally posted by Majestic Turkey:

http://woshub.com/lzx-file-compression-on-the-ntfs-level-in-windows-10/
Not really a noticeable burden, because this level of compression is still trivial to a modern cpu with so many cores.

Some games compress better than others of course

/F because if you have ntfs compression already flagged on the directory it will be confused.

I should probably try it out... just to try it out. I bought an extra 3 tb hard disk, so its not much of a problem for me yet with the size of games these days. It is a nice option though, and on a HDD it might even benefit from it since you got less data to load, then decrompress it in the much faster RAM and CPU... but I doubt it would actually help. Would recude the space needed though. I guess the real problem would be when the game needs an update?

"334 files within 48 directories were compressed.
62,224,758,615 total bytes of data are stored in 43,879,863,830 bytes.
The compression ratio is 1.4 to 1.

G:\Steam I\SteamApps\common\DOOM>"

https://pastebin.com/R3LJGhUu

full command prompt log if you want to be more selective with which doom directories to target, because as you can see, many directories actually don't compress

Updates aren't a problem, the only thing that can happen is a changed file no longer is compressed, I just run the compression command again without the /F

This behavior makes decompression easy, just make a copy of the directory...

Just try it out

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/44b4ue/gaming_ntfs_compression/czq1dwu/
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/22088-compress-uncompress-windows-10-compact-os-2.html
https://wimlib.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=16

[Caldor]

I am trying it out, I will add this suggestion to the OP after I have tried it. I should have probably looked into loading times first to compare a before and after... but I guess I will just trust that its not going to change much.

[Caldor]

Hmmm... well, first it seemed this changed nothing. The game still being 48gb in size before and after running this compression. Then I tried checking the properties, and it seems its like when you compressed a whole hard disk in earlier versions of Windows. The files would take up as much space as they used to, but the size of the hard disk increased instead.

Which seems strange since compression level is never the same. But when I looked at the properties of the Doom folder it says the size is 48 GB but the disk space it uses is only 38 GB, so this saves another 10gb.

I will add all of this to the OP.

[Taki]

is viable also for windows 8.1 or only qindows 10 have this feature update and viable?