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Middle Earth: Shadow of War has a ~60GB download on PC

Tweet says: "Shadow of War might be the single biggest download (at launch) I've ever seen. A lot is 4K video, plus a TON of uruk voice acting."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but 4K assets and a ton of sound probably take up a good amount of space. Xbox One X assets on 11/7 will probably push it near PC levels.

Eh, I don't have a problem with this.
Who the fuck asked for 4k prerendered cutscenes? Do that shit in real-time unless you're also negotiating with ISPs to stop being so incredibly shitty.

developers these days should take notes from CDPR, the best game of the generation, stunning graphics, huge open world with tons of things to do, voice acting on every character, over 200h of content, and all of that was 25GB at launch
No prerendered cutscenes helped.
 

xviper

Member
developers these days should take notes from CDPR, the best game of the generation, stunning graphics, huge open world with tons of things to do, voice acting on every character, over 200h of content, and all of that was 25GB at launch
 
Regardless of story quality for a triple A game there's always a lot of talent, time, money and effort put into the cutscenes....The post above says the game's cutscenes are in 4K, (again, even 2 minutes in 4K is an incredibly large file). On top of that is the metric fuckton of unique voice files. I hadn't even considered that factor truth be told. File size makes completely sense in this scenario.

Yeah it's perfect reasonable considering you are including basically a 4k blu-ray with the game. It's just I wish they wouldn't waste the budget, time and filesize on those cutscenes. But hey, it's the way to go.
 
Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo should require compression. Sure download speeds are faster and disc space is much larger but that doesn’t mean there’s no need for compression if the game fits.

There is no noticeable difference in quality between uncompressed and optimized assets and optimizing can reduce file size to by 30-60% on average. For those that want to go digital or have download caps/slower speed (and that’s a lot of people) it makes a huge difference.

On the flip side, people want to play on PC for the best image quality. Offering up highly compressed / low bitrate videos would be extremely distracting, particularly since a lot of Shadow of War has a lot of extremely dark scenes (visually dark). Dark scenes + low bitrate = extremely noticeable blocking artifacts which look like ass.

Xbox has their new Intelligent Delivery system which is designed to help cases like this though. You can split files up so you have an "English Audio", "German Audio", etc and a "4k asset" pack, etc. Then, if you're playing on an original Xbox One in English, it doesn't download the rest of the languages or the 4k assets since you can't use them.

I'm not sure if Steam or PSN have a similar feature though? The most I've seen on Steam is that for Rainbow Six Siege they have a free DLC pack for 'Ultra HD Textures". You could probably get it to work through the use of free DLC, but it would be very clunky to do, especially when it came to language support.
 
I've been wanting higher quality cutscenes for years, there's nothing worse than booting up a game in 4K (or hell, even 1080p) on a PC and then sitting through FLV-quality video. Especially on PC where storage is rarely a problem. It'd be nice to offer a "video pack" like high quality textures are made optional sometimes to give the choice between lower or higher quality video. But even something as simple as the opening logos being in shit-tier quality is very off-putting for me. I imagine this will be less an issue in the future when HEVC/AV1-capable hardware becomes common place and we can toss blocky low-res video all together.
 

KingBroly

Banned
Devs need to get their file sizes and update sizes under control

Digital Distribution is no excuse to be as big as they want.
 
On the flip side, people want to play on PC for the best image quality. Offering up highly compressed / low bitrate videos would be extremely distracting, particularly since a lot of Shadow of War has a lot of extremely dark scenes (visually dark). Dark scenes + low bitrate = extremely noticeable blocking artifacts which look like ass.

Xbox has their new Intelligent Delivery system which is designed to help cases like this though. You can split files up so you have an "English Audio", "German Audio", etc and a "4k asset" pack, etc. Then, if you're playing on an original Xbox One in English, it doesn't download the rest of the languages or the 4k assets since you can't use them.

I'm not sure if Steam or PSN have a similar feature though? The most I've seen on Steam is that for Rainbow Six Siege they have a free DLC pack for 'Ultra HD Textures". You could probably get it to work through the use of free DLC, but it would be very clunky to do, especially when it came to language support.
Is that Xbox system even in place yet? Even if it is, I doubt it exists in any games releasing this year.

Steam allows devs to treat stuff like this as DLC and make it optional to download. CoD does it that way to split up the campaign and multiplayer. Other games do that to make high resolution textures optional.

I've been wanting higher quality cutscenes for years, there's nothing worse than booting up a game in 4K (or hell, even 1080p) on a PC and then sitting through FLV-quality video. Especially on PC where storage is rarely a problem. It'd be nice to offer a "video pack" like high quality textures are made optional sometimes to give the choice between lower or higher quality video. But even something as simple as the opening logos being in shit-tier quality is very off-putting for me. I imagine this will be less an issue in the future when HEVC/AV1-capable hardware becomes common place and we can toss blocky low-res video all together.
Prerendered cutscenes are still jarring though. They play at a lower framerate than you're likely playing the game in, and they look significantly better than anything in-game. Real-time in-engine cutscenes are better, and they prevent more than 50% of the game's download size from being cutscenes people are just gonna skip.
 

bchan555

Member
It's kind of sad because I'm pretty sure the only people who care about a game's FILE SIZE are:

1) Americans
2) People who live in places with little access to the internet

In Asia and Europe nobody cares. It's amazing how one of the wealthiest nations on the planet is like 10 years behind everyone else.

I had 100mb uncapped fiber internet in Hong Kong for 30USD a month -- that was the CHEAPEST plan. I could have gone gigabit EASILY.

Since moving back to NYC I'm lucky to have gigabit with no caps for about 70USD a month.

The USA is a joke when it comes to internet.

I don't think it's on the developers and I don't think this is a problem they need to address. It just sucks for people who have shitty American ISPs.

Instead of bitching at developers people should be bitching at their draconian ISPs.
 
It's kind of sad because I'm pretty sure the only people who care about a game's FILE SIZE are:

1) Americans
2) People who live in places with little access to the internet

In Asia and Europe nobody cares. It's amazing how one of the wealthiest nations on the planet is like 10 years behind everyone else.

I had 100mb uncapped fiber internet in Hong Kong for 30USD a month -- that was the CHEAPEST plan. I could have gone gigabit EASILY.

Since moving back to NYC I'm lucky to have gigabit with no caps for about 70USD a month.

The USA is a joke when it comes to internet.

I don't think it's on the developers and I don't think this is a problem they need to address. It just sucks for people who have shitty American ISPs.

Instead of bitching at developers people should be bitching at their draconian ISPs.

This.

US is a 3rd World Country when it comes to data. Seriously that is so disgusting.

Here things go better and better because government actually thinks about it's citizens instead of spreading their ass cheeks for corporations.

You guys really need a revolution there.
 

Kintaro

Worships the porcelain goddess
Remember how big Super Mario Odyssey is supposed to be?
Devs, more like that.

While Odyssey will be awesome, those assets won't look very good at 1440p/4k or beyond. Will look great on Switch though!

Instead of bitching at developers people should be bitching at their draconian ISPs.

Super, duper true.

But yeah, lets bitch at Shadow of War some more though. =)
 

Yarbskoo

Member
I've been wanting higher quality cutscenes for years, there's nothing worse than booting up a game in 4K (or hell, even 1080p) on a PC and then sitting through FLV-quality video. Especially on PC where storage is rarely a problem. It'd be nice to offer a "video pack" like high quality textures are made optional sometimes to give the choice between lower or higher quality video. But even something as simple as the opening logos being in shit-tier quality is very off-putting for me. I imagine this will be less an issue in the future when HEVC/AV1-capable hardware becomes common place and we can toss blocky low-res video all together.

Prerendered sequences will always look off on PC. Even if they were totally uncompressed, there's no way to account for differences in aspect ratio, framerate, resolution, or even mods. The only way to ensure parity with the real-time graphics is to have real-time cutscenes.

While Odyssey will be awesome, those assets won't look very good at 1440p/4k or beyond.

Pretty much everything looks better at higher resolutions.
 

Gren

Member
Instead of bitching at developers people should be bitching at their draconian ISPs.

HDD space is still a thing. Regardless it doesn't let these devs/pubs off the hook. They know their target audience (i.e. a lot of Americans); why make it an inconvenience for them to get their games?

At least with Win32 there are sometimes ways users can rear this excess back a bit. Console & UWP variants are essentially SOL.

EDIT: Did not know about that new Xbox delivery system. Thank god, with all these companies pushing digital hard, at least they're doing something to mitigate ever-ballooning filesizes.
 

Link1110

Member
Can't they just compress these things and maybe offer the uncompressed as DLC,? Make it paid DLC for all I care cause I wouldn't bother buying it
 
Prerendered cutscenes are still jarring though. They play at a lower framerate than you're likely playing the game in, and they look significantly better than anything in-game. Real-time in-engine cutscenes are better, and they prevent more than 50% of the game's download size from being cutscenes people are just gonna skip.

Prerendered sequences will always look off on PC. Even if they were totally uncompressed, there's no way to account for differences in aspect ratio, framerate, resolution, or even mods. The only way to ensure parity with the real-time graphics is to have real-time cutscenes.

Obviously in-engine is ideal but this is clearly not always available, so in that case I'd rather have the highest quality video available. An aspect-ratio of frame rate dip doesn't bother me as much in a non-playable cutscene as giant macroblocks, banding or blur due to lack of resolution. I also wouldn't mind those cutscenes being rendered at 60 fps rather than 30, but this would further increase file size.
 
I remember seeing a Repack for the 55 GB Final Fantasy XIII on PC that cut all the cutscenes and guess what was the final size ...... it was 3 GB

If this goes on , then I guess Retail PC will return to a lot of people
 

Memento

Member
I am actually sadder with the 17 minutes remaining for 60 fucking GB.

My internet speed would lock my PS4 for an entire weekend to download something like that, Jesus
 

Fbh

Member
And after a few patches it will probably be 120+.

I agree that devs need to start offering stuff like 4K cutscenes and FLAC audio (or whatever big format they are using) as optional downloads in the same way that other games have offered other languages (voices) or higher res textures as optional downloads.
 

Stop It

Perfectly able to grasp the inherent value of the fishing game.
And after a few patches it will probably be 120+.

I agree that devs need to start offering stuff like 4K cutscenes and FLAC audio (or whatever big format they are using) as optional downloads in the same way that other games have offered language (voices) or higher res textures as optional downloads.
That would be an acceptable compromise for everyone I think.

Some people don't have 4K capable equipment (You have my pity) or don't care about FLAC enough to justify blowing through their data caps for content they don't want or need.

Personally, I would download a extra data pack with 4K video and FLAC as I have unlimited 200/20 internet, but not everyone has a connection like that and 100GB is pretty scary for a slower or capped connection.
 

Neith

Banned
DLer5_9VAAAE_Rz.jpg:large

https://twitter.com/DanStapleton/status/916390593340751872

Uncompressed audio/video files strike again. This may not even include high resolution textures which were an optional free DLC last time. The inevitable repacks that pirates download will probably bring it down to less than half the size like they did with Nier Automata (48GB to 23GB). It's ridiculous, especially when you consider that a ton of people will be playing on SSDs and have ISP bandwidth caps. Can developers please stop doing this?

Render cutscenes in engine. Stop bloating games unnecessarily. Also, we don't need our sound files in FLAC. Just saying.

63.93GB on PS4 Pro too.

Complaining about lossless sound? Please just stop now. This is great that a dev cares about this. FLAC=compression.

I agree they could offer less if people want it, but lossless sound is a good thing, not a bad thing, and it doesn't ADD that much to the files. At most a couple gigs here and there big deal.
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.

robotrock

Banned
I feel like pretendered cutscenes never work right on PC. Always a stuttery mess or audio drop outs. Plus they age like garbage and usually look inconsistent to the rest of the game.
 

Twentieth

Member
As someone with a 100GB data cap per month in a country where physical games are much more expensive, I can guarantee I'll never pick this game up. This is just cherry on top after the loot box fiasco.
 

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
I dislike pre-rendered videos but understand the need sometime but uncompressed audio is a VERY good thing and should not be removed to save space.
 

cripterion

Member
It's kind of sad because I'm pretty sure the only people who care about a game's FILE SIZE are:

1) Americans
2) People who live in places with little access to the internet

In Asia and Europe nobody cares. It's amazing how one of the wealthiest nations on the planet is like 10 years behind everyone else.

I had 100mb uncapped fiber internet in Hong Kong for 30USD a month -- that was the CHEAPEST plan. I could have gone gigabit EASILY.

Since moving back to NYC I'm lucky to have gigabit with no caps for about 70USD a month.

The USA is a joke when it comes to internet.

I don't think it's on the developers and I don't think this is a problem they need to address. It just sucks for people who have shitty American ISPs.

Instead of bitching at developers people should be bitching at their draconian ISPs.

What a fucking cocky post. Check the advancement of internet fiber in France and come back to me. I haven't had a download increase since we got the DSL connection and I struggle to reach 1MB/s in my downloads. Internet fiber is due in 2021.
 

Maximo

Member
Cuningas de Häme;251214785 said:
This.

US is a 3rd World Country when it comes to data. Seriously that is so disgusting.

Here things go better and better because government actually thinks about it's citizens instead of spreading their ass cheeks for corporations.

You guys really need a revolution there.

Mate you should see Australia its fucking bad I get max 2mb download on Steam.
 
The cutscenes and story of the first one were so awful. I would much prefer a version of the game which simply didn't include any of them. Not even for data reasons but just because they add nothing of value to the game except waste my time or hide loading screens
 
Can't they just use HEVC compression on the videos and some kind of good compression on the audio?

I kind of touched on that a bit above but that's not really feasible right now because HEVC requires a beefy CPU for software decoding and there isn't a lot of hardware support out there for it yet to decode via GPU like H.264 is today. Lots of low to mid and even some slightly older but still high-end systems would not handle HEVC video well. And only the PS4 Pro, Xbox One S/X actually have hardware for HEVC decoding too, and the benefit of the current compression methods is that it works on all platforms and costs minimal system resources.
 
I'm old enough to remember people saying games need to stop being so big ever since the first 1gb game came out, and then again at 2gb, and again at 5gb, so on and so on. They're just going to keep getting bigger.
 

Braag

Member
I mean I just checked and Gears 4 is over 120gb... so yeah, some games are just bigger I guess?
 

faridmon

Member
Good, less games to buy. Love when devs give me reasons not to buy their games. There are so many games out this month
 

Syriel

Member
17 minutes to download ~60gigs

Lemme hold some of that good internet.

That's only 500 Mbps. Not even gigabit.

Then again, XBL seems to top out around 200 Mbps, so Steam has an advantage there.

That's my only complaint about large file sizes. I'll take the bigger files if it means higher quality assets, but publishers really need to invest in high speed CDNs to deliver said content.
 

UrbanRats

Member
I guess that's the nail in the coffin for me.
97GB it's insane.

We're probably going to get there eventually, but i'm not ready for it, yet (and certainly not for this game).
 
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