DirectX, VCRedist, .NET Framework Managment Sugestion

[Fnek]

I was wondering if VALVe could just make Steam Download all the Programm Library Stuff once into one single Folder.
Then, if a Game attempts to install it, it would just install it from there and these installation would be "registered" for the next Game that needs let's say DirectX.
The internal Steam Launch Process for this Game would detect that DirectX is already installed and this installation would be skipped.

On my System which has a bit more than 80 Games installed via Steam this would save around 20 gb Data, which would be an inprovement to everyone, The Clients because of the Download Times and Storage Space and the Steam Servers because of the Bandwith saving - and it would definitley annoy the costumers who play these Games alot less.

[Nacimota]

Why waste bandwidth and hard drive space downloading libraries that the user doesn't need? If they do need it, then what's wrong with downloading it with the rest of the game files?

[Fnek]

Nacimota eredeti hozzászólása:

If they do need it, then what's wrong with downloading it with the rest of the game files?

Every Game downloads it, every time.
Each first time installatation for example runs a DirectX Setup which was downloaded with it, even if the last 20 Games did that not even 5 Minutes ago.

I mean, just download these binairies into one Folder shared for every Game. This would save bandwidth and space on large game libraries

[ethanism]

I totally agree. Bump.

[Vynn Tage]

It is already in place, you could not install every single distro for the programs without waiting hours and hours first and taking up large amounts of data.

[Corruptone]

I totally agree. Having to install direct x for every game is not necessary,

[Skywalker]

I totally agree too.

[Nacimota]

WhAtEvErYoUmEaN eredeti hozzászólása:

Every Game downloads it, every time.
Each first time installatation for example runs a DirectX Setup which was downloaded with it, even if the last 20 Games did that not even 5 Minutes ago.

Corruptone eredeti hozzászólása:

I totally agree. Having to install direct x for every game is not necessary,

This is a common misunderstanding. They don't run the setup for the core DirectX framework; what they run is a setup redist for a particular DirectX helper library (Direct3DX). There are hundreds of these libraries and they are not backwards or forwards compatible with one-another for a variety of reasons (which I won't go into). Valve developer John McCaskey explains:

John McCaskey eredeti hozzászólása:

FYI, running this is not a matter of making sure your overall DirectX install being up-to-date. Microsoft has a helper library with D3D called D3DX. You'll find binaries for this like d3dx9_43.dll in your Windows\system32 folder. There are over 40 different versions of the D3DX library for D3D9 alone, and many more for D3D10 and 11 as well. Each game that uses the D3DX helper library is linked to a specific version. As such the game must run the correct D3D installer version that it was specifically compiled with to ensure the binaries exist. Even if a later version of the binary is already installed, that version cannot be used, and even if your DirectX install is up-to-date because you've run a more recent version of the installer that is not guaranteed to have installed all previous versions. Even worse, if a version is installed for x86 it doesn't guarantee the same version is installed for x64, so 64 bit and 32 bit games may need to run the same exact installer version but targeting different platforms when run [...] Trying to manually check for the correct versions is extremely complicated because there are numerous files that must all be present and individual system configuration options like dll search paths complicate the situation. In addition, the dependencies and required checks may change in each new version of the D3DX runtime. The code to check correctly and repair broken installs all exists in the installer and running it is a guarantee that the correct binaries will exist when you run the game and prevents lots of bad cases where a game would fail to launch with an obscure error if a windows install was either missing the correct version or somehow corrupted in the past.

WhAtEvErYoUmEaN eredeti hozzászólása:

I mean, just download these binairies into one Folder shared for every Game. This would save bandwidth and space on large game libraries

The Direct3DX redist packages are pretty damn small so I am not convinced the bandwidth saved would be significant at all. Additionally, the license on those libraries specifically prohibits that they be distributed outside of the redist package (the installer) or without accompanying another product (that is, you can distribute the redist with a game, but not by itself).

John McCaskey eredeti hozzászólása:

Microsoft's licensing terms prevent anyone from distributing the files directly, the only way to distribute them is to run the installer, that's also the only supported method from Microsoft to check that the correct version installed

Games which don't use the D3DX helpers (such as Source engine games) don't require running the annoying installer on first launch as they only depend on major d3d9/10/11 versions being installed. However, games that do use D3DX must run it as it's the only way Microsoft has allowed for distributing and checking the version info on the files.

So that's why we do it for lots of game installs. We can't stop, it's required due to a bad versioning/packaging scheme as well as bad redistribution licensing terms on the D3DX libraries.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showpost.php?p=23759166

[Tito Shivan]

Nacimota, Wish i could rep you ;)
Thanks for the post.