Faster LZ is not the answer to 150-250 GB video game downloads

Post by Waterluvian » Sat, Apr 22, 2023, 12:54 AM UTC

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #111

jjoonathan wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It attracts truly extraordinary talent. One of many examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eviSykqSUUw . There is more technical ambition in a single slide of that project than an entire department at places I've worked. However, it also tends to demand more and pay less, so there is churn and burnout and when it comes time to triage, the triage can cut very deep. If I were to dive into the JIRA for any one of the…

> However, it also tends to demand more and pay less, so there is churn and burnout and when it comes time to triage, the triage can cut very deep. Yeah, I've often heard that the advice for people who really want to make games is to get some friends together and try to put out something together as a side gig while you work somewhere boring to pay the bills. SWE at a game studio, especially any AAA game studio, is a…

Post by terafo » Sat, Apr 22, 2023, 1:32 AM UTC

bananaboy wrote: post #138

terafo wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>immediately have to caveat Yeah, I could've indicated better that I'm talking about on-disk compression of files. >Sony included dedicated compression support in the PS5, licensed from a leading middleware company, specifically to make it easier to use compression in games. Games are using it. Not really if we look at 3rd party games. Jedi Survivor is likely not using that since it takes 147 gigs on PS5 and only 139…

> Not really if we look at 3rd party games. I find this extremely unlikely. The packaging tools by default will compress files when building a package. Decompression is transparent and done by the hardware; the game doesn't have to implement anything or link any libraries. You would have to explicitly select "no compression" during packaging. Warzone definitely uses it - I worked on Cold War, Vanguard, and MW2 specif…

Post by fbdab103 » Sat, Apr 22, 2023, 2:50 AM UTC

charlie0 wrote: post #15

If users hate large file sizes, they should just stop buying them. Unfortunately, hitting the bottom line is really the only way to get this resolved.

Post by kristianp » Sat, Apr 22, 2023, 4:16 AM UTC

haswell wrote: post #115

kevingadd wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Titanfall shipped uncompressed audio on purpose to cut out audio decompression CPU usage. You can disagree with the decision, but it wasn't an accident or negligence.

I realize they’re trying to optimize for a wide base, but I have plenty of spare cores to decompress audio, and SSD space is limited. For me, the net result is that Titanfall was one of the first games to go when I needed space. Low hanging fruit. Even if it was deliberate, I have to question the logic and wonder how much usage they enabled vs. uninstalls from file size over time.

Post by klodolph » Sat, Apr 22, 2023, 4:55 AM UTC

recursive wrote: post #110

klodolph wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I recall, this was a purposeful choice. Titanfall came out in 2014. The minimum requirements were a Core 2 Duo at 2.4 GHz or Athlon X2 at 2.8 GHz. I think that puts it on processors dating back to 2006 or so. Games sometimes have a lot of sound effects. It's easier to stream 35 GB of data from disk than it is to decompress, like, 10 streams of audio at the same time with whatever CPU you can dedicate to audio. I d…

That's like 50 hours of uncompressed stereo audio at CD quality. (2×16bit@44.1kHz) Do games really have that much stuff in them these days? I mean, I wouldn't doubt it, but it's surprising.