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?!

[Eagle_of_Fire]

Most people default is to have their client update all their games automatically for them. If you can see a size before downloading it is because you have selected "only updates games when I run them". So if it has been a while since the last time you updated on your computer there might have been more than one update pushed on that particular game and it is entirely possible that the client only show you the size of the original one and not the actual one you need to update now.

[D. Flame]

L8knight님이 먼저 게시:

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.

Unless there is a hotfix to go along with it, I have never seen this happen.

It will say downloading "x amount" then "patching Y amount".

You also have to watchout for double patches. Like v3.4 might come out, but it breaks something, so v3.4.1 comes out to fix it, then when you update, you are getting v3.4 and v3.4.1 at the same time.

[mreynold]

Having a slower internet connection I hate this crap of an update saying it is several gigs when it is only a few meg. I plan large downloads to go over nigh or while I am out of the house. I feel i waisted my time if I delay updating because I expect something to take hours that is only going to take a few min. You never know what you are in for till you start the update or it starts on its own as per schedule. Again with limited dsl speed I plan big downloads so I can stream or do other thinks with the internet.

[L8knight]

Yup, I'm getting this now too. It's crazy, no idea what's going on with the updates lately. I had several yesterday, only one was accurate; 57.6gb, ended up being 1.2gb update, another was over 20gb but was only a few hundred mb and one was accurate @ 240mb.
New World is queued and showing 136gb :) That'll take 2 days on my internet connection.

[Lystent]

ltolman4님이 먼저 게시:

...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"

Games with over-sized asset archive files (looking at you, No Man's Sky) just bolt to dead center in my mind when I read this. Granted, I prefer to keep thing simple, and in keeping things simple, I often uninstall No Man's Sky after major updates are shipped.

[76561198407601200]

L8knight님이 먼저 게시:

Yup, I'm getting this now too. It's crazy, no idea what's going on with the updates lately. I had several yesterday, only one was accurate; 57.6gb, ended up being 1.2gb update, another was over 20gb but was only a few hundred mb and one was accurate @ 240mb.
New World is queued and showing 136gb :) That'll take 2 days on my internet connection.

You do realize the patch size differs from what the download size is right....?

[D. Flame]

L8knight님이 먼저 게시:

Yup, I'm getting this now too. It's crazy, no idea what's going on with the updates lately. I had several yesterday, only one was accurate; 57.6gb, ended up being 1.2gb update, another was over 20gb but was only a few hundred mb and one was accurate @ 240mb.
New World is queued and showing 136gb :) That'll take 2 days on my internet connection.

Sounds like you just don't understand how patches work.

So if a patch is 2GB, but it patches 15GB, what is happening is this:

It downloads 2GB, and that is it.

Then it unpacks 15GB from the game you already have installed, it doesn't download. It is basically like uncompressing a zip file.

Then it takes that 2GB patch than you downloaded, and it merges it with the uncompressed 15GB folder.

Then when it is done, it takes the newly patched folder, and recompresses it and puts it back into the game. Like if you unzipped a zip file into a folder, added some new files to the folder, overwrote some other files in the folder, then recompressed the folder into a new zip file.

So the patch size (what you download) and update size (the amount of game that has to be uncompressed and altered) are not the same thing.

[Connie]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.