Just a quick question. When you download a game, it downloads a "setup" to your computer. You use this "setup" to install the game. With a lot of programs, like iTunes or Skype to name a couple, you can delete this "setup" once the program is installed onto your computer. I was wondering if that was possible to do with GOG game setups. Just to have some free space on my computer. Or do you have to keep them? I'm asking because some of the games I've purchased come with .bin folders as well.

The file(s) you download from your account page to install the game can be safely deleted after the installation yes.

It's just an installation program. Once you've installed the game, you don't need it anymore. So, yes, you can just delete it.

I'd recommend backing it up somewhere (DVD, USB-stick, external HDD), though. That way, if you want to install the game in the future, you don't need to download it again.

The bin files are there because the total size of the installer is larger than 4 GB, thus they split it up into multiple files so that you could still store the files on a FAT32-formatted USB stick (because FAT32 cannot handle individual files larger than 4GB) and/or archive them on DVD-R discs (most of which are 4.7 GB).

I did know FAT32-formatted drives can't read files bigger than 4GB but didn't know/realise that was the purpose of the .bin files. Now i finally know y, lol. Thks for the info. :)

OS X and Linux have less legacy to support, and use more modern file systems in just about all cases (except when dealing with Windows systems), so they get a single massive file instead (well, Windows does use NTFS by default, and most USB sticks nowadays are pre-formatted with exFAT which does handle larger files, but there are people around who stubbornly still use FAT32 with modern Windows systems, for whatever insane reason). Downloading the OS X of Linux release of The Witcher 2 nets you a single 20GB file.

Originally, GOG provided 4GB bin files, making fewer files per game, but I think some people complained that this wasted space on DVD-R's, so since a while ago they instead use 1.5 GB files since a while ago (three "new" files would use 4.5GB on a 4.7GB DVD-R instead of only 4.0GB as one "old" file would).

2GB. It was 2GB, not 4GB.

I c... well, i wld hv to agree making 1.5GB bin files makes more sense if putting in DVD-R so as to minimise space wastage. As for JMich comment that it was 2GB instead of 4GB, i think it's better that GOG stick to 1.5GB from now on cos not only does it make downloading concurrent files faster, it also makes losing a whole (say 20GB) download due to corruption less likely.

You are both wrong. It was 1.5 GB. :P

1.5GB was after a change. The early ones were 2GB, thus causing the problems with "wasted DVD space". May have to go looking for that wish, but quick look can't locate it.

Really? I guess it happened before I was registered.

Actually, no. The v1.x installers used the 2GB bin files, while the v2.x ones moved to the 1.5GB from what I recall. Considering the first game with a v2.x installer (other than TW2 EE) was Warsow, released October 2012, you were here when the 2GB bin files were circulating. You may not have bought any, but they were available.


Edit: And caching server is acting up again, not sure if you're smug cat or terminator cat.

Hmmm.... I honestly can't remember. The only really large game that I bought in 2012 was the first Witcher and I don't recall ever seeing it in a V1 form.
"Insert Skynet joke here"
Why not both?

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