Allow multiple language packs to exist at once

[twonafish]

I'm currently studying Japanese, and really enjoy Japanese games-- so I tend to change back and forth between Japanese and English quite often. But Steam always deletes the previous language file when doing this, resulting in me having to redownload the language packs every single time I switch-- we're talking over 5 gigabytes of langage files per game here.

Changing from Japanese to English results in steam downloading the English file, and deleting the Japanese file. Changing from English to Japanese results in Steam deleting the English file I had, then redownloading the Japanese files. This results in needless use of my data and wifi, and is costly for people with capped wifi-- like me. It's getting pretty annoying.

It'd be great if Steam just supported having multiple language packs on a single computer at once. It really shouldn't be that hard, but am I missing things here?

[Satoru]

Ask the developers to make it that way

[🜂∴🜏 Cassie]

Find out which folder those files are stored in, and when you want to switch the language, rename the folder to something else, and then change the language.

It should download the selected language pack while the old one stays since the folder name was changed, which breaks the file path.

Then when you want to change the language again, rename the old folder to its original name after changing the name on the newer one.

[twonafish]

Originally posted by Satoru:

Ask the developers to make it that way

The game is already made that way. It's steam that deletes the language game files.

Originally posted by UMPtastic:

Find out which folder those files are stored in, and when you want to switch the language, rename the folder to something else, and then change the language.

It should download the selected language pack while the old one stays since the folder name was changed, which breaks the file path.

Then when you want to change the language again, rename the old folder to its original name after changing the name on the newer one.

Thanks, I've tried that, but Steam keeps trying to redownload the language packs anyway every time I change it in the properties tab. I've tried going offline and starting the game up, or bypassing the updates, but then the game crashes. Any way to circumvent this? It's kept me up a night.

I feel like the easiest way would be just for Steam to support double language files.

[Cathulhu]

I have several games on Steam where i can easily change the language on the fly, without downloading anything. I do have the same where changing the language requires downloading the new language which replaces the old language files. It doesn't depend on Steam or if it supports something. It depends solely on the game and how its files are structured.
Which game in question?

[twonafish]

Originally posted by Cathulhu:

I have several games on Steam where i can easily change the language on the fly, without downloading anything. I do have the same where changing the language requires downloading the new language which replaces the old language files. It doesn't depend on Steam or if it supports something. It depends solely on the game and how its files are structured.
Which game in question?

Hey, thanks for commenting! It makes me relieved to hear that it's possible. I sorta suspected a file structure thing, but I wasn't sure how to really get around it.

The game I'm most concerned with is this one.



I realize this might be a bit too much to ask for, but even if it's not a game you're familiar with, would it be possible to give instructions or a general of how you do it usually with a game that has the same or similar problems? Thanks a bunch in advance. I really appreciate your comment.

[Satoru]

ok here's the thing

1) Steam does have a language selector for each game potentially. it was functionally designed back when broadband wasn't a thing. Thus separating out languages made sense to decrease downloaded data. Why bother downloading all languages if you didn't need them and it wasted download time.

2) note this no longer makes sense. the language downloads for most games now is negligible addition per language. audio files now, even if you want to do something like flac audio, are highly compressed and functionally take up less space for all yoru languages than the 4k intro video for the AMD/Nvidia logo

3) Today almost no games bother with steam's language selection feature. Its much easier to just have everything available locally, since the delta size is minimal, and have you select what languages you want in game

4) thus this really isn't going to be 'fixed' mostly because the problem that it was trying to solve doesn't exist anymore, and the solution is kludgy compared to just dumping all your audio into the download by default since again today bandwidth and disk space isnt a problem anymore

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/localization

Up to the game devs.

[War Machine]

Originally posted by Cathulhu:

I have several games on Steam where i can easily change the language on the fly, without downloading anything. I do have the same where changing the language requires downloading the new language which replaces the old language files. It doesn't depend on Steam or if it supports something. It depends solely on the game and how its files are structured.
Which game in question?

Hi. would you please explain your method to me to? I have the company of hears game and I would like to have the German language and English language ate the same time without having to download them every time