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Helldivers 2 devs slash install size from 154GB to 23GB

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Re: Helldivers 2 devs slash install size from 154GB to 23GB

#181

Post by devmor »

afavour wrote: post #101
jeroenhd wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem they fixed is that they removed a common optimization to get 5x faster loading speeds on HDDs. That's why they did the performance analysis and referred to their telemetry before pushing the fix. The impact is minimal because their game is already spending an equivalent time doing other loading work, and the 5x I/O slowdown only affects 11% of players (perhaps less now that the game fits on a cheap consum…

> If someone "takes pride in their work" and makes my game load five times longer, I'd rather they go find something else to take pride in. And others who wish one single game didn't waste 130GB of their disk space, it's fine to ignore their opinions? They used up a ton more disk space to apply an ill-advised optimization that didn't have much effect. I don't really understand why you'd consider that a positive thing…

> They used up a ton more disk space to apply an ill-advised optimization that didn't have much effect.

The optimization was not ill-advised. It is in fact, an industry standard and is strongly advised. Their own internal testing revealed that they are one of the supposedly rare cases where this optimization did not have a noticeably positive effect worth the costs.

Re: Helldivers 2 devs slash install size from 154GB to 23GB

#182

Post by hinkley »

snet0 wrote: post #16

> With their latest data measurements specific to the game, the developers have confirmed the small number of players (11% last week) using mechanical hard drives will witness mission load times increase by only a few seconds in worst cases. Additionally, the post reads, “the majority of the loading time in Helldivers 2 is due to level-generation rather than asset loading. This level generation happens in parallel wi…

It’s the same sort of apathy/arrogance that made new Windows versions run like dogshit on old machines. Gates really should have had stock in PC makers. He sold enough of them.

I don’t think it’s always still the case but for more than ten years every release of OSX ran better on old hardware, not worse.

Some people think the problem was MS investing too eagerly into upgrading developer machines routinely, giving them a false sense of what “fast enough” looked like. But the public rhetoric was so dismissive that I find that pretty unlikely. They just didn’t care. Institutionally.

I’m not really into the idea of Helldivers in the first place but I’m not going to install a 150GB game this side of 2040. That’s just fucking stupid.

Re: Helldivers 2 devs slash install size from 154GB to 23GB

#183

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

jjmarr wrote: post #153
jeroenhd wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem they fixed is that they removed a common optimization to get 5x faster loading speeds on HDDs. That's why they did the performance analysis and referred to their telemetry before pushing the fix. The impact is minimal because their game is already spending an equivalent time doing other loading work, and the 5x I/O slowdown only affects 11% of players (perhaps less now that the game fits on a cheap consum…

If this is a common issue in industry why don't game devs make a user visible slider to control dedup? I have friends who play one or two games and want them to load fast. Others have dozens and want storage space.

Any developer could tell you that it's because that would be extra code, extra UI, extra localization, extra QA, etc. for something nonessential that could be ignored in favor of adding something that increases the chance of the game managing to break even.

Re: Helldivers 2 devs slash install size from 154GB to 23GB

#184

Post by JohnBooty »

the_af wrote: post #141
jeroenhd wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The actual source ( https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/553850/view/49158394... ) says: > Only a few seconds difference? > Further good news: the change in the file size will result in minimal changes to load times - seconds at most. “Wait a minute,” I hear you ask - “didn’t you just tell us all that you duplicate data because the loading times on HDDs could be 10 times worse?”. I am pleased to say that our worst…

But this means that before they blindly trusted some stats without actually testing how their game performed with and without it?

FWIW, the PC install size was reasonable at launch. It just crept up slowly over time.

    But this means that before they blindly trusted 
    some stats without actually testing how their 
    game performed with and without it?
Maybe they didn't test it with their game because their game didn't exist yet, because this was a decision made fairly early in the development process. In hindsight, yeah... it was the wrong call.

I'm just a little baffled by people harping on this decision and deciding that the developers must be stupid or lazy.

I mean, seriously, I do not understand. Like what do you get out of that? That would make you happy or satisfied somehow?

Re: Helldivers 2 devs slash install size from 154GB to 23GB

#185

Post by oersted »

afavour wrote: post #45
snet0 wrote: post #16

> With their latest data measurements specific to the game, the developers have confirmed the small number of players (11% last week) using mechanical hard drives will witness mission load times increase by only a few seconds in worst cases. Additionally, the post reads, “the majority of the loading time in Helldivers 2 is due to level-generation rather than asset loading. This level generation happens in parallel wi…

> It seems bizarre to me that they'd have accepted such a high cost They’re not the ones bearing the cost. Customers are. And I’d wager very few check the hard disk requirements for a game before buying it. So the effect on their bottom line is negligible while the dev effort to fix it has a cost… so it remains unfixed until someone with pride in their work finally carves out the time to do it. If they were on the ho…

Gamers are quite vocal about such things, people end up hearing about it even if they don’t check directly.

And this being primarily a live-service game drawing revenues from micro-transactions, especially a while after launch, and the fact that base console drives are still quite small to encourage an upgrade (does this change apply to consoles too?), there’s probably quite an incentive to make it easy for users to keep the game installed.

Re: Helldivers 2 devs slash install size from 154GB to 23GB

#186

Post by Forgeties79 »

Artoooooor wrote: post #179

154GB? That's why I almost don't "buy" AAA games. This is much bigger cost than money for that game.

I don’t disagree that it’s too large at 154GB but the decision (at least to me) also made more sense at a time when storage, especially external storage, had never been cheaper. That only changed like 6-8 weeks ago. Prior to that getting a 4TB external SSD was like what? $150-$200? $120 for a 2TB nvme? You could get 1TB SSD’s for like $65 if you looked for them.

Re: Helldivers 2 devs slash install size from 154GB to 23GB

#187

Post by the_af »

JohnBooty wrote: post #184
the_af wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this means that before they blindly trusted some stats without actually testing how their game performed with and without it?

FWIW, the PC install size was reasonable at launch. It just crept up slowly over time. But this means that before they blindly trusted some stats without actually testing how their game performed with and without it? Maybe they didn't test it with their game because their game didn't exist yet, because this was a decision made fairly early in the development process. In hindsight, yeah... it was the wrong call. I'm j…

Go figure: people are downvoting me but I never once said developers must be stupid or lazy. This is a very common kind of mistake developers often make: premature optimization without considering the actual bottlenecks, and without testing theoretical optimizations actually make any difference. I know I'm guilty of this!

I never called anyone lazy or stupid, I just wondered whether they blindly trusted some stats without actually testing them.

> FWIW, the PC install size was reasonable at launch. It just crept up slowly over time

Wouldn't this mean their optimization mattered even less back then?

Re: Helldivers 2 devs slash install size from 154GB to 23GB

#188

Post by hinkley »

PunchyHamster wrote: post #168
jeroenhd wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem they fixed is that they removed a common optimization to get 5x faster loading speeds on HDDs. That's why they did the performance analysis and referred to their telemetry before pushing the fix. The impact is minimal because their game is already spending an equivalent time doing other loading work, and the 5x I/O slowdown only affects 11% of players (perhaps less now that the game fits on a cheap consum…

> The problem they fixed is that they removed a common optimization to get 5x faster loading speeds on HDDs. Not what happened. They removed an optimization that in *some other games* ,that are not their game, gave 5x speed boost. And they are changing it now coz it turned out all of that was bogus, the speed boost wasn't as high for loading of data itself, and good part of the loading of the level wasn't even waitin…

5x space is going to be hard to beat, but one should always be careful about hiding behind a tall tent pole like this. IO isn’t free, it’s cheap. So if they could generate terrain with no data loading it would likely be a little faster. But someone might find a way to speed up generation and then think it’s pointless/not get the credit they deserve because then loading is the tall tent pole.

I’ve worked with far too many people who have done the equivalent in non game software and it leads to unhappy customers and salespeople. I’ve come to think of it as a kind of learned helplessness.

Re: Helldivers 2 devs slash install size from 154GB to 23GB

#189

Post by hinkley »

jeroenhd wrote: post #128
afavour wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If someone "takes pride in their work" and makes my game load five times longer, I'd rather they go find something else to take pride in. And others who wish one single game didn't waste 130GB of their disk space, it's fine to ignore their opinions? They used up a ton more disk space to apply an ill-advised optimization that didn't have much effect. I don't really understand why you'd consider that a positive thing…

By their own industry data ( https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/553850/view/49158394... ), deduplication causes a 5x performance increase loading data from HDD. There's a reason so many games are huge, and it's not because they're mining your HDD for HDDCoin. The "problem" is a feature. The "so it remains unfixed until someone with pride in their work finally carves out the time to do it" mindset suggests that t…

Seems to me that most of these situations have an 80/20 rule and it would be worth someone’s time to figure out what that is.

Get rid of 80% of that duplication for a 2x instead of a 5x slowdown would be something.

Re: Helldivers 2 devs slash install size from 154GB to 23GB

#190

Post by [deleted] »

jjmarr wrote: post #153
jeroenhd wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem they fixed is that they removed a common optimization to get 5x faster loading speeds on HDDs. That's why they did the performance analysis and referred to their telemetry before pushing the fix. The impact is minimal because their game is already spending an equivalent time doing other loading work, and the 5x I/O slowdown only affects 11% of players (perhaps less now that the game fits on a cheap consum…

If this is a common issue in industry why don't game devs make a user visible slider to control dedup? I have friends who play one or two games and want them to load fast. Others have dozens and want storage space.

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