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Comment by xigency | Hacker News Reader

This reminds me of a huge problem with Steam, which is the size and frequency of updates. For the very small number of first party games, like Half-Life or Counter-Strike, updates are cumulative smaller files that contain changes. So if there was an update to a game, it might be 1-2 GB. For the vast majority of titles on Steam, however, an update requires a full download of the latest version. So for most games it is a 25 GB or 50 GB download. Developers want to stay on top of bugs, so for an infrequent gamer playing on a weekly or monthly basis, opening Steam means queuing up 100 GB of downloads and a long wait to actually play games.

The fact that this hasn't been solved yet shows that Valve isn't willing to invest in fixing it either through new technology or cooperation with developers, which is really sad.

Optimistically, something you're describing for Parsec would be possible, but maybe it isn't realistic.

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I don't think this is correct. I use Steam and have a lot of games installed. When it does updates, they are not the size of the original downloads. Usually, much, much smaller.

Indeed. I've never needed a full game download just for a patch. Depending on the game and type of patch this is usually ~1GB.

Same here. I think what's being seen is that some things are easier to diff and update than others. If a game has a large file for map data that's indexed into, and update to any portions of it are delivered the most easily (where easily includes reliably) by updating the whole file. If that file is 2GB, then you have a 2GB download. If a game has lots of relatively little files, you could update multiple maps with a few tens of megabytes of downloads.

An actual patch utility that goes in and applies binary diffs would be much more economical in terms of bandwidth, but then that complicates Steam's ability to confirm a game is in a good state with file checksums, and is much more likely to have odd errors as a diff somehow correctly applies to a file with an incorrect starting starting state.

Maybe I should clarify my issues with updates. I know for certain that some games have had massive updates on the order of the original title, including Grand Theft Auto, Metal Gear Solid, and Mortal Kombat (I particularly know the last one because I have a credit in that boondoggle of a game).

Secondly, at home I have a modest internet connection and a busy home life that leaves me at most an hour to play games at a time, and usually less than that. If I open Steam infrequently and there are multiple patches on the order of gigabytes, then that eats into my play time and makes my PC gaming experience feel like a PC update experience.

When you consider how large some of these games are like The Witcher or Final Fantasy or MGS5, the number of games in my library, and the shortage of time I have, I easily spend more time installing or updating any of my games than playing them.

Any way you cut it, it's a bad experience.

Steam doesn't allow players to play out-of-date games in online mode and doesn't allow multiplayer games in offline mode. When going between online and offline mode it keeps track of which games are out-of-date as well. Whether using on-demand updates or leaving my computer on with Steam running I'm either wasting my time or wasting power and bandwidth (with a monthly cap).

I didn't make my post to complain about the state of things (which I found poor). What I am saying is that I think there are creative engineering solutions to this problem that would make experiences like mine better. Google found a creative way to compress Chrome updates by using disassembly changes rather than file diffs to push small critical updates. I'm sure Valve could spend any amount of resources looking for solutions like that tailored to game assets.

What's more, you can get the exact experience I described by playing Fortnite on an iPad on a weekly basis.

I haven't noticed the need to re-download every game over and over (most patches seem to be ~1 GB), but I have noticed Steam is bad for having old versions of MMO's - typically you install the MMO and then the MMO basically re-installs itself with what's actually the latest version of the game.

I don’t see the problem you’re describing and my Steam library has over a hundred games. I think in general that as long as the game developers keep their individual files relatively small it all patches efficiently. I remember Starbound (indie 2D game) describing how they restructured their game a little to facilitate smaller patches. So yes, there is a worst case scenario of gigabyte patches, but it doesn’t appear to be the norm.

Anyway, if you could get individual games on disk images they aren’t patched every hour anyway so it’s a non issue. The real issue will be dealing with Windows’ file system and Steam’s DRM.

I think it's the games you're playing more than it's Steam. Steam definitely does do partial / cumulative updates for a huge library of games. I cannot think of a single game I own on Steam that has had an update even approach the size of the original download.

>opening Steam means queuing up 100 GB of downloads and a long wait to actually play games

just set it so games only update when u decide to play?

>100 GB of downloads

does this really happen

The new Black Ops game has a 50GB day 1 patch.

That's a great example.

Imagine waiting for a game to download, playing it, then having to download it again the next day. If you've experienced it once you will remember. If you've never seen it happen, then maybe it seems like a mystery to you. Some people have slower internet, bandwidth caps, busier schedules or different game libraries.

> just set it so games only update when u decide to play?

When I have time to play games, I have maybe 20 or 30 minutes to do so. If I delay updates until I want to play, and the amount of updates is over a few GB's, then it will take that entire time to update.

This is anecdotal of course, but I can't think of a single game that behaves like this, and my library is pretty sizable. Would be interested in an example.

I also cannot see the justification on a technical level for why this behavior would exist. All in all I'm pretty confused by this comment, tbh

I've seen it with one or more of these games:

GTA V

Mortal Kombat X

Metal Gear Solid 5 / GZ

Doom

The Witcher

Final Fantasy

Huh? That’s absolutely not been my experience with my hundred or so steam games.

If you're a frequent gamer, in an always online situation, have faster internet, don't have bandwidth caps, or you are a collector of indie games then it might not be your experience.

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