Can we get a better way to download games?

[Archform]

Some people have data caps and these games nowadays take upwards of 20% of a monthly data cap on an expensive home internet plan. Is there a way you guys can compress this data and just have a local installer unpack it? Or is it already doing something like that? Either way these high data usage games are getting out of hand.

[Archform]

Isn't DLSS basically fake 4/8k?

[Start_Running]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Quint the Alligator Snapper:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Start_Running:

On the contrary. Its quite the opposite. When CD's first became a viable storage media devs were at their laziest. Then they got better about it until dvd's became the new thing but it wasn't as bad as the CD days. Nowadays they tend to aim for economy in data. Since that makes porting to multiple platforms a lot easier.

They gradually learn to use space more efficiently given a certain set of limitations, and this is natural, but they're still breaking the baffles of whatever came before. And that's because they don't need to get as good at data compression as they used to be, since data space is considered far more plentiful.

No Quint its because they are putting MORE into things than what was done before. If you have MORE stuff its going to take up MORE space, regardless of compression. Because as said. Compression can only do so much. And you actually can't really double conmpress something. This is why you can compress a bmp, quite a lot but you don't get much compression ona JPG, PNG, or GIF.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Start_Running:

Did it ever occur to you that maybne, just maybe this is because ...i dunno...games these days have everything in higher quality than games 20 years ago. Textures, models, voice clips, music samples, sound effects, Cutscenes. All these things have grown and surprise, as they've grown the space and tech required has grown witth them. Its why you'll notice that games that for example aim for low rez pixel fidelity take significantly less storage space.

Yes, and you'd also notice there are differences in the ways those things are handled. It's true that these media contribute hugely to the bloat in games these days, but there are ways to compress them, from more seamless changes such as compressing video and audio files, to more noticeable changes such as rendering cutscenes in the game engine rather than in separate videos.

It kinda does depending on how much the format is already compressed. Mp3s for example are already heavily compressed.

Go ahead. Take an mp3 file and compress it. Even something like rar, 7zip, or Arj will struggle to eek out even a 2% gain over the original file and in many cases the compressed file will actually be larger than the original because of the extra data overhead required. The same holds true for Jpgs, mp4s and many other media formats.

You can only compress things so much and no more.

These days, such files are more likely to be obfuscated for the purpose of preventing digital piracy than for the purpose of efficient use of space. Chiptune tracks might be store as entire OGGs or WAVs even if they could be stored more efficiently, for example.

Are...are you just throwing arouund random words. Because while OGGs are pretty compressed (though still larger than mp3s) Suggesting WAV as a means for audio storage is...is like suggesting Bmp to store images. Its literally one of the more bloated audio formats you can find. WHich is why you don't see a lot of wav files in games anymore.

Again, the reason is that there's no perceived need to compress, so that's why it's no longer much of a focus.

Except there is a whole lot of compression being used...you just don't seem to be aware of it or how compression actually works.

Even on a CD-ROM there's a limit of a few hundred MB, not to mention the two- or one-digit (or less) MB capacity on old carts. Nowadays, PC games can just get away with 1+ GB without blinking an eye.

Yes because the audience expects audio quality and fidelity greater than what they got 30 years ago. There are games that deliberately strive to capture that sort of fidelity. Heck the only reason many of those games got away with their low fidelity was because they banked on the crt and stero artifacting to smooth over the dithering and jaggies.

Those tricks don't work on lcd and digital screens.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Start_Running:

Well considering that you can only compress something so much before the quality degrades. and the base data files tend to already be pretty highly compressed.

Nope. Take CD-quality audio for instance; it isn't exactly compressed, and it isn't even practically possible to hear the difference between that and 320 kbps mp3s.

Oh they are hella compressed m'dude. You just say that because you haven't seen hat the raw studio files used to make them look like. And considering CD quality is considered anything above 44khz at 176kb/s yeah its no surprise that there'd be quality overlap at the 320kb/s range. You'd have to be a real audiophile to spot the difference. As in an audiophile a serious audiopghile is more likely to have the equipment capable of registering the differences.

Also, not all players value these things equally. You can have games that let people play using lower-res textures and make higher-res textures optional downloads.

And again. there's a big difference between lowres designed for view ona crt, and low res designed for view on a digital display. There's a reason why many old games look very blocky on modern screens and its not that the textures were that bad. its because the way CRYs display images is fundamentally different from digital and for many fears , decades in fact developers and artists =had figured out many tricks to use the quirks of crt display to hide imperfection and even simulate effects that shouldn't have been possible.

Heck even within CRT the connection used could impact things.

You could get an entirely different image output based on whether you used RGB, RF/Coax, COmponent, COmposite, etc. And some developers and artists quite literally banked on the degradation that was inherent in those.

Its why creating good looking pixel art today, is actually harder than it was back then. WHy they actually have to use higher quality images than they would have back in ye olden days. They could

But to the point you are right. Not all users value these things the same and you know what. Those users aren't buying the latest and greatest golden pixel games. BNesides those games already have lower reesolution alternatives built into the formats. Kinda like how progressive Jpgs work.


COmpression isn't some magic spell a develop invokes . THere are reasons, restrictions limitations as to what can be accomplished. ANd data these days is waaay more compressed than it was in the old days.. Back when cd's were a tyhing devs were at their laziest because your average cd could hold more data than most any consumer level hdd could hold.. ANd that was before you started getting high capacity formats. (ALso devs kinda used that as a form of subtle copy protection). Then they got better at it and worked to pack more and more on cd's because each cd basically drove up the production and shipping costs for production runs.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Start_Running:

You have an amazing ability to go on and on about whatever.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Start_Running:

[various examples involving image formats and MP3s]

You can only compress things so much and no more.

And that's only if you neglect how those things were made in the first place.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Start_Running:

These days, such files are more likely to be obfuscated for the purpose of preventing digital piracy than for the purpose of efficient use of space. Chiptune tracks might be store as entire OGGs or WAVs even if they could be stored more efficiently, for example.

Are...are you just throwing arouund random words. Because while OGGs are pretty compressed (though still larger than mp3s) Suggesting WAV as a means for audio storage is...is like suggesting Bmp to store images. Its literally one of the more bloated audio formats you can find. WHich is why you don't see a lot of wav files in games anymore.

And note how much smaller audio files can be when they are given not in pre-recorded streams but actually generated by an audio engine in the system themselves.

No, these are not random words. These are words spawned from knowing how people worked with limitations. They might not be as convenient to work with, but that doesn't mean they aren't a thing.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Start_Running:

Again, the reason is that there's no perceived need to compress, so that's why it's no longer much of a focus.

Except there is a whole lot of compression being used...you just don't seem to be aware of it or how compression actually works.

There's nothing like the compression of yesteryear when stuff was compressed way more. Not just "we can compress WAVs to MP3s", but "we can compress the audio data so that it is generated by a specified set of instruments playing a specific set of instructions."

People don't do that much anymore, particularly not for reasons of space because space is no longer considered to be at a premium. And that is my point.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Start_Running:

COmpression isn't some magic spell a develop invokes . THere are reasons, restrictions limitations as to what can be accomplished. ANd data these days is waaay more compressed than it was in the old days.. Back when cd's were a tyhing devs were at their laziest because your average cd could hold more data than most any consumer level hdd could hold.. ANd that was before you started getting high capacity formats. (ALso devs kinda used that as a form of subtle copy protection). Then they got better at it and worked to pack more and more on cd's because each cd basically drove up the production and shipping costs for production runs.

And given that downloadable games such as those sold on Steam have no such physical media limitations, they can now take up as much space as they want.

[Satoru]

If you have data caps, then steam as the most optimal situation for you

1) downloads are compressed
2) only delta patches are sent to you

What more are you wanting given steams existing system is optimized to send you the least amount of data possible. What would you want changed?

[Satoru]

Also if you’re complaining about downloads

1) stop buying Early Access games that are by definition going to change frequently

2) stop buying Early Access games that are basically online MMOs because again they’re going to change often

3) given you already are having drive space issues it kinda feels like you’re solving the wrong problem here

[crunchyfrog]

Yes, sadly as everyone says here, it's already doing the things you're wishing for because Valve are WELL aware of this.

The thing is though, Steam HAS ALWAYS been an online service. It's endemic that YOU understand what this entails. It used to be quite a common post on these forums years ago, where people would bemoan they didn't have a great internet connection but wanted to use steam, and would blame steam for their crappy connection.

Thankfully, progress seems to have removed that a lot.

So yeah, it is kind of upon YOU to realise that Steam is an online SERVICE so you MUST have a internet connection up to scratch. It's sad but it's true.

In my case, I live in Britain, and although we have a load of TV advertisied mainstream ISPs, they're all really ♥♥♥♥, but thankfully we have over 250 or 300 other little private ISPs many of which are FAR beyond the mainstream ones. I've had a few of these small ISPs for years, and I would never go back to a mainstream one.

But if you're in the US, I fully sympathise as I know there are regions where it's essentially a monopoly. Choice of one or ♥♥♥♥ all.

[Start_Running]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Quint the Alligator Snapper:

...snip...

As said. These files are already compressed as much as the devs feel they can afford. Lossless compression doesn't go very far and lossy compression is a trade off of size versus quality.

And suffice it to say. Gamers on a whole, even when it comes to their retro games, what high fidelity.

Games that embrace the low fidelity style exist a plenty and they are plenty small. but they're seldom best sellers.

Also as pointed out. rthe fact that games are more and more seen as multi-platform apps keeping things small is even more preferable since it makes porting to the relatively linmited hardware of consoles all the easier.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

And once again, I was speaking of ways to compress things further than just your regular lossy compression, by actually boiling things down to the level of the instructions used to re-create the work, as opposed to a storing a direct representation of it. These are just some techniques that can be used to further compress data, specifically for assets. There are other ways to compress game data itself.

And my point was that people don't use these more clever compression techniques anymore, because they don't consider space to be at a premium anymore.

You've just been talking over and over again like you're some kind of industry expert knowing what sells and what's good for the industry, and missing my point the entire time.

[crunchyfrog]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Quint the Alligator Snapper:

And once again, I was speaking of ways to compress things further than just your regular lossy compression, by actually boiling things down to the level of the instructions used to re-create the work, as opposed to a storing a direct representation of it. These are just some techniques that can be used to further compress data, specifically for assets. There are other ways to compress game data itself.

And my point was that people don't use these more clever compression techniques anymore, because they don't consider space to be at a premium anymore.

You've just been talking over and over again like you're some kind of industry expert knowing what sells and what's good for the industry, and missing my point the entire time.

Actually, no.

The burden of proof is on you to show that these alleged systems SHOULD be used.

Personally, I'm not convinced you have it right, and I'm not convinced you have considered that Valve may be aware of far more things that you are.

So have at it.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von crunchyfrog:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Quint the Alligator Snapper:

And once again, I was speaking of ways to compress things further than just your regular lossy compression, by actually boiling things down to the level of the instructions used to re-create the work, as opposed to a storing a direct representation of it. These are just some techniques that can be used to further compress data, specifically for assets. There are other ways to compress game data itself.

And my point was that people don't use these more clever compression techniques anymore, because they don't consider space to be at a premium anymore.

You've just been talking over and over again like you're some kind of industry expert knowing what sells and what's good for the industry, and missing my point the entire time.

Actually, no.

The burden of proof is on you to show that these alleged systems SHOULD be used.

Personally, I'm not convinced you have it right, and I'm not convinced you have considered that Valve may be aware of far more things that you are.

So have at it.

Whether they "should be used" depends on the design parameters the developers are facing or have chosen.

Like I said, they don't consider space (or transfer volume) to be at a premium, so that's why they don't see the need to use more advanced compression mechanisms. They no longer need to fit things on physical media with far stricter space limitations such as 32 MB carts...or for that matter, any physical media, at this point, since everything is a download of unlimited size.

[Cat on Linux]

don't expect it to be better, most of the world has unlimited plans for cheap, no one counts download size. do you have internet cafe or something similar? grab USB stick, use their PC to download and install whatever you need. or bribe cafe admin to do it for you if they throttle speed for customers (whatever is cheaper :)

[Deagle™]

Buy them physically. No download.

[C²C^Guyver |NZB|]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Deagle™:

Buy them physically. No download.

A physical copy of a game that uses Steam, still needs to download updates. In fact this is true of any PC game, because they all require updates. You're still going to have to download, regardless.

Further, a physical copy of a game that uses Steam, comes with a Steam key. You must add it to your account. Once it is added to your account, the process of updating is the same, just as though you had bought it on the Steam Store itself.

[Walach]

A lot of games have waste code and more, but many do not aswell.
You'll never get the perfect size because there really isn't any need for it for the majority of people.

There are lots of developers that want more work into making the games smaller but the work isn't really deemed that important.

There really isn't one fix for everything. But if you want more information of these things then try and contact a "lead X" in whatever part of the game you believe is taking up to much space. :)

[Deagle™]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von C²C^Guyver |NZB|:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Deagle™:

Buy them physically. No download.

A physical copy of a game that uses Steam, still needs to download updates. In fact this is true of any PC game, because they all require updates. You're still going to have to download, regardless.

Further, physical copy of a game that uses Steam, comes with a Steam key. You must add it to your account. Once it is added to your account, the process of updating is the same, just as though you had bought it on the Steam Store itself.

I know, you are right. You use less internet, because the updates are smaller than the game BUT wont stay that small because of updates. So the best solution is to get a better internet contract

I didnt sleep vor 17 hours, forgive my english