The thing about duplicate files is that it makes it efficient for loading times if you don’t have a ssd, the other big one for better loading times is having the files be uncompressed.
Data duplication as an optimisation only really makes sense for optical media where you have exact control over where data is pressed or burned to a disc. For example Halo games where each map file contains basically the whole game and level geometry/scenario in a compiled format minus the bits not needed for that particular level so it’s easy for the DVD drive to sequentially load all data for a given level.
In the context of hard drives where you can’t control that layout for various reasons it’s just a meme parroted by devs who don’t bother with or can’t implement a PC-oriented asset loading pipeline (e.g. pre-caching lists, centralised shared assets, virtual file systems/pack formats) and instead kick storage costs down to end users because disk sizes are so large nowadays and it’s easy to just statically bundle assets that might share aspects across each other e.g materials, shaders. Of course siloed development teams makes it very tempting to ship games this way, as does pressure from management so I do sympathise.
File duplication on a hard drive saves a few seconds in the best case scenario with a defragmented disk and even that is margin of error because guess what the OS and filesystem will do whatever the fuck it likes in a random access scenario.
Does this mean if youre in a game with someone who has it installed on a slow arse HDD you’ll have to wait until their game loads until the session starts?
I vaguely remember R6 Siege doing the same thing. Could the install do a check to determine whether its on an SSD or HDD and install whichever to reduce HDD load times?
At that point from what little I know about coding, you’re now essentially upkeeping two separate builds that have to interact with eachother on PC (generally the pc and console builds of a game are different, but not enough to cause issues), and that’s if it’s possible to even tell if the drive it’s installing to is a hdd or sdd.
It really is just easier to have one build of the game that you put out, and have that build cater to the lowest common denominator on pc.
Yes, that’s what a few games in the past have done. Basically they have “HDD version” as a free downloadable dlc for those still using a traditional harddrive. Everyone else gets the “slim” version
The thing about duplicate files is that it makes it efficient for loading times if you don’t have a ssd, the other big one for better loading times is having the files be uncompressed.
Data duplication as an optimisation only really makes sense for optical media where you have exact control over where data is pressed or burned to a disc. For example Halo games where each map file contains basically the whole game and level geometry/scenario in a compiled format minus the bits not needed for that particular level so it’s easy for the DVD drive to sequentially load all data for a given level.
In the context of hard drives where you can’t control that layout for various reasons it’s just a meme parroted by devs who don’t bother with or can’t implement a PC-oriented asset loading pipeline (e.g. pre-caching lists, centralised shared assets, virtual file systems/pack formats) and instead kick storage costs down to end users because disk sizes are so large nowadays and it’s easy to just statically bundle assets that might share aspects across each other e.g materials, shaders. Of course siloed development teams makes it very tempting to ship games this way, as does pressure from management so I do sympathise.
File duplication on a hard drive saves a few seconds in the best case scenario with a defragmented disk and even that is margin of error because guess what the OS and filesystem will do whatever the fuck it likes in a random access scenario.
Does this mean if youre in a game with someone who has it installed on a slow arse HDD you’ll have to wait until their game loads until the session starts?
It usually depends on the game in question, I know for payday 2 and SC2 for sure this is true.
In PD2’s case if someone joins mid heist, then it’ll pause the game for everyone in heist until the person that joined loads.
I vaguely remember R6 Siege doing the same thing. Could the install do a check to determine whether its on an SSD or HDD and install whichever to reduce HDD load times?
At that point from what little I know about coding, you’re now essentially upkeeping two separate builds that have to interact with eachother on PC (generally the pc and console builds of a game are different, but not enough to cause issues), and that’s if it’s possible to even tell if the drive it’s installing to is a hdd or sdd.
It really is just easier to have one build of the game that you put out, and have that build cater to the lowest common denominator on pc.
Yes, that’s what a few games in the past have done. Basically they have “HDD version” as a free downloadable dlc for those still using a traditional harddrive. Everyone else gets the “slim” version
I’ve know of games having 4k textures as an optional download, but i’ve never heard of that being a thing.
For helldivers, absolutely. Team based, lobby begins with everyone