Steam's new way of updating games

[Charlemagne]

Recently we began seeing a new way in which games are updated in Steam. Updates used to be fast and quite unobtrusive, small patches would be done in a zip. However we now see that first Steam downloads the update and then proceeds to install it, and here seems to be the problem because it goes through the game's whole files. For example say the update is 23 MB, but Steam goes through all of the game's 34 GB anyway during "install" or "patching". This procedure takes a good while, but leave alone that, the bad thing is that it also takes a substantial portion of the computer's resources. Such that I cannot play another game while the update is working, which wasn't the case before.

What I'm driving at is, maybe Steam can take a look at this new procedure to see what's the problem. I'm sure there are good technical reasons for the new modality, but at least make it so my computer doesn't have to be paralyzed every time an update is happening.

[UCEY]

Two things.

1. What you're describing aren't "little patches", 34 GB is a major update. Small patches don't redownload the whole game.

2. Steam, the distributor, isn't in charge of handling updates made by developers. Steam can't control the size of the updates

[Satoru]

Steam hasn’t “changed” the way patches have worked. They have been the same for years

1) you download a DELTA patch which has the changes for the various files that need to be patched

2) after that steam calculates and recreates the new file based on this data

This is the same way Steam has done so for years

How much data needs to be changed depends on the game and how the data for each game is laid out.

[Charlemagne]

Well I'm not the only one who has noticed this. It first happened (to me) with a patch of the Ascent. Right now it's working a Warhammer III patch. The download is 483 MB, that was done relatively fast. It is now patching 101 GB (the entire game). It's been at it for two hours, and it says one hour more to go. Games like Fallout 4 or Civ 6 can't be launched while that is going on (they stay on loading black screen forever).
There has even been given a reason for this, that it is for making sure all the files of the game get properly patched. It was also clarified that it is not downloading the entire game each time. However, people with little space left in their disks have reported that the patch was not allowed because it required free space equal to the installed game (for example, 101 GB in my case). I don't know if the latter issue has been fixed.

[nullable]

Originally posted by uranium eater:

Two things.

1. What you're describing aren't "little patches", 34 GB is a major update. Small patches don't redownload the whole game.

2. Steam, the distributor, isn't in charge of handling updates made by developers. Steam can't control the size of the updates

OP was commenting on how a 23MB patch ends up updating 34GB of data on disk. Not a 34GB patch. Methinks you were skimming a little too quickly there.

At any rate it seems like OP hasn't experienced this behavior before, assumes it's new behavior, and that it's some unacknowledged problem that could be addressed, even if there is a technical explanation for it.

Unfortunately there's bound to be some workloads that take a significant amount of resources to get through, even if it's "just" game patches. And it's possible some modest, aged, and underpowered systems could chug along a bit while updating.

[Charlemagne]

Originally posted by Snakub Plissken:

Unfortunately there's bound to be some workloads that take a significant amount of resources to get through, even if it's "just" game patches. And it's possible some modest, aged, and underpowered systems could chug along a bit while updating.

Well my PC is relatively new. Intel i5 8600, 16 GB ram, SSD, and 100 MB internet. Also I noticed the change from "before" to "after". Perhaps it was the same basic way things were done before, but something changed in the implementation. Never a 432 MB patch took three hours to install.

[Nx Machina]

Originally posted by Charlemagne:

Well I'm not the only one who has noticed this. It first happened (to me) with a patch of the Ascent. Right now it's working a Warhammer III patch. The download is 483 MB, that was done relatively fast. It is now patching 101 GB (the entire game). It's been at it for two hours, and it says one hour more to go.

I have had Total War Warhammer 1 & 2 since release and they have ALWAYS been slow to patch irrespective of the pstch size.

TWW released on Steam 24 May 2016.

TWW2 released on Steam 28 Sep 2017.

[RiO]

Originally posted by Satoru:

Steam hasn’t “changed” the way patches have worked. They have been the same for years

Not entirely. In another thread where this topic has come up, there was a user posting log dumps which made it clear that in addition to patching files the patch process now also runs a validation pass on all files up to the 2 GB mark. It will also pick a random number and based on its value decide whether to continue running validation passed the 2 GB mark.

It's anyone's guess what purpose the use of a random number serves here. There's no sound algorithmic basis for it. Maybe they're running a public A/B experiment with random population distribution?

[nullable]

Originally posted by Charlemagne:

Originally posted by Snakub Plissken:

Unfortunately there's bound to be some workloads that take a significant amount of resources to get through, even if it's "just" game patches. And it's possible some modest, aged, and underpowered systems could chug along a bit while updating.

Well my PC is relatively new. Intel i5 8600, 16 GB ram, SSD, and 100 MB internet. Also I noticed the change from "before" to "after". Perhaps it was the same basic way things were done before, but something changed in the implementation. Never a 432 MB patch took three hours to install.

Well not every patch is going to behave like you and Satoru have described.

And again my point is you noticing something for the first time might make it seem new to you, even if it's not new at all. Not unlike how there's often users posting about "new" scams, and then what they describe is the same scam we've seen for years. But they've never seen it, so they're sure it's new...

At any rate I think Satoru cover the issue fairly well, some patches just have requirements that involve touching a lot of the game's data even though the patch is a fraction of the size of the game. It's not all just overwriting files...

[Charlemagne]

Well if all of you say so, I must be wrong. I have only been around Steam for 17 years, so what would I know.
In any case, it would have been faster to uninstall WH III, download it anew and reinstall it than this patch.

[crunchyfrog]

Originally posted by Charlemagne:

Well I'm not the only one who has noticed this. It first happened (to me) with a patch of the Ascent. Right now it's working a Warhammer III patch. The download is 483 MB, that was done relatively fast. It is now patching 101 GB (the entire game). It's been at it for two hours, and it says one hour more to go. Games like Fallout 4 or Civ 6 can't be launched while that is going on (they stay on loading black screen forever).
There has even been given a reason for this, that it is for making sure all the files of the game get properly patched. It was also clarified that it is not downloading the entire game each time. However, people with little space left in their disks have reported that the patch was not allowed because it required free space equal to the installed game (for example, 101 GB in my case). I don't know if the latter issue has been fixed.

You're right - but that doesn't mean they're right does it?

Plenty of people think horse paste is effective against the coronavirus too and they are demonstrably wrong.

So what you should be doing is looking at evidence and not suspicion or hearsay.

And the fact is it hasn't markedly changed for years. Time here means nothing. I've been playing guitar for decades and I'm still ♥♥♥♥.

[nullable]

Originally posted by Charlemagne:

Well if all of you say so, I must be wrong. I only have about 300 games and have only been around Steam for 17 years, so what would I know.
In any case, it would have been faster to uninstall WH III, download it anew and reinstall it than this patch.

Yes well, well you're not the only long timer in this topic. And I'm sorry to say several of the accounts who've posted in this thread, including mine are older than yours and have more games.

So if you really believe either detail gives your claims weight... then what would people with older accounts and more games know?

It's perfectly possible that out of all the options for patches, that you don't often see this behavior, as I said I don't recall experiencing it personally despite having an even older account and more games. And all that means I've been lucky, or just haven't noticed it. Why couldn't you have been nearly almost as lucky or unobservant?

If you find something definitive about patch changes, post it here, I'm prepared to be wrong or learn something.

[↑↑↓↓←→←→BASelect]

Originally posted by Charlemagne:

Originally posted by Snakub Plissken:

Unfortunately there's bound to be some workloads that take a significant amount of resources to get through, even if it's "just" game patches. And it's possible some modest, aged, and underpowered systems could chug along a bit while updating.

Well my PC is relatively new. Intel i5 8600, 16 GB ram, SSD, and 100 MB internet. Also I noticed the change from "before" to "after". Perhaps it was the same basic way things were done before, but something changed in the implementation. Never a 432 MB patch took three hours to install.

Your cpu is 5 years old.