Optional texture installation for games

[deskrabbit]

With game installations getting larger and larger, why don't games have an option to only install smaller texture files? I personally dont notice the difference between high and ultra textures in a lot of games and surely only installing high textures rather than ultra would save a lot on file size.

The only example of this that I can think of is the ultra HD textures in R6 Seige but why don't more companies give you this option? I've always thought this is a no brainer.

[SMIFFY]

I've wondered about this too, especially of 2K's basketball and wrestling games, where the world is just small arena, yet requires a 80+ GB download. And the most recent WWE games still look like something released 12 years ago.

[deskrabbit]

Originally posted by SMIFFY:

I've wondered about this too, especially of 2K's basketball and wrestling games, where the world is just small arena, yet requires a 80+ GB download. And the most recent WWE games still look like something released 12 years ago.

Exactly. I don't need high resolution sweat on the players' ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ foreheads when the camera is so far away that the game looks the same on medium textures as it does on super ultra extra 4K HD mega uber textures.

[Nightshade]

I am 100% on board with this. I'm not super worried about space, but then I have 4TB across four hard drives. Still, I am stuck waiting for more than an hour because of textures I might never use. (I've stood 4K and 1080p TVs side-by-side, and my living room TV continues to be the 56" 1080p I got three years ago. I'm not in any semblance of a rush.)

[Kargor]

Some games are doing it, but it seems there's no real demand to offset the added complexity.

[deskrabbit]

Originally posted by Kargor:

Some games are doing it, but it seems there's no real demand to offset the added complexity.

I think there is a lot of demand, especially for consoles where most players won't even realise they can expand their storage.

I remember playing on PS4 and CONSTANTLY having to uninstall games to play what I wanted because 500GB simply wasn't enough when games nowadays can be up to 120GB. It also took hours to download because of the PS4's weird cap on broadband speeds.

The issue isn't a lack of demand, it's a lack of people voicing their demand. Most people just accept that games are getting bigger and don't really consider that the main reason for this increase in file sizes is just textures they'll probably never use.

[Jej]

I'm very much up for this suggestion. While one could simply go "jUsT bUy MoRe StoRagE" that's not exactly resolving a problem but delaying it.

Allowing people to download what they want instead of getting files they don't (or can't) use would be a benefit to everyone.

[AustrAlien2010]

Now I am not saying I agree with it, but a reason could be that bigger installations sell more copies because customers unconsciously think: bigger = better.

I also agree with you of course.

[SMIFFY]

Originally posted by AustrAlien2010:

Now I am not saying I agree with it, but a reason could be that bigger installations sell more copies because customers unconsciously think: bigger = better.

I also agree with you of course.

No

[AustrAlien2010]

Me neither, but that doesn't matter because we're just a handful of people. Hardly representing millions of consumers.

I don´t have the market research results here, but if had, this could be very well be the reason if that research drawed that conclusion.

I´m not saying that it is the reason. I´m just saying that it could be the reason.

And the only reason reasonable enough. If you agree with it. Which doesn't matter, because we're not in charge.

[Χάρης]

Because devs are nowadays too lazy for optimizations. People will buy overpriced hardware anyway.

[AustrAlien2010]

You think it's laziness? Why? Have they told you that? I wonder what argument they had.

Don't you think OP´s idea would be a very easy thing to accomplish? At least, in respect to all the rest? Of course it can be done. Why can it not be a choice, or based on pragmatism?

[L7vanmatre]

I've thought about this, myself, after talking with friends who live in Australia. The current CoD MW is about 200GB if you have the full game, and there's quite often updates that are several GB big. If I recall correctly, one of my Australian friends simply can't play the game due to the updates.

Some Ubisoft games semi-recently came out with "Ultra texture pack"s. I remember Watch Dogs 2 had it, (and it seems that R6 Siege has it as well, according to OP), downloadable as an extra DLC. The only people it would negatively affect would be the people who don't know or really dislike pressing a button and waiting slightly longer, for some reason.

Thing is, though, while I do love the idea of customizing *what* you'd download before you download a game (especially for those who have low-end PCs who don't need to store all those Ultra Uber 99K textures and 86 billion poly models)...

I'm not sure how it might be implemented with how things currently are. Steam's not really well-equipped for that, unless if you want to put in every graphical setting as a free DLC (I personally wouldn't mind that, but I have a feeling a decent amount of people won't enjoy that, or at the very least, some quite loud squeaky wheels). It's possible it could cause other unforeseen bugs with the game, as well. But yeah, if the game's designed from the beginning to be modular with its settings like that, there shouldn't be much problem in such a thing if it's programmed properly. But to be fair, what *is* programmed properly?

Perhaps one could simply download an installer from Steam, and then a bunch of checkboxes on what settings they want to include, and/or pick from presets. But then that means that they need to download from a server somewhere, since if I recall it correctly, Steam's download features only support what's already there: workshop,game downloads, and DLCs. I don't think it currently supports downloading only specific files for certain people.

Payday 2 shows that DLCs are unlockable by achievements due to their story ending update. So, perhaps the game itself is able to control what exactly is downloaded from Steam by initializing the installer, and then putting "base game" and then various video options as available DLCs (or just have all the DLCs available, and the installer checks and unchecks the boxes for Steam, but I'm not sure if a game has privileges to mess with the user's Steam client options like that, though, I only know that a game can unlock a DLC from the player acquiring an achievement, which I don't think is a good idea to make the installer mess with, I don't know if a game could just make DLCs available and unavailable willy-nilly like that).

It's definitely a great thing to have, though. A user with no experience in the video options can simply just select "all" or a preset, and those who want to customize what they download can minimize storage used/internet rates(since there are still ISPs who charge for data).

This is all talking about Steam how it currently is, though. I'm sure a client that has the feature integrated or updated to support it would have a lot more simplicity in implementing it.

[AustrAlien2010]

Steam is already ready for it. You can have texture packs added as extra content. (if developers would actually make use of this.)

[SMIFFY]

Skyrim and the Fallout games allow the user to choose whether to install hi-res textures or not, there's no reason why other games can't do this.

[L7vanmatre]

Originally posted by AustrAlien2010:

Steam is already ready for it. You can have texture packs added as extra content. (if developers would actually make use of this.)

Yeah, it's functioned as free DLC as far as I know. There's a bit of an issue with that, though, since sometimes it's other things that take up the massive space that could be taken down, like the quality of models themselves. In a giant open world game, only downloading medium and low models will also quite greatly cut the download cost. But if all of them are functioned as DLCs, it can be annoying for some people to enable/disable stuff. It's best to combine simplicity for the layman users, with complexity for the more advanced users, wherever possible. Most videogames are made for immediate gratification, so it's best to minimize the delay for the average/layman user, within reason.

Unless if Steam has changed something since then and it's not functioning as free DLC. Watch Dogs 2's texture pack hasn't changed though.