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General discussionSmaller downloads(54 posts)(54 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted May 24, 2016
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Tauto: I could be wrong but I doubt Gog can resize the game files (smaller) than the dev's put out.
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Wishbone: They can. I think you misunderstand what the OP is asking for. He's not asking for games that take up less space, he's asking for installers divided up into smaller chunks.

For instance, take a game like Wasteland 2 - Director's Cut. The installer is divided into 3 parts: a 34MB .exe and two .bin files of 3.9GB and 2.6GB, respectively. Now, presumably, this is one of the games the OP is not able to download, simply because the files are too big. What he would like in this example is instead of those two huge .bin files, to instead have 6 .bin files of 1GB each, and one of 0.5GB.

The .bin files are just archives of the game files, and are made by GOG, not the dev, so it's certainly possible.

On the other hand, those of us with decent connections would probably prefer to just download a couple of large files rather than a whole bunch of small ones. The only real middle ground I see is for GOG to make two versions of each installer, and let people decide which one they prefer to download, but I don't see that happening any time soon.
No,I understood as per my post but didn't know that Gog puts them in bin files and as you said if they do then your suggestions are quiet valid.Now it's up too Gog to improve it (size of bin files) to help people with internet down load problems.
Posted May 24, 2016
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Wishbone: On the other hand, those of us with decent connections would probably prefer to just download a couple of large files rather than a whole bunch of small ones. The only real middle ground I see is for GOG to make two versions of each installer, and let people decide which one they prefer to download, but I don't see that happening any time soon.
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CharlesGrey: To be fair, for someone with a fast connection it's only a minor inconvenience to download a few more separate files. But for someone with a slow or unreliable connection, those multi-GB files can be a huge pain.
Oh, sure. But trust someone to be annoyed either way ;-)
Posted May 24, 2016
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TexCanaan:
I'm afraid to disappoint you, but sadly it appears that GOG is actively going in the opposite direction.

Whenever they need to update older games that are split into smaller multi-part installers (e.g. 1.5 GB parts), for whatever reason, they use the opportunity to repackage them as larger multi-part installers (e.g. 4 GB parts).

See for example NWN2, which was repackaged in just that way (from [exe + five 1.5 GB parts] to [exe + two 4 GB parts]) back in August:
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/the_what_did_just_update_thread/post9950

For what it's worth, I can understand your frustration.
Post edited May 24, 2016 by mrkgnao
Posted May 24, 2016
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WinterSnowfall: I don't mean to whine (but as every person you've ever heard start a phrase with that statement, I now will), but we could use better compression for the installers and galaxy transfers also.

These days almost everyone has more than enough processing power in order to handle better compression that yer' good ol' deflate and save some space and download time. The bandwidth gain can sometimes be close to colossal.

I know what you're going to say: deflate is universal. True. But it's not 1997 any more, there are other options with almost equally universal support.

How about some LZMA2? Anyone?
Let's make it Brotli (the whys and wherefores) and you have my sword/bow/axe. I mean, it's nice to save on download time, but the abysmal decompression time is not attractive - remember, these are some large files we are talking about.
Posted May 24, 2016
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WinterSnowfall: I don't mean to whine (but as every person you've ever heard start a phrase with that statement, I now will), but we could use better compression for the installers and galaxy transfers also.
Hmmm, I didn't know there should be lots of room for improvement there. I'm just about to test your theory, by compressing the Witcher 1-3 installers with 7zip (ultra compression), to see how much smaller they get. Hopefully the difference isn't that big.

I presume GOG doesn't use the most effective compression methods as it can take them lots of extra time (to do over and over and over and over again...) for gigantic games like The Witcher 3.

And of course, I always have the option to re-compress them myself, I guess... :)
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TexCanaan: Something along the lines of 1.5 gb or 1 gb chunks would be perfect!
For you. Someone else with even worse internet connection might want them to be in 500 megabyte, or 100 megabyte, chunks. How small should the parts be then?

I think GOG normally puts them to less than 4GB parts so that they don't get corrupted if someone copies the parts to a FAT-formatted USB device or something (as FAT doesn't support filesizes bigger than that). And I guess it is also a pretty good size for those weirdos who still burn files into DVD-Rs and such.

And the first part (the installer .exe) is nowadays a small file probably because with humungous exes virus scanners will take a damn sweet time to validate the file when you try to run it. That's why with some earlier GOG installers where the exe might have been even several gigabytes, there might be a looooooong pause when you tried to run the installer. Making the first exe part a smaller one is apparently a good workaround for that problem.

EDIT: Now I noticed though that for The Witcher 1-2, the individual parts are actually 1.5GB, while for The Witcher 3 they are 3.9GB. Apparently the parts used to be smaller before.
Post edited May 24, 2016 by timppu
Posted May 24, 2016
I've noticed several replies that mention the GOG Galaxy backup copy option. Yes, it exists. Yes, you can install your game from it. But, unlike the direct downloads from your library via a standard web browser (IE, Chrome, Foxfire), It can't be installed WITHOUT THE GALAXY CLIENT. Like Steam games, any GOG backup copy downloaded via the Galaxy client MUST BE INSTALLED VIA THE CLIENT, umless this has recently been changed. If the Galaxy client gave tbe option for a standalone install file and the ability to pause a download and come back to finish it at a later date, this wouldn't be an issue at all.

As to the old GOG downloader, I couldn't find any links to it on the site, and thought it had been completely done away with. Thank you for posting that link. I'll try that on my next visit to the library.

P.S. : Those all caps parts aren't meant to be "yelling", I just can't figure out how to put stuff in italics for emphasis.... :)
Posted May 24, 2016
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TexCanaan: I've noticed several replies that mention the GOG Galaxy backup copy option. Yes, it exists. Yes, you can install your game from it. But, unlike the direct downloads from your library via a standard web browser (IE, Chrome, Foxfire), It can't be installed WITHOUT THE GALAXY CLIENT. Like Steam games, any GOG backup copy downloaded via the Galaxy client MUST BE INSTALLED VIA THE CLIENT, umless this has recently been changed. If the Galaxy client gave tbe option for a standalone install file and the ability to pause a download and come back to finish it at a later date, this wouldn't be an issue at all.
I think you've been misinformed. The "backup copy" option in Galaxy downloads the same installer files you can get directly from the website.
Posted May 24, 2016
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TexCanaan: any GOG backup copy downloaded via the Galaxy client MUST BE INSTALLED VIA THE CLIENT, umless this has recently been changed
I don't think it has ever been like that you described, so it hasn't changed. I think the option to download the offline installers (the sames you can download also directly with your web browser) with Galaxy has been there from the beginning, at least since Galaxy entered beta (I didn't use it before that).
Post edited May 24, 2016 by timppu
Posted May 24, 2016
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tinyE: I just bought Sacred 2 on Amazon because the download is 2 months of my allotted bandwidth. :P
Did it arrive yet? I remember last year you telling me about how you couldn't get Sacred 2 here and for this reason. It's a fun game. I like the Inquisitor class the best probably. And, Blind Guardian is in it too! :)

It won't have that bug that your Sacred game had when you are zoomed out. It may crash on you sometimes when entering or exiting caves though. If it happens a lot you can adjust a memory setting in the .ini file to fix it. It only ever happens to me if I'm using the Elite textures that came on the collector's edition disc , back before the expansion and the gold version came out. The elite gfx are not part of Sacred 2 gold I think for that reason. Everything looks just as pretty on high too. I don't care for the physx effects in that game though , so I turn them off.


Sorry for going off topic of the thread.
Posted May 24, 2016
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timppu: ...snip
For you. Someone else with even worse internet connection might want them to be in 500 megabyte, or 100 megabyte, chunks. How small should the parts be then?
My thoughts exactly. First start by defining what size is an acceptable standard across everyone - I mean if I was to try to download Dying Light in blocks of 100mb I would be here for weeks clicking on files. Even at 4gb a file its still 5 or 6 files. And that is the way things are going, the games are becoming newer games which are bigger in size. How does the master store do it? The OP admits to using Steam, surely that is exactly the same issue - the game size doesn't really change. The only thing I can think of is for those people living on the fringes of the known universe (i.e. anyone outside the big cities) is having a physical copy mailed to them?
Posted May 24, 2016
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TexCanaan: I've noticed several replies that mention the GOG Galaxy backup copy option. Yes, it exists. Yes, you can install your game from it. But, unlike the direct downloads from your library via a standard web browser (IE, Chrome, Foxfire), It can't be installed WITHOUT THE GALAXY CLIENT. Like Steam games, any GOG backup copy downloaded via the Galaxy client MUST BE INSTALLED VIA THE CLIENT, umless this has recently been changed. If the Galaxy client gave tbe option for a standalone install file and the ability to pause a download and come back to finish it at a later date, this wouldn't be an issue at all.)
There was always an option for the Galaxy client to download a standalone installer ever since it went in beta (and possibly earlier than that).
Posted May 24, 2016
???

the days when large downloads were split into smaller packages are kinda over ever since fibre-cable broadband became a thing? of course, i guess that's tough if you're a snowman like TinyE who uses a dish to get interwebz signals from outer space. but like he said, can't blame Gogbears for that.

so... play more real "retro" games(not incl. those 6CD FMV games anyway) like i do till you switch to a more affordable ISP?
Posted May 24, 2016
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nightcraw1er.488: The OP admits to using Steam, surely that is exactly the same issue - the game size doesn't really change.
I presume he simply pauses the incomplete download and resumes later with Steam, so as long as he has the same option on GOG, I think he should be fine regardless of the file part size (either by using some browser plugin, or the legacy GOG Downloader, or if Galaxy nowadays supports pause (also for backup installers)).
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dick1982: the days when large downloads were split into smaller packages are kinda over ever since fibre-cable broadband became a thing?
I kinda agree, but for now I think it maybe still makes sense to keep the installers in 4GB parts, just so that the FAT filesize limitation isn't hit. I guess USB flash sticks etc. are still formatted to FAT by default, regardless of their size. I personally always reformat them to NTFS, but I guess many don't.
Post edited May 24, 2016 by timppu
Posted May 24, 2016
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WinterSnowfall: I don't mean to whine (but as every person you've ever heard start a phrase with that statement, I now will), but we could use better compression for the installers and galaxy transfers also.

These days almost everyone has more than enough processing power in order to handle better compression that yer' good ol' deflate and save some space and download time. The bandwidth gain can sometimes be close to colossal.

I know what you're going to say: deflate is universal. True. But it's not 1997 any more, there are other options with almost equally universal support.

How about some LZMA2? Anyone?
Ok I tried it, and compressing The Witcher 1-3 installers with 7zip (LZMA2 Ultra compression) didn't really yield any significant space savings. The 7zip-compressed files were like 99% of the size of the original installers, so the GOG game installers are already quite well compressed.

Were you talking about some specific game, or were you referring only to Galaxy game installation (not the offline installers)? No idea what kind of, if any, compression Galaxy currently supports for the Galaxy versions of games, but if your intention is to minimize the amount of data downloaded, maybe you should first download the offline installers (with Galaxy or the browser), and then import the installed game to Galaxy, if you want?
Post edited May 24, 2016 by timppu
Posted May 24, 2016
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timppu: ...
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dick1982: the days when large downloads were split into smaller packages are kinda over ever since fibre-cable broadband became a thing?
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timppu: I kinda agree, but for now I think it maybe still makes sense to keep the installers in 4GB parts, just so that the FAT filesize limitation isn't hit. I guess USB flash sticks etc. are still formatted to FAT by default, regardless of their size. I personally always reformat them to NTFS, but I guess many don't.
i did split my NWN1 bin files and patches into 700MB files using 7zip, just so i could burn them onto a whole stack of CDRs i still have. it's not difficult, just time-wasting. not as time wasting as burning CDs to an external drive with a loose usb cable.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionSmaller downloads(54 posts)(54 posts)
(54 posts)