• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Official Xbox 360 Game Installs thread

Sean

Banned
With the "New Xbox Experience" dashboard update releasing officially next week (many here already have it) I thought it'd be a good idea to have a dedicated thread to discuss everything related to the game installs feature. In here we will catalog the size of each game install, how much it benefits from being installed, warn if there's any issues with it while playing off the hard drive, list which games aren't supported for installs, post cheap deals on bigger hard drives, etc.

If you notice something missing (or a correction) please post about it and I'll add to OP. Disclaimer: I can't possibly verify all of these sizes/notes, just going off of what people tell me. If there's an error please correct it and be nice about it.

Game - Install Size - Notes
- All Pro Football 2k8 (5.0 GB)
- Amped 3 (6.7 GB)
- Army of Two (5.7 GB)
- Assassin's Creed (6.7 GB) -- Jerusalem load 39.5 seconds (DVD) vs 25 seconds (HDD)
- Battlefield: Bad Company (6.5 GB)
- Battlestations: Midway (5.5 GB)
- Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts (6.6 GB) -- cuts 2-6 seconds off loads
- Beautiful Katamari (3.4 GB)
- BioShock (6.1 GB) -- Point Prometheus level 35 seconds (DVD) vs 24.5 seconds (HDD)
- Blazing Angels (3.4 GB)
- Blue Dragon (19.9 GB for all disks - 6.6 GB, 6.5 GB, 6.8 GB)
- Brother's in Arms: Hell's Highway (5.2 GB)
- Bullet Witch (5.2 GB)
- Bully: Scholarship Edition (3.4 GB) -- "load times vanish"
- Burnout Revenge (4.4 GB) -- load/restart of Eastern Bay (a long forward race): DVD 26 seconds HDD 11 seconds
- Burnout Paradise (3.4 GB)
- C&C: Tiberium Wars (6.6 GB)
- Call of Duty 2 (6.0 GB) -- saves 2-3 seconds each loadtime
- Call of Duty 3 (5.8 GB)
- Call of Duty 4 (6.7 GB)
- Call of Duty: World at War (6.5 GB)
- Cars (5.2 GB)
- Chromehounds (4.2 GB)
- Civilization Revolution (6.3 GB)
- Clive Barker's Jericho (5.6 GB)
- Colin McRae Dirt (6.4 GB)
- Command & Conquer 3 (3.6GB)
- Condemned (5.4 GB)
- Condemned 2: Bloodshot (6.8 GB)
- Dark Messiah: Might and Magic (6.1 GB) -- "seems to fix the music cutting out issue. It loads a little faster too"
- Dark Sector (3.4 GB) -- chapter 6 loaded 10-11 secs with install versus 15-16 normal
- Dead or Alive 4 (6.8GB)
- Dead Rising (6.6 GB)
- Dead Space -- "shortens the initial load time and the load time when accessing save stations"
- Devil May Cry 4 (6.7 GB)
- Dynasty Warriors Gundam (5.6 GB)
- Earth Defense Force 2017 (3.4 GB)
- Eternal Sonata (6.8 GB)
- Fable 2 (6.8 GB) -- the brief stutter when accessing inventory menus or expressions is gone
- Fallout 3 (5.9 GB)
- Far Cry 2 (4.5 GB)
- FIFA 09 (6.0 GB)
- Fight Night Round 3 (3.4 GB)
- Flatout Ultimate Carnage (4.9 GB)
- Forza 2 (5.3 GB)
- Full Auto (3.4 GB)
- Gears of War (6.5 GB)
- Gears of War 2 (6.7 GB) initial load 8 seconds shorter, causes stuttering at "saving game" checkpoints
- Ghost Recon: Advance Warfighter (5.2 GB)
- Ghost Recon: Advance Warfighter 2 (6.8 GB)
- Grand Theft Auto IV (6.7 GB) -- decreases initial load time from 46.5 to 33 seconds
- GRID (6.6 GB) -- "cant be installed after the patch, for some bizare reason."
- Guitar Hero 2 (3.4 GB)
- Guitar Hero: World Tour (6.5 GB)
- GUN (3.6 GB)
- Hitman: Blood Money (5.8 GB)
- Halo 3 (6.3 GB) -- load times are apparently worse (10 seconds longer) when installed
- Idolm@ster (5.1 GB)
- Idolm@ster Live 4 U (5.9 GB)
- Infinite Undiscovery (12.5 GB for both discs, disc 1 6GB disc 2 6.5GB)
- Kameo (5.9 GB)
- King Kong (6.5 GB)
- Left 4 Dead (5.0 GB)
- Lego Star Wars The Complete Saga (5.8 GB)
- LIPS (4.7 GB)
- Lord of the Rings: Battle For Middle Earth (4.4 GB)
- Lost Planet (6.8 GB)
- Lost: Via Domus (4.2 GB)
- Lost Odyssey (23.2 GB for all discs: 5.8, 5.2, 6.3, and 6.2) -- 2 times faster playing off HDD (video)
- Madden 09 (6.7 GB) -- "game doesn't hitch anymore when going in or coming out of an instant replay"
- Mass Effect (6.8 GB) -- No more "Loading" pauses when moving too fast. Elevator load times are identical (hardcoded)
- Mercenaries 2 (6.7 GB)
- Midnight Club: LA (6.0 GB)
- Mirror's Edge (5.7 GB) -- eliminates (or greatly reduces) the amount of brief "Now Loading" pauses that pop up mid-level
- Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe (6.4 GB) -- not much difference, load times are only 1-2 seconds shorter
- Namco Museum Virtual Arcade (3.4 GB)
- NBA 2K9 (6.7GB) -- helps framerate issues and previously frequent hanging
- NBA Live 09 (?? GB) -- "now we're getting stutters inbetween baskets"
- Need for Speed Most Wanted (6.8 GB)
- NHL 09 (5.7 GB)
- Ninja Gaiden II (6.8 GB) -- 125 seconds initial load on DVD, 45 seconds off HDD. No loading when selecting a weapon from quick switch menu
- Overlord (3.4 GB)
- Perfect Dark Zero (4.9 GB)
- Pure (4.4 GB)
- Pro Evolution Soccer 6 (3.4 GB)
- Project Gotham Racing 3 (6.2 GB)
- Project Gotham Racing 4 (6.0 GB) -- average load is 6-10 seconds shorter, some users report occasional audio popping
- Quantum of Solace (6.8 GB)
- Raiden IV (3.4 GB)
- Raiden Fighters Aces (3.4 GB)
- Rainbow Six Vegas (6.7 GB)
- Ridge Racer 6 (6.5 GB)
- Rock Band (5.2 GB)
- Rock Band 2 (6.3GB)
- Rumble Roses XX (4.5GB) -- seems like 1/3 taken off loading times
- Saints Row (6.8 GB)
- Saints Row 2 (6.8 GB)
- Scene It (6.8 GB)
- SEGA Rally (4.2 GB)
- Shadowrun (4.3 GB)
- Shikigami no Shiro 3 (3.4 GB)
- skate (6.5 GB) -- "load times virtually the same, only exception: Clothes - they basically barely loaded at all before, now it's all smooth"
- Smackdown vs RAW 2009 (?? GB) -- "is INSANE from the HD, almost instant loading. Fantastic."
- Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 ( GB) -- "game loads about 15-20% faster"
- Soul Calibur IV (5.9 GB)
- Splinter Cell: Double Agent (6.8 GB)
- Star Trek Legacy (5.7 GB)
- Star Wars: Force Unleashed (6.6 GB)
- Stranglehold (6.7 GB)
- Stuntman Ignition (5.8 GB)
- Table Tennis (3.4 GB)
- Tales of Vesperia (5.9 GB) -- "loads like it runs off of a cartridge at times"
- Tengai Makyou Ziria: Harukanaru Jipang (6.0 GB)
- The Club (5.2 GB)
- The Darkness (6.8 GB) -- "loads noticeably faster. I didn't do any comparisons but it feels a lot quicker travelling between areas."
- The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (6.7 GB) -- Great Forest loadtime 44.5 seconds (DVD) vs 31 seconds (HDD)
- The Orange Box (4.7 GB) -- HL2 load time cut in half (44.5 vs 25.5 seconds), loading saved game 'We don't go there any more' shaved off 32 seconds
- Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 (6.0 GB)
- Tomb Raider Anniversary (6.4 GB)
- Tomb Raider Legend (6.7 GB)
- Tony Hawk's American Wasteland (5.0 GB)
- Too Human (6.2 GB)
- Two Worlds (3.4 GB)
- Unreal Tournament 3 (6.4 GB)
- Viking:Battle for Asgard (5.9 GB)
- Virtua Fighter 5 (4.7 GB)
- Virtua Tennis 3 (4.1 GB)
- Viva Piñata (5.0 GB)
- Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise (5.2 GB)
- Warriors Orochi (6.4 GB)
- Warriors Orochi 2 (6.8 GB)
- Wartech Senko no Ronde (3.4GB)
- WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2007 (6.8 GB)
- WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2008 (5.8 GB)
- WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2009 (6.6 GB)
- Xbox Live Arcade Compilation Disc (5.9 GB)
- Xbox Live Arcade Unplugged Vol.1 (3.4 GB)


If you don't see a game listed here, check the CAG list and AVSForum list.

Games "not supported" for installation
When you try to install these games you'll get an error that says "Installation of this game is not supported."

- Burger King trilogy - Big Bumpin, Pocketbike Racer, Sneak King
- Crackdown
- Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball 2
- Quake II (included on Quake IV bonus disk)

FAQ/Notes/How to
To install a game you simply insert the disc and press the Y button to bring up "Game Details" and then click on the "Install to Hard Drive" option. Installs take about 10 minutes. You'll still need to have the disc in the drive as anti-piracy/verification measure and when ejecting the disc of an installed game you'll be booted back to the dashboard just like normal. As the disc drive (noisiest part of the system) doesn't spin up, your console should sound like it does when playing a Marketplace demo.

- The 120GB HDD was slightly faster than 20GB (1 or 2 seconds) in Eurogamers testing, no word on the 60GB yet.

Links
- The Xbox Experience: Install & Noise Test - IGN (video)
- New Xbox Experience: DVD vs. Hard Disk Face-Off - Eurogamer
- Another comparison (Assassin's Creed, BioShock, Oblivion, GTAIV, CoD2)
- Bought a new HDD and need transfer kit? Check out this thread: Pay it forward - XBOX360 HDD Transfer Cable
 
I was all set to install some games to my hard drive to reduce the noise while playing but Halo 3 having worse load times kills that one and I don't have enough gigs on my 20GB HD for Fable 2. :lol

Well this sucks.
 
This is going to be so awesome -- 99% of the games will see noteworthy reductions in load times, but the major emphasis on these boards will be about how the latency actually increased with Halo 3.
 
professor_t said:
This is going to be so awesome -- 99% of the games will see noteworthy reductions in load times, but the major emphasis on these boards will be about how the latency actually increased with Halo 3.

It is a little strange though. Will this affect matchmaking as well?

Looking forward to finding out which games benefit the most. Any word on Mass Effect? I held off on playing it because it seemed... unstable. Will this help?
 

Mohonky

Member
Xevren said:
Really wish I could find a deal on the 120 gig HD, I only have 3 gigs left on my 20 =/


It's worth it, I find my dashboard runs much faster with all that extra space available.
 
Microsoft stated that you will notice much improvements when installing old xbox 360 games on your HDD, not so much newer games.
 
D

Deleted member 284

Unconfirmed Member
TheGreatDave said:
Code:
Guitar Hero Aerosmith...............[4.5GB]
Guitar Hero: World Tour.............[3.4GB]

I don't understand.
DLC ;)
 

No_Style

Member
Danthrax said:
no but seriously WHAT'S UP with that Halo 3's increased load times?? bullshit, man

Perhaps this is the answer:

Eurogamer Article said:
The Campaign mode appears to be caching a lot of stuff from DVD to hard disk - load one campaign, then the next, then return to the original and you'll find that it'll load much faster than it did the first time. I could only imagine in this case that the hard disk is being read twice over, with less than impressive results. The tests were re-run again to ensure that everything was being loaded in the same order, but nothing changed - the bottom line is that Halo 3 already loads quite slowly from DVD, and it's even slower on hard disk.

Moving away from the Campaign option on the main menu and simply starting off a brand new solo mission didn't help either - loading time was twice as slow. It's clear that there's a hell of a lot of data caching going on in Halo 3, and you can't help but think that a patch could fix this, so I'll be interested to see if Bungie attacks the issue.
 

Z_Y

Member
For fucks sake....Crackdown was the reason I was looking forward to the install feature. The game makes my drive sound like a servo bot walking into a bug light.
 

Cday

Banned
- Fable 2 (6.8 GB) -- the brief pause/lag when accessing inventory menus is gone or noticeably reduced

:D

Sadly it won't fix how horrible the whole menu deal is in the first place.
 

Blueblur1

Member
Barakov said:
The time for Halo 3 is mind boggling. Then again a quiet 360 is a quiet 360.

Here's the deal. From a Bungie employee.

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.
 

burgerdog

Member
tissot said:
Anyone know how much faster the load times are in Fallout?

Unfortunately, I can't tell you how much faster it is because I didn't bother to time it, but it is definitely faster by at least a few seconds on the HD. You have to remember that there's no noise drive at all when you install, so even if loading times were the same, it's still worth it to install.

Ninja Gaiden 2
125 seconds from boot to gameplay: DVD
45 seconds from boot to gameplay: HDD
No loading after you select a weapon from the quick-switch menu. You go back to the game instantly after you select your weapon.

Mass Effect
I didn't encounter a single game pause "Loading" with the game installed. When you're playing off the DVD and you're running from one area to another the game stops and gives you a Loading message if you're moving too fast.

Second edit
I'd like to mention that these times are from a 120gb.
 
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.

Hence games like GTA IV and DMC4 doing in-game loading at about the same speed from DVD on 360 as from an HDD install on PS3.
 
CurseoftheGods said:
Anyone try Virtua Fighter 5?
i did a couple of benchmarks for some friends on sunday...

initial loading time was 24 seconds instead of 32 seconds, and the rest of the game didn't really have much benefit... you shaved 0-2 seconds off loading, and in one instance it took a second longer.
 

itxaka

Defeatist
burgerdog said:
Ninja Gaiden 2
125 seconds from boot to gameplay: DVD
45 seconds from boot to gameplay: HDD
No loading after you select a weapon from the quick-switch menu. You go back to the game instantly after you select your weapon.

Mass Effect
I didn't encounter a single game pause "Loading" with the game installed. When you're playing off the DVD and you're running from one area to another the game stops and gives you a Loading message if you're moving too fast.

Second edit
I'd like to mention that these times are from a 120gb.

Awesome. Mass effect 4th play through here I come!
 

burgerdog

Member
CurseoftheGods said:
Anyone try Virtua Fighter 5?

Virtua Fighter 5
DVD
108 seconds from boot to gameplay > Arcade > Custom Sarah vs El Blaze
12 seconds Dojo > Command Training > Wolf vs Dural
14 seconds Dojo > Free Training > Jeffry vs Wolf

HDD
56 seconds from boot to gameplay > Arcade > Custom Sarah vs El Blaze
12 seconds Dojo > Command Training > Wolf vs Dural
12 seconds Dojo > Free Training > Jeffry vs Wolf
 

Troidal

Member
Based on this list, I'll already be using up about 30GB worth of HDD space, yeeha! I guess having a 60GB is probably just right, but it doesn't hurt to have a 120GB.

*hugs his 120GB*
 

angelfly

Member
Dead or Alive 4 - 6.8GB
Eternal Sonata 6.8GB
Infinite Undiscovery - Disc 1: 6GB Disc 2: 6.5GB
Ridge Racer 6 - 6.5GB

Will have Marvel Ultimate Alliance once it's done installing

edit:

Marvel Ultimate Alliance - 5.9GB
 
burgerdog said:
Ninja Gaiden 2
125 seconds from boot to gameplay: DVD
45 seconds from boot to gameplay: HDD
No loading after you select a weapon from the quick-switch menu. You go back to the game instantly after you select your weapon.

Mass Effect
I didn't encounter a single game pause "Loading" with the game installed. When you're playing off the DVD and you're running from one area to another the game stops and gives you a Loading message if you're moving too fast.
Do you have a save that would make it easy to test if the loading between areas in the Hayabusa Village still occur?
 

Sean

Banned
Duck said:
Anyone try Skate's load times? How about Call of Duty 4 multiplayer?

Multiplayer shouldn't benefit much since it'd still have to load the map for all players before starting the match.
 

ampere

Member
Sean said:
- Grand Theft Auto IV (6.7 GB) -- decreases initial load time from 46.5 to 33 seconds
- Halo 3 (6.3 GB) -- load times are apparently worse (10 seconds longer) when installed
- Mass Effect (6.8 GB) -- No more "Loading" pauses when moving too fast. Elevator load times are identical (hardcoded)
I will be installing GTA IV. That sounds worth it. Halo 3 load times are longer? What would cause that? And why are the Mass Effect elevator scenes hardcoded -_-...
I still think the best part of this installation business is the elimination of the drive noise :D

edit:
Blueblur1 said:
Here's the deal. From a Bungie employee.
Ok, that makes sense. This was definitely not something Bungie was anticipating.
 

burgerdog

Member
a Master Ninja said:
Do you have a save that would make it easy to test if the loading between areas in the Hayabusa Village still occur?

No, I don't have any saves from Hayabusa Village(is that the second level?) and I deleted the install. I could install the game tonight, but I won't be able to give you an answer about midway loading through that area until tomorrow.

edit
Actually, I might do it tonight, just check back later. 360 is kind of gimp without live, a bit boring almost :lol
 

Sean

Banned
ciaossu said:
I will be installing GTA IV. That sounds worth it. Halo 3 load times are longer? What would cause that? And why are the Mass Effect elevator scenes hardcoded -_-...
I still think the best part of this installation business is the elimination of the drive noise :D

i don't have mass effect but don't conversations take place in those elevators? that may be the reason they were hardcoded - would be kinda awkward to have a convo stop mid-sentence.
 
Top Bottom