Star Citizen client download expected to be 100GB

[shaithis]

Surely that's the wrong way round for the ps3? Almost all games came on bluray, when the PC was stuck on dvd.

Maybe for PS3 exclusives, all other titles had to be cross-platform with the 360.

[DanceswithUnix]

mmo's. which have worlds that are exponentially larger, and handle orders of magnitude more people at one time, don't take 1/5th the resources.

$ cd /dos/Program\ Files\ \(x86\)/World\ of\ Warcraft/
$ du -sh .
30G .
$

Apparently it doesn't take 1/5th, it takes more like 1/3rd

I take your point that it is rather large for a game, but games do tend to consume lots of space these days. Minecraft is an odd one, I run a server for the kids. The server code is really small, but let half a dozen kids loose on the machine for a few months and the world files can get rather large (and don't under any circumstances enable a high resolution map addon).

[kalniel]

And WoW's textures/normal maps etc. are going to be an awful lot smaller!

[Percy1983]

Its OK, I have Raid 0 conf + SSD as cache ;-) Plenty of free space..

Raid 0 + SSD cache is the way forward for gaming it makes so much sense I am suprised more don't do it.

[shaithis]

Raid 0 + SSD cache is the way forward for gaming it makes so much sense I am suprised more don't do it.

More don't do it because an SSD cache is only really of any benefit when there are multiple clients hitting the storage.

Otherwise you might as well put the data you need to load fast on the SSD and manage it yourself. This is why the only time you really see people using hybrid drives is in laptops where space is a premium, the algorithms aren't that great and you can never be sure the data you want loading fast is going to come from SSD or HDD.

[kalniel]

Raid 0 + SSD cache is the way forward for gaming it makes so much sense I am suprised more don't do it.

RAID 0 is a horrible solution for mutli-purpose machines. Far better and faster to just buy a big SSD and let windows superfetch cache in RAM.

[Jowsey]

Raid 0 + SSD cache is the way forward for gaming it makes so much sense I am suprised more don't do it.

Mmmm, look at those points of failure stack up.

One single drive now has 3 drives that could fail and ruin it all.

Just get a good fast reliable SSD for personal use. Or, as mentioned, if multiple people are accessing this drive, you should probably not be using RAID 0.

[Ttaskmaster]

That is insane!!!

Before I got into serious gaming, I was capped at 40GB/month. This game would have annihilated my connection and resulted in massive overcharges... and yet many people still are thus capped, if not on less!

The more this goes on, the less I actually care about the game, TBH.

[cheesemp]

I don't think people are being fair about this. Yes the final total will probably be 100Gb but its unlikely you'll need to download that all in one go. While nothing is finalised they have discussed having a MMO (WOW) like stream downloading to allow just the download of the bits you need at the start. Also don't forget anyone on the alpha/betas will probably only need to patch each month keeping the downloads <10Gb a month. This game was always billed as pushing PC gaming to its limits (16K resolutions are now being discussed) - It was never going to be small. I think people also need to remember this is an early alpha still and things like the launcher will be improved. (and before anyone accuses me - sorry yes I am a fan boy but I think if people looked at the info being provided by the development team week on week you'd be excited too!)

[shaithis]

Regardless of whether they drip-feed the download or not, many people with broadband limits are going to be effected to the point where they will probably stay clear of the game due to the "hidden cost" of having to download it.

I think that at 100GB they could do a LOT more optimisations. It's such a vast amount of data and considering how much of the environment is (or at least should be) generated on-the-fly and not fixed, you do wonder how they could consume that much space.....unless of course they are doing a Titanfall and wasting 35GB of uncompressed audio.......

[Tabbykatze]

It boils down to either:
-The game manufacturers try to encompass everyone and push the game back technologically leading to a previous generation entity.
-The game manufacturer pushes the boundaries leading to those that can't initially support it with their existing technology, upgrade or over time force their suppliers to upgrade.

The latter option should be what's looked at to push forward the generations of technology.

[shaithis]

The latter option should be what's looked at to push forward the generations of technology.

Pretty much every game that has tried that has had poor sales, good luck to them if they try it still but in these days where the bean-counters seem to dictate way too much of what happens in game development, I doubt they will be allowed to.

[ZaO]

I love the idea of people who have broadband download limits, yet they'll have a rig powerful enough to enjoy this game lol... Maybe they'll sell it on disc for those people..

[kalniel]

I love the idea of people who have broadband download limits, yet they'll have a rig powerful enough to enjoy this game lol... Maybe they'll sell it on disc for those people..

When I lived in the US having a limit was the norm, not the exception. Things may have changed, but it can be easy to fall into the trap of projecting local expectations onto the rest of the world. Try politely blowing your nose in Japan

[GuidoLS]

I love the idea of people who have broadband download limits, yet they'll have a rig powerful enough to enjoy this game lol... Maybe they'll sell it on disc for those people..

Try living in an area where the only 3 options you have are dial-up, 6mb DSL and 24mb cable with a data cap. And data caps still exist for > 80% of the US, regardless of top end.

There are plenty of games that require this much power to run that have a MUCH smaller footprint. And others that are a complete waste of space, on multiple levels. The last Wolfenstein, for example - over 60gb for a grand total of 5-6 hours of game time? I guess someone can try to justify this with a straight face.

The thing that gets me is that because tech is so 'inexpensive' anymore, people turn a blind eye to sloppy, unoptimized programming. Just another example of the throwaway world that's rapidly spinning out of control.

[pastymuncher]

I love the idea of people who have broadband download limits, yet they'll have a rig powerful enough to enjoy this game lol... Maybe they'll sell it on disc for those people..

That's a extremely snobbish way of thinking. It's not just about capped connections. What about those of us who simply can't get a fast connection? I suppose that's our fault as well!!