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Post by docrob on Jun 11, 2024 14:30:41 GMT
When did it become the norm for Steam game ‘patches’ to involve re-downloading the game in its entirety? I’ve just opened the app now. I have six downloads scheduled, and three of them are of a size that can only be a complete re-installation. What happened to patches?
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Blue_Mike
Full Member
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Posts: 5,320
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Post by Blue_Mike on Jun 11, 2024 14:32:34 GMT
Oh you'll get some things that have a patch of only a few kilobytes practically every day.
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Post by uiruki on Jun 11, 2024 14:35:31 GMT
Unreal Engine started putting all its things into fewer files. You'll likely not actually have to download very much, only the amount that's actually changed, but because it's all in one massive file it has to write it all out when it patches.
If you get tiny updates which are downloaded without needing to be started off, that's generally shared shaders for Vulkan games, and/or everything that runs through Proton if you're on Linux.
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Post by docrob on Jun 11, 2024 14:39:09 GMT
Oh you'll get some things that have a patch of only a few kilobytes practically every day. I know, and that’s not an issue. But I’ve got two ‘patches’ here that are over 40GB each. That’s not a patch! I’ve also noted that even patches that look smaller in size sometimes then verify all of the game files, and therefore take ages to apply. Part of the problem is that a lot of my games are installed on an old hard disk, and the write speeds are awful. The 53.3 GB ‘patch’ is for a game on my newer SSD, and will probably take 10 minutes. |
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Post by docrob on Jun 11, 2024 14:40:27 GMT
Unreal Engine started putting all its things into fewer files. You'll likely not actually have to download very much, only the amount that's actually changed, but because it's all in one massive file it has to write it all out when it patches. If you get tiny updates which are downloaded without needing to be started off, that's generally shared shaders for Vulkan games, and/or everything that runs through Proton if you're on Linux. This makes sense. It’s a classic example of something that is convenient for the developers and shite for the actual user, though. |
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Post by Reviewer on Jun 11, 2024 14:50:23 GMT
I can't remember the last time I had it happen that way. What games have done that recently?
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Post by Fake_Blood on Jun 11, 2024 14:53:39 GMT
Sometimes the download is smaller though, because compression.
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Post by Vandelay on Jun 11, 2024 15:05:47 GMT
I find massive patches very common with EA games (the Battlefields and Apex is mostly where I see it). The EA launcher also spends ages scanning files and preparing for a download, which you don't get on Steam to the same extent.
Mostly it will be down to a whole lot of bloat in a game, particularly as they get old and have lots added to them. Wouldn't be surprised if that bloat is in the code too, with things getting increasingly dependent on each other in a neverending tangle. I also expect a lot of it is down to the assumption that EVERYBODY has super fast broadband speeds now, so why bother optimising for size when 50Gb will all be downloaded in 10-20 minutes. Not much good for those of us that are still only on 50Mbps.
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Post by docrob on Jun 11, 2024 15:22:09 GMT
Oh you'll get some things that have a patch of only a few kilobytes practically every day. I know, and that’s not an issue. But I’ve got two ‘patches’ here that are over 40GB each. That’s not a patch! I’ve also noted that even patches that look smaller in size sometimes then verify all of the game files, and therefore take ages to apply. Part of the problem is that a lot of my games are installed on an old hard disk, and the write speeds are awful. The 53.3 GB ‘patch’ is for a game on my newer SSD, and will probably take 10 minutes. Update: it took 19 minutes, so it’s pretty clear it’s the HD throttling things. I agree it’s very lazy though. It would probably have taken 3 hours plus before I had full fibre. |
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Post by 😎 on Jun 11, 2024 15:24:35 GMT
Are you actually looking at the download size or the patching size or the verify size? Steam does different things, and could download just a few MB but then say "Patching 40Gb" or something, then afterwards it does a verification on the files it patched.
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crashV👀d👀
Junior Member
not just a game anymore...
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Post by crashV👀d👀 on Jun 11, 2024 16:01:24 GMT
Are you actually looking at the download size or the patching size or the verify size? Steam does different things, and could download just a few MB but then say "Patching 40Gb" or something, then afterwards it does a verification on the files it patched. I was just going to post this. |
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Post by docrob on Jun 11, 2024 16:10:05 GMT
Are you actually looking at the download size or the patching size or the verify size? Steam does different things, and could download just a few MB but then say "Patching 40Gb" or something, then afterwards it does a verification on the files it patched. TBH it’s a combination of all three. The 50GB+ download I mentioned did indeed download that much data. Sometimes a much smaller update will lock everything up for ages though. I’ve had a few small appearing updates which did exactly as you say - downloaded a small amount of data and then verified the entire installation. It seems very unpredictable. |
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Post by Aunt Alison on Jun 11, 2024 18:11:30 GMT
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Post by RadicalRex on Jun 12, 2024 1:24:51 GMT
I can't remember the last time I had it happen that way. What games have done that recently? Last year a Ride 4 patch caused the game to crash when you tried to select a certain bike, and the fix for that was like 20 GB or something. One of the devs said it was because of how Unreal Engine lumps together assets in single files or something and there was sadly nothing they could do about it. I wasn't 100% sure they weren't just trying to shift the blame, but apparently it is a real issue with UE. |
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Post by Bill in the rain on Jun 12, 2024 5:28:03 GMT
Not Steam, but every week, when Fortnite updates, it attempts to download like 50Gb of data. Then it fails because I don't have enough free space. So I have to uninstall the entire thing, and then download like 80Gb to install it from scratch (which usually just about works)
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ekz
New Member
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Post by ekz on Jun 12, 2024 8:21:46 GMT
Yeah, the fortnite patches is what made me stop the weekly games with mates. They add 3 new skins and a different dance, 40gb patch. Wut.
And I'm only on 50mbps, so the update cycle was just too much.
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Post by dfunked on Jun 12, 2024 9:43:52 GMT
The thing that annoys me about Steam these days are the scheduled downloads. Just download the bloody thing as soon as I open Steam like you used to!
Of course it doesn't annoy me enough for me to pull my finger out and look at workarounds.
I can understand the reasoning behind it, but they could at least give you a "download all" button as a compromise for people who manually check.
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Post by docrob on Sept 13, 2024 16:05:48 GMT
Happening again today. A patch of 88.1 MB for Elden Ring. Downloads almost immediately. Then somehow needs to patch 15.8 GB of files. It didn’t take that long (SSD installation) but it’s so bloody irritating.
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