NTFS compression and Steam not working properly

[Gazer75]

Why is it that Steam for some reason refuses to honor the compression flag for folders?

When ever a game folder that has been compressed is updated through Steam the files changed are no longer compressed. This is just stupid and annoying!

[Satoru]

Why are you even botehring to compress games on NTFS? The performance disk read/write hit is massive for almost no gain whne you're looking at game asset data

ALso this is intended behavior for compressed NTFS volumes. moving uncompressed files into a compresed folder doesn't change that attribute. Whena files is patched teh files i deleted, then reconstructed elsewhere, then moved into the steam folder. Steam is moving an uncompressed file into a compressed folder, which by the rules of NTFS compression means the target files stays uncompressed

The 'flag' is not there because that file doesn't exist when the file gets patched

[ChaosCarsten]

I know some of these words

[Gazer75]

I don't know where your info is coming from Satoru, but you're wrong.

Copying or moving a file from an uncompressed folder to a compressed folder will compress that file. Try making a folder and set it to compress it and any files and folders under it. Copy or move files from other locations into it, then you'll notice the names will turn blue, indicating they are in fact compressed.

On modern computers with SSDs the overhead is so small its not noticeable. The space saving on many games can be up to 50%.
Good example is ARK. The map files take around 18.5GB x2, but each is down to 10.8GB with compression. For ARK total I am down from around 40GB to almost 20GB. So its well worth it when you're low on disk space. 40GB is a lot when you're using a 256GB SSD.

Another game, World of Warships, compress down from 21GB to 16GB. Around 24% saving.
Maps still load in 10-15 seconds. Not a problem as the wait time for battles to start is 60 seconds.

Some games uses already compressed containers for the files and will obviously not compress much if at all.

[Satoru]

Originally posted by Gazer75:

I don't know where your info is coming from Satoru, but you're wrong.

Again that's not how compressed folders work in NTFS

Files in a compressed folder only are compressed if

1) You make a new file
2) You COPY a file into the compressed folder

However if you MOVE a file into a compressed folder it WILL NOT be compressed

I was very specific in my wording about moving files, not copying them.

Thus you can do this

1) Create a compressed folder
2) COPY a file in, that file will be compressed in the folder and show up blue
3) then MOVE that exact same file into the compressed folder, it will NOT be compressed.

Also note there is no 'flag' Steam can bypass for encrypted files. That's all handled by the OS depending on how you handle the files.

Here is how patching files works

1) Steam reads file A in the compressed directory
2) Steam creates a new version of file A in /steam/downloads
3) Steam MOVES the new uncompressed file into the compressed directory. BY DESIGN Windows does not compress this file since its being MOVED into the destination folder

Everything is working by design. This is how MS designed NTFS compression.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc976801.aspx

Moving Files or Folders on NTFS Volumes

When you move an uncompressed file or folder to another folder, the file remains uncompressed after the move, regardless of the compression state of the folder it was moved to.

Straight from Microsoft.

[Gazer75]

Well I just MOVED several files to test and they got compressed... don't know what else to say...

[Satoru]

Originally posted by Gazer75:

Well I just MOVED several files to test and they got compressed... don't know what else to say...

Again if you're going to tell me techweb is wrong then fine. But again, thats' not how NTFS compression works.

I'm going to go with you're peforming the test wrong. Especially since this is how NTFS compression has worked for over a decade.

[Gazer75]

Create a root folder on C: and set it to compressed. Created another root folder not compressed. Put som files in uncompressed folder. Move them to the compressed folder and they will be compressed.

How can that be done wrong?

Worked with computers for almost 30 years so I think I know simple file management :P

[Gazer75]

Going to try setting compression on the download and temp folder in \Steam\steamapps\ and see if that might help. Didn't want to do that as not all games will benefit from compression.

[Gazer75]

Can verify that setting compression on the download and temp folders works. An ARK update earlier showed new files now being compressed.

[Charlie]

I dunno why you'd want to use NTFS compression with games, you'd likely get worse performance due to your CPU having to de-compress the files on the fly

[Gazer75]

Not really noticable with todays computers tbh. I've yet to see a game using all 4 cpu cores constantly. And with 32GB RAM most of the game is already cached by windows anyway.

I'll get myself a 500GB+ SSD at one point and then I can hopefully stop using compression.

Just wish game devs would use file containers like Blizzard with their mpq files, and SCS Software in their sims.

[ KARR™]

Originally posted by Gazer75:

Create a root folder on C: and set it to compressed. Created another root folder not compressed. Put som files in uncompressed folder. Move them to the compressed folder and they will be compressed.

How can that be done wrong?

Worked with computers for almost 30 years so I think I know simple file management :P

It seems you dont. I can confirm that copying a file DOES compress it, moving a file does NOT compress it.

It's even confirmed in Microsofts TechNet https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc976801.aspx

When you move an uncompressed file or folder to another folder, the file remains uncompressed after the move, regardless of the compression state of the folder it was moved to.

When you move a compressed file or folder to another folder, the file remains compressed after the move, regardless of the compression state of the folder it was moved to

When you copy a file to a folder, the file takes on the compression attribute of the target folder.

When you copy a file to a folder that already contains a file of the same name, the file that is copied takes on the compression attribute of the target file, regardless of the compression state of the folder

[Gazer75]

I stand corrected.

It appears that if a folder above folder has compression flag it did in fact compress. Even if one of the subfolders didn't have compression on. Tested by moving a file from desktop to documents folder. Desktop is not compressed, but documents folder is. And my users folder is compressed. So it must have somehow inherited the compression when moved out.

I have also been using FasCopy and it is actually compressing when moving files to a compressed folder. An expected behavior from my viewpoint.

I really wonder why they made it this way. Not compressing files that are moved. Whats the point?