Why do some games install so quickly and others take so long?

[MegaManCap]

Always wondered but never really thought to ask. An example would be recently I downloaded Monster Hunter World. It downloaded and installed for me in around 30 minutes. I also recently downloaded Resident Evil 4 Remake and it took around an hour and a half while also being much smaller in size than World. Is it something like different compression methods between the games and one is slower at unpacking than the other?

[Paratech2008]

Depends on how many people are using the server you're using.

That can vary by time, server, if a sale is going on, or a popular game is being preloaded or just available for downloading.

[Spawn of Totoro]

Originally posted by MegaManCap:

Always wondered but never really thought to ask. An example would be recently I downloaded Monster Hunter World. It downloaded and installed for me in around 30 minutes. I also recently downloaded Resident Evil 4 Remake and it took around an hour and a half while also being much smaller in size than World. Is it something like different compression methods between the games and one is slower at unpacking than the other?

The download or the install?

Download would depend on the traffic between you and the server.

Install depends on your system and how the developer chooses to do the update. Some update methods are faster then others and there is no real standers when it comes to applying an update or the game's files structure. All of this can change the length of the update install.

[rawWwRrr]

Originally posted by MegaManCap:

Why do some games install so quickly and others take so long?

Always wondered but never really thought to ask. An example would be recently I downloaded Monster Hunter World. It downloaded and installed for me in around 30 minutes. I also recently downloaded Resident Evil 4 Remake and it took around an hour and a half while also being much smaller in size than World. Is it something like different compression methods between the games and one is slower at unpacking than the other?

Because different developers develop different games differently.

[MegaManCap]

Originally posted by Spawn of Totoro:

Originally posted by MegaManCap:

Always wondered but never really thought to ask. An example would be recently I downloaded Monster Hunter World. It downloaded and installed for me in around 30 minutes. I also recently downloaded Resident Evil 4 Remake and it took around an hour and a half while also being much smaller in size than World. Is it something like different compression methods between the games and one is slower at unpacking than the other?

The download or the install?

Download would depend on the traffic between you and the server.

Install depends on your system and how the developer chooses to do the update. Some update methods are faster then others and there is no real standers when it comes to applying an update or the game's files structure. All of this can change the length of the update install.

Download speed is usually the same so it seems it is just a difference in structure.

[Satoru]

Some games are more highly compressed via steam's built in compression. So such games are going to take longer to combine and decompress, which will be limited by your CPU, your disk IO and your anti-virus

If you're patching an existing game, this can again take a long time depending on the game and how much of the game files need patching. games like Payday2 require all 60+GB of the game be patched even if the patch size itself is only a 1GB download. this is very game dependent so you can't really predict or know how a particular patch will be impacted