It looks like each of the patches seem to increase the space requirements on the game. Under the Data folder I can see 28GB of patches labeled Patch*.pak; I figured that most patches would integrate changes into the base install of the game.

Patch 3 is especially bad for increasing the install size; I mean I would expect to see an increase in size for additional functionality (like the mirror for changing appearance), but 10GB seems a bit excessive (dropped from ~30GB free to ~20GB free on my SSD).

Does it help redownloading the entire game (though a quick eyeball shows that the main game installer has increased in size a bit over tthe original release one) ?

its 151G for me but you have extra files in your data folder so i'd assume mods or left over files from an off line install

Mine is 151GB using the 1024x1024x1024 gigs rather than the 1000x1000x1000 gigs; so the actual size on disk is 163GB even though it is reported at 151GB.

Just attached a picture for comparison (should of done that in the first place). Never installed any mods and verified the install recently.

Sounds like I should keep playing Patch 1 because I'm already at the limit of my available harddrive space anyway.

does it help = yes each patch improves the game
is the game getting bigger and will it keep getting bigger = yes

as for 20G of free space... assuming removing a few programs / games isn't an option then i'd start working out which m2/ ssd you want for xmas

I just got the game today and was honestly a bit peeded at this. 120GB (original announcement) is bad enough to manage on SSD, but adding Gigabytes of Patches instead of changing exsisting files seems really, really weird and unusual.

I love Larian, but this isn't their usual brilliant self.

Mine is fully patched with the last major patch and all the hotfixes as of today, and it's ~152GB.

Well I guess I'll have to get a separate, dedicated harddrive just for games.

That's what I did. 1T SSD...

You can get a 1Tb Samsung m.2-2280 for $70. The 1TB 2.5" SATA 6.0 form factor is $50.

That's less than it costs for my partner and I to get dinner. It's less than it cost to buy BG3.

Lexar has a 2Tb 2.5" for $63... though to be honest, I don't know if I'd want to risk some brand I don't really know or trust to store that much data (I had a lexar USB drive a while ago. Crapped out randomly and I lost 2 months of research and a couple of fun POC exploits)

Storage is absurdly cheap these days. If you can afford to spend $60 on a video game, you can afford to spend $50 making sure you have enough space to play it.

Two remarks to that:

1) Swapping motherboard-connected M.2s is not trivial, as this might even require removing the whole CPU Heatsink for access. So upgrading might be more complicated and risky than just spending a few dozen USD or EUR.

2) Wasteful behaviour to me is no reason to expand resources. Other games patch large binary containers (.pak files or other formats) on the go, without replicating all the data. I've made a suggestion to Larian on their boards. I mean, we're talking already 30GB here, two months after the game's release. That's the size of some other current games on the market.

^That's also why I'm curious if a fresh downloaded "latest version" will have a smaller install size than a Day1 download with all patches.

So put your games on a SATA 6 2.5" SSD. I've done that and I can tell you that the difference in loading times is negligible. Added bonus is that with a drive replicator, you can pretty easily migrate to bigger drives should you need to (if, for some reason, 1TB of SSD storage isn't enough).

The fact that you all have all these disk space issues makes me wonder - are you storing ALL your data (images, videos, music, etc) on a single system disk? That's a *really* bad practice, and I encourage you to move your non-performance-impacting data (images, music, photos, etc) to one or more external disks; ideally redundant ones.

Either go get a couple of external USB drives and copy your data to both, or invest in a NAS. This will both free up your system disk for more performance-sensitive data (binaries, save game data), and will ensure that if your hard drive fails, you don't loose gigabytes of hard-to-replace (or sometimes irreplaceable) data.

If you want to take it a step further, get two, keep one in a closet at a friend or family member's house (off-site), and synch and swap them every 6 months or so. That way, if your house burns down you'll only lose, at most, 6 months of data.

As someone who has lost drives with irreplaceable family photos, it's a worthwhile investment of money and effort. You'll also be shocked at how much space you free up once all that stuff that you're effectively just archiving has moved off your system.

I run a business, that is normal practice to me. Current system is five years old, 2080 Super with DLSS keeps me beautifully in the game even for 4K, but back then 512GB were expensive for M.2s, and yes, I have one 2.5" 512SSD carried over even from previous system. Suppose if I really needed extra space, I could swap that one.

So in total, I already have one TB of Storage, plus an extra 256GB SSD for System/Files, and that 1TB is full of game files, 18 titles in total. That comes to an average of about 50GB per game, and that's what I consider on the smaller size today.

But again, the problem is not getting more space - the question is if this will continue, and after one year of patches, the game will reach 200GB or more with no extra content added. These fixed files should be integrated into the base install, otherwise we'll be climbing eternally.

No, you just have to not want to play every bullshit!

Or go ahead and play every bullshit, just not at the same time.

Why do you need 18 titles installed simultaneously? Just uninstall the ones you're not playing, keep the saves, and you can install it again later when you decide to come back.

I'm running my entire local system off a single 500GB NVMe. I have multiple virtual machines on the drive that I use for research, etc, which means multiple operating system installs (a few GB each, minimum.) I still have 150+ GB free on my main drive, despite BG3 being installed AND having AOW4 save files (which probably take up more space than my BG3 install... no idea WTF those guys were thinking). So even if I was sympathetic to your plight, and after saying you need 18 games installed simultaneously I'm 100% not, for $50 you can easily solve that problem.

There are people who may have a legitimate reason to complain, but you certainly are not one of them.