Steam Misrepresenting Game Update Sizes?

[L8knight]

The last few weeks, maybe longer, the update sizes given for game patches seems to be way off. It isn't a certain game, seems to happen to nearly all updates. It will say "29mb" for the update size but then when I start the update it's way larger, even up to GB sizes.
I just did an update that said 129mb and it is actually 2.6gb. Is this only happening to me?!

[ImperatorPavel]

The 129 mb is the size of the files you downloaded.

The 2.6 gigabytes is the size of files patched.

If you have a fix (that's say, 100 mb or so) for a 4 gig file then the client will download that 100 mb, and then have to mess with the 4 gig file on your machine to apply the patch.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Steam shows two things, download of update, then patching/verify the update, that why you see update size being small, but patch/verify is way bigger because that what it doing, been doing this for over awhile now.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

It tells you what it's doing right above the progress bar itself. Downloading, patching, verifying...

[Hammer Of Evil]

Originally posted by L8knight:

The last few weeks, maybe longer, the update sizes given for game patches seems to be way off. It isn't a certain game, seems to happen to nearly all updates. It will say "29mb" for the update size but then when I start the update it's way larger, even up to GB sizes.
I just did an update that said 129mb and it is actually 2.6gb. Is this only happening to me?!

yea, its not a misrepresentation, but perhaps a 'misinterpretation' - the data could be displayed in a more intuitive format.

anyways, the 129 mb is the size of the download, the 2.6 gb is the size of the files being altered, not necessarily the full size of what you've downloaded.

some files will decompress into huge packs but thats ok because the total data you use during the download is just the 129mb.

the process is slow because it has to do a lot of steps correctly. but its much faster than totally re-downloading the whole game again ....which is normally what you'd have to do. =p

[L8knight]

I understand what you're saying but I could swear it used to match. Just to clarify;
Today I had an update showing for V Rising - 54.6mb. I click on update and now it says downloading with a size of 256mb (but then yes, it goes on to patch whatever gb, but the download was only 256mb.
So it is this advertised 54.6mb vs the actual download size that I'm talking about. I don't remember these being different. I know that it was often that you'd get something like a patch of 500mb, which it downloads but then ends up inflating and distributing that patch to GBs worth of data.
I went from having fiber internet to wireless, so size matters now :) Maybe when I was spoiled with fiber I just didn't pay attention enough and it was always this way.

[Hammer Of Evil]

Originally posted by L8knight:

I understand what you're saying but I could swear it used to match. Just to clarify;
Today I had an update showing for V Rising - 54.6mb. I click on update and now it says downloading with a size of 256mb (but then yes, it goes on to patch whatever gb, but the download was only 256mb.
So it is this advertised 54.6mb vs the actual download size that I'm talking about. I don't remember these being different. I know that it was often that you'd get something like a patch of 500mb, which it downloads but then ends up inflating and distributing that patch to GBs worth of data.
I went from having fiber internet to wireless, so size matters now :) Maybe when I was spoiled with fiber I just didn't pay attention enough and it was always this way.

thats also fair. i haven't measured it in a long time, probably actually not since steam entered its previous version.

im wondering if its an issue not displaying the total package that needs to be downloaded at the same time. i generally check whats in the depot directly for that given download if i'm curious, maybe thats why i'm such a contrarian here.

[Exile]

So why the flying ♥♥♥♥ does Steam even bother showing the file size in the first place if its just completely misleading and wrong...I see "OH OK its a 100mb download! Should be over in the blink of an eye!...........oh its ACTUALLY 3 GIGS...AND TAKES 20 MINUTES...NO!!!!!"

[Trollhammer]

Originally posted by Exile:

So why the flying ♥♥♥♥ does Steam even bother showing the file size in the first place if its just completely misleading and wrong...I see "OH OK its a 100mb download! Should be over in the blink of an eye!...........oh its ACTUALLY 3 GIGS...AND TAKES 20 MINUTES...NO!!!!!"

Did you even bothered to read the answers ?

[Anonymous Helper]

Originally posted by Exile:

So why the flying ♥♥♥♥ does Steam even bother showing the file size in the first place if its just completely misleading and wrong...I see "OH OK its a 100mb download! Should be over in the blink of an eye!...........oh its ACTUALLY 3 GIGS...AND TAKES 20 MINUTES...NO!!!!!"

Because the 100MB size for the patch is correct. The 3GB is the size of the files the patch edits (it might change single bit of one file and whole bunch from another). The patching process usually takes way longer than downloading the actual patch itself.

[wesnef]

Originally posted by Anonymous Helper:

Originally posted by Exile:

So why the flying ♥♥♥♥ does Steam even bother showing the file size in the first place if its just completely misleading and wrong...I see "OH OK its a 100mb download! Should be over in the blink of an eye!...........oh its ACTUALLY 3 GIGS...AND TAKES 20 MINUTES...NO!!!!!"

Because the 100MB size for the patch is correct. The 3GB is the size of the files the patch edits. The patching process usually takes way longer than downloading the actual patch itself.

Especially if the game is on a HDD rather than an SSD. CPU and ram speed would also make a difference.

[76561198407601200]

Originally posted by Trollhammer:

Originally posted by Exile:

So why the flying ♥♥♥♥ does Steam even bother showing the file size in the first place if its just completely misleading and wrong...I see "OH OK its a 100mb download! Should be over in the blink of an eye!...........oh its ACTUALLY 3 GIGS...AND TAKES 20 MINUTES...NO!!!!!"

Did you even bothered to read the answers ?

Their post history shows a lot of yelling, I will not expect the answers to be read.

[D. Flame]

Example:
download is 64 mb, patch size is 20GB

What is happening:

1.) 64MB is downloaded from the internet, exactly as advertised.

2.) A 20 GB section of the game is uncompressed, that 64 mb download is stitched into the existing 20 GBs, then that 20 GB piece with its new 64mb patch, is recompressed and put back into its original place.


So nothing is being misrepresented.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Originally posted by Exile:

So why the flying ♥♥♥♥ does Steam even bother showing the file size in the first place if its just completely misleading and wrong...I see "OH OK its a 100mb download! Should be over in the blink of an eye!...........oh its ACTUALLY 3 GIGS...AND TAKES 20 MINUTES...NO!!!!!"

Depends how devs handle their games.

If dev compress, or package file into another format, what happens is game files have to unzip to add new files, then rezip that it, or injects update which take some time.

Some devs may do that to updates as well to make them smaller to download if update 100mb it may actually be 150+mb when unzipped.

If the game files were not compress, nor in package zip, and updates were it too, then yes update go zoom like you wanted, so again modem times change things, this isn't 2003 anymore.

Also file verification a thing after update to ensure it correct.

[ltolman4]

It is very unfortunate though

New Game could easily take 100Gigs to install
Downloading Patch could easily be 54mb like it says
Patching Process will sift thru your 100gigs of files and patches it
Then (maybe) could do a verify process just to make sure

So in reality "2024" I guess from now on, one should expect 20minutes or so to download patches

I do get why, thankfully, steam does have that ability to download while playing a game; and also has the ability to pause downloads too. I have too many installed and those I dont play I usually say "update when I launch game"

[L8knight]

I have been waiting to verify this again before replying. I understand what people are saying about download vs patch. HOWEVER, my post was for the discrepancy between the reported download size before you click update and the ACTUAL download size.
Today I had a pending update, showing "5.6gb". I clicked to start the update, and once it began..
Actual size of the download is 10.1gb.
So my point is that the "As Advertised" does not match the actual download. This does not happen all the time but it definitely happens (I had at least 20 updates with other games in the last few weeks without this issue). So it must be either something the developers are doing wrong or a bug that triggers it.
Why it sucks is I have Wireless for now, so when I see an update that I think will only take 15 minutes but it suddenly balloons as a larger-than-advertised download it's irritating.