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Official Xbox 360 Game Installs thread

acm2000

Member
Grimm Fandango said:
So the horrible pop-up in Mass Effect remains? Blarg.

thats the games fault, it doesnt use HDD cache at all, so has to decompress everything etc, iso on the hdd isnt gonna speed that up much, they never did patch it to support hdd cache :(
 

xero273

Member
moai said:
a little expensive but seems to be worth it.

You could make your own 120 GB hd if you don't feel like spending that much money. There are tutorials online that show you how to do it.
 
acm2000 said:
thats the games fault, it doesnt use HDD cache at all, so has to decompress everything etc, iso on the hdd isnt gonna speed that up much, they never did patch it to support hdd cache :(
This.

To be honest I don't care whether there is small or non improvement. Heck, give me even 1-2 seconds more loading, as long as the dvd drive doesn't spin.

Less noise
Little bit faster loading
No danger of scratched discs
Profit
 

Sectus

Member
Well, I'm getting tempted to buy a 120gb so I can actually install games, but then again the price of a retail one is just insane.

Anyone know if there's any drawback with buying a used 120gb drive? If I buy a used drive and a transfer kit, can I easily move all my data from my old 20gb to the 120gb? Or does that only work with new un-used 120gb drives?
 

DaCocoBrova

Finally bought a new PSP, but then pushed the demon onto someone else. Jesus.
Sectus said:
Well, I'm getting tempted to buy a 120gb so I can actually install games, but then again the price of a retail one is just insane.

Anyone if there's any drawback with buying a used 120gb drive? If I buy a used drive and a transfer kit, can I easily move all my data from my old 20gb to the 120gb? Or does that only work with new non-used 120gb drives?


Just do it yourself...

http://www.slashgear.com/diy-xbox-260-hdd-upgrade-234882/
 
Hellraizer said:
To be honest I don't care whether there is small or non improvement. Heck, give me even 1-2 seconds more loading, as long as the dvd drive doesn't spin.

For some games I'd take increased load times. I'd wait 10 minutes for Crackdown to boot up to avoid hearing my fucking console screaming internally while it plays.
 

Brashnir

Member
A few more games in my possession that aren't on the list:

Guitar Hero 2 (3.4 GB)
Overlord (3.4 GB)
Star Wars:Force Unleashed (6.6 GB)
Two Worlds (3.4 GB)

I think that's all I have.
 

drakesfortune

Directions: Pull String For Uninformed Rant
Do you still have to swap disks in Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon or can you just leave the first disk in?
 
drakesfortune said:
Do you still have to swap disks in Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon or can you just leave the first disk in?

you have to install what your currently playing ....so if your on Disc2 in BD, then you gotta have disc2 installed and run from that
 

Slayven

Member
Brashnir said:
A few more games in my possession that aren't on the list:

Guitar Hero 2 (3.4 GB)
Overlord (3.4 GB)
Star Wars:Force Unleashed (6.6 GB)
Two Worlds (3.4 GB)

I think that's all I have.

Does it clear up Two Worlds' stuttering?
 

Creamium

shut uuuuuuuuuuuuuuup
And to think I just put 80 hours into LO and that (outside of the DLC) I have nothing left to do sidequest and achievement wise. Ah well, time well spent nonetheless. Really good game.
 

acm2000

Member
Darunia said:
And to think I just put 80 hours into LO and that (outside of the DLC) I have nothing left to do sidequest and achievement wise. Ah well, time well spent nonetheless. Really good game.

looking at that video, 40 hours of that was loading :lol
 

masterkajo

Member
Darunia said:
And to think I just put 80 hours into LO and that (outside of the DLC) I have nothing left to do sidequest and achievement wise. Ah well, time well spent nonetheless. Really good game.
I guess it would be about 50-60 hours if you had waited for the install feature... :lol
 

Creamium

shut uuuuuuuuuuuuuuup
masterkajo said:
I guess it would be about 50-60 hours if you had waited for the install feature... :lol


heh, maybe. But like others have said already, the loading times never seemed that long like they did in the vid.
 
What's the deal with Halo 3, I was going to install it but it supposedly makes the loads longer?

Can someone please explain? You would think that one of Microsoft's marquee titles would have been checked to work well with Game Installs.
 

acm2000

Member
snack said:
What's the deal with Halo 3, I was going to install it but it supposedly makes the loads longer?

Can someone please explain? You would think that one of Microsoft's marquee titles would have been checked to work well with Game Installs.

probably to do with decompression and the like, HDD wont make any difference to that
 

Amon37

Member
Darunia said:
heh, maybe. But like others have said already, the loading times never seemed that long like they did in the vid.

On disc 1 the load times were shorter but for me on discs 2,3,4 the load times were increasingly longer. I don't ever remember it taking 35 sec to get into a battle but I haven't played it in so long.
 

pr0cs

Member
snack said:
What's the deal with Halo 3, I was going to install it but it supposedly makes the loads longer?

Can someone please explain? You would think that one of Microsoft's marquee titles would have been checked to work well with Game Installs.


You should actually read the thread, it was already posted on page 1.

LukeSmith said:
Jokes aside, installation for 360 games wasn't really something we were told about while Halo 3 was in development. Like someone above said, we had to get the game running under the parameters we (and tons of other devs) were given (i.e., 'no hard drive, no problem') and Noguchi's cache-system is a huge part of why it runs as awesome as it does in the no-HDD environment. Games that use the cache memory extensively aren't going to see much if any benefit from installing on the 360 since the data transfer from the HDD is slower than it is from the disc if the disc is spinning information to the cache.
 

NekoFever

Member
Seeing the explanation for Halo, that might explain the stuttering with PGR4. It could cache game data and stream audio from the disc, so running it all from the HDD gives it less bandwidth and so bottlenecks it. That's my theory.

I might go back to Lost Odyssey based on that comparison. I don't remember things being that bad but it could definitely get annoying in dungeons.
 

Deadly

Member
As for Lost Odyssey, do we have to install all 4 DVDs at once? or can we install them one at a time? I've never even been able to go pass half of Disc1 because the drive can't even read it anymore hopefully it will be able to install instead...

Edit: How's this going to affect rentals? Won't we essentially be able to rent install return profit?
 

ultim8p00

Banned
Installed Ninja Gaiden 2.
On Acolyte*, there is a noticably reduced slowdown; even the 1 billion ninjas staircase feels a little bit faster. Also, there are practically no mid level loads and no quick menu loads. I encountered a few, but it just said "loading" and the game did not freeze.
On Warrior*, same as as above.
On Mentor, same as above, except the slowdown is just about pre-hdd levels.
On Master Ninja, slowdown is just about the same as mentor, with no loads.

Chapter intro loads are about 4secs shorter.

Also, the controls are now MUCH more responsive imo. Before, I used to feel this weird lag just after I press a button. Now, it's much easeir to pull of stun evasion dashes and stuff.

Tested on a flatscreen CRT. Can anyone confirm some of this?

*EDIT: I just realized that I am comparing my second NG2 playthrough of Acolyte and Warrior to those at pre-patch levels. That pretty much means that the slowdown being reduced is due to the patch, NOT the HDD. Mentor and Master Ninja are post-patch though, so those still hold.
 

DustoMan

Banned
I wonder if it actually would be harmful to install games that cache to the HDD so heavily like Halo 3. Would the drive head going back and forth between the disk image and the drive cache so much introduce extra wear on the hard drive? Probably not because I'm sure the drives are rated for a ton of read and write cycles, but still something to think about.
 
Deadly said:
As for Lost Odyssey, do we have to install all 4 DVDs at once? or can we install them one at a time? I've never even been able to go pass half of Disc1 because the drive can't even read it anymore hopefully it will be able to install instead...

Edit: How's this going to affect rentals? Won't we essentially be able to rent install return profit?

Read the bloody OP.
 

h3ro

Member
Deadly said:
As for Lost Odyssey, do we have to install all 4 DVDs at once? or can we install them one at a time? I've never even been able to go pass half of Disc1 because the drive can't even read it anymore hopefully it will be able to install instead...

Edit: How's this going to affect rentals? Won't we essentially be able to rent install return profit?

Oh bloody hell... man, seriously? Read the OP.
 
With the help of my nephew as an unwilling assistant I've managed to do some Halo 3 load time comparisons. Sadly I had to use two different machines as I don't have a working memory card here but it's still pretty interesting.

To do each test we went to the campaign screen and timed from pressing the button on the "Mission Start" option of each level until the loading was complete and the mission was ready to start. As we know, filling the HDD cache results in the initial load time being pretty long... but it's not something loading without the HDD attached suffers from. Also, once the cache is filled, loading the level a second time is much faster (faster than without the HDD attached). Until the cache is overwritten of course.

Results
Caching: DVD & HDD (Filling cache, first load)
Cached: DVD & HDD (Cache present, second load)
DVD: DVD Only (No HDD attached to cache to, profile on memory card)
EG Installed: Eurogamer article times for running from the install.

Code:
		[B]Caching		Cached		DVD		EG Installed[/B]
Sierra 117	66.2s		12.5s		25.2s		53.0s
Crows Nest	85.6s		14.2s		23.6s		70.0s
Tsavo Highway	72.0s		9.5s		18.6s		57.0s
The Storm	84.4s		11.3s		21.9s		64.0s
Floodgate	80.6s		12.3s		25.2s		64.5s
The Ark		88.2s		13.4s		28.5s		69.0s
The Covenant	99.3s		11.5s		24.2s		78.0s
Cortana		59.3s		9.5s		14.5s		48.5s
Halo		81.3s		12.7s		22.1s		65.0s

From what I could tell, the cache will only hold two levels, so if you load like this:

Sierra 117,
Crows Nest,
Tsavo Highway

When you cache Tsavo Highway the cache for Sierra 117 is overwritten (This may vary depending on the size of the level, I don't know). To test the cached load times I did the loading / testing in the following order.

Sierra 117 - Ignored
Crows Nest - Ignored
Sierra 117 - Test 2
Tsavo Highway - Test 1
Crows Nest - Test 2
The Storm - Test 1
Tsavo Highway - Test 2
...
Sierra 117 - Test 1
Halo - Test 2
Crows Nest - Test 1

Yes... I'm a nerd. Hopefully someone else finds this interesting though. :lol
 

MCD

Junior Member
LukeSmith said:
Jokes aside, installation for 360 games wasn't really something we were told about while Halo 3 was in development. Like someone above said, we had to get the game running under the parameters we (and tons of other devs) were given (i.e., 'no hard drive, no problem') and Noguchi's cache-system is a huge part of why it runs as awesome as it does in the no-HDD environment. Games that use the cache memory extensively aren't going to see much if any benefit from installing on the 360 since the data transfer from the HDD is slower than it is from the disc if the disc is spinning information to the cache.

I wonder if a patch is still possible.
 
Oh, and re the results vs the EG installed... I'm not sure why they're quicker than the first load times on my system. I can't tell if they use a different methodology or if it's something else entirely. I'll use the same method again to do the test after I get the new dashboard.
 

Pimpbaa

Member
acm2000 said:
thats the games fault, it doesnt use HDD cache at all, so has to decompress everything etc, iso on the hdd isnt gonna speed that up much, they never did patch it to support hdd cache :(

But the texture pop in is reduced. The textures load quite a bit faster.
 
Just picked up a 120GB on clearance at Target, can't wait till next week. I'm definitely tempted to start up Lost Odyssey again, and I'll definitely be installing Tiger 09, which seems to incessantly access the disc.
 

Flyguy

Member
GitarooMan said:
Just picked up a 120GB on clearance at Target, can't wait till next week. I'm definitely tempted to start up Lost Odyssey again, and I'll definitely be installing Tiger 09, which seems to incessantly access the disc.
What was the clearance price? Is the sale still on?
 

manngc

Member
Psychotext said:
With the help of my nephew as an unwilling assistant I've managed to do some Halo 3 load time comparisons. Sadly I had to use two different machines as I don't have a working memory card here but it's still pretty interesting.

To do each test we went to the campaign screen and timed from pressing the button on the "Mission Start" option of each level until the loading was complete and the mission was ready to start. As we know, filling the HDD cache results in the initial load time being pretty long... but it's not something loading without the HDD attached suffers from. Also, once the cache is filled, loading the level a second time is much faster (faster than without the HDD attached). Until the cache is overwritten of course.

Results
Caching: DVD & HDD (Filling cache, first load)
Cached: DVD & HDD (Cache present, second load)
DVD: DVD Only (No HDD attached to cache to, profile on memory card)
EG Installed: Eurogamer article times for running from the install.

Code:
		[B]Caching		Cached		DVD		EG Installed[/B]
Sierra 117	66.2s		12.5s		25.2s		53.0s
Crows Nest	85.6s		14.2s		23.6s		70.0s
Tsavo Highway	72.0s		9.5s		18.6s		57.0s
The Storm	84.4s		11.3s		21.9s		64.0s
Floodgate	80.6s		12.3s		25.2s		64.5s
The Ark		88.2s		13.4s		28.5s		69.0s
The Covenant	99.3s		11.5s		24.2s		78.0s
Cortana		59.3s		9.5s		14.5s		48.5s
Halo		81.3s		12.7s		22.1s		65.0s

From what I could tell, the cache will only hold two levels, so if you load like this:

Sierra 117,
Crows Nest,
Tsavo Highway

When you cache Tsavo Highway the cache for Sierra 117 is overwritten (This may vary depending on the size of the level, I don't know). To test the cached load times I did the loading / testing in the following order.

Sierra 117 - Ignored
Crows Nest - Ignored
Sierra 117 - Test 2
Tsavo Highway - Test 1
Crows Nest - Test 2
The Storm - Test 1
Tsavo Highway - Test 2
...
Sierra 117 - Test 1
Halo - Test 2
Crows Nest - Test 1

Yes... I'm a nerd. Hopefully someone else finds this interesting though. :lol
Thanks for the baseline data. Now we need someone else to perform the installed tested like you did the other tests.
 

diffusionx

Gold Member
I am glad I didn't trade in LO... the slowness of that game, and the load times were part of it, really turned me off. I may try it again when I get a 120gb hard drive, which will be soon (sad thing is, I will be paying almost 2X more for it than the 640gb SATA drive I just bought for my PC... fucking Microsoft). Mass Effect might be worth another go, too. I might put off playing Fable 2 until then, too, I hear it helps clear up some of those load times to menus.

This is a really good feature.
 
Great thread. Bad beat about Halo 3 but HDD installs are all about noise/wear and tear reduction in my eyes. Loading reduction seems like an added benefit.
 

fernoca

Member
I'll quote myself regarding another game not in the OP:
fernoca @ The Official Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts thread said:
If anyone was wondering..the install size is 6.6GB.
Loadings have been really short or no loadings at all, but I've been playing with it installed since the first second.
 
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