Support NeoGAF

[TheJesusFactor]

One of the reasons, I like console gaming is because I don't have to install and uninstall games. i can go back to my older titles and play it without having to reinstall it. I can't keep them all on my HDD because games are big these days. So if Vista can play "pop-in" disc games, I think I will buy more PC titles.

 

[Durante]

Do you like loading times? Just buy a second HDD. They're at what? 25 cent per GB?

 

[storybook77]

Either your computer is too old or you seriously gimped yourself on HDD size.

 

[gohepcat]

I don't think it can, and honestly, you can buy a 320GB for under 100 bucks now. It just doesn't make sense

 

[Lionheart]

'Allow'? Windows XP also 'allowed' this, but no devs of 'big' games do this, because the loading times would be a lot longer.

 

[plagiarize]

come on guys, you're telling me that no console game has good load times and ignoring that streaming content off disc works bloody well these days. gears of war had almost zero load times and looked awesome, without a fifteen minute install time.

drop and play games as an option would be a great thing for PC gaming.

i don't know the answer to the question though. i haven't heard as much so i'd presume no, but here's hoping.

 

[Kabouter]

'Allow'? Windows XP also 'allowed' this, but no devs of 'big' games do this, because the loading times would be a lot longer.

Bingo.

 

[methane47]

snip

Spoiler

Jesus saves

everything to his harddrive

 

[iapetus]

come on guys, you're telling me that no console game has good load times

Absolutely. They're utterly unplayable, which is why the console is dead (or dying) and PC gaming has most of the gaming market these days. Do keep up.

 

[Durante]

Yah, that's funny, but most console games with really good load times are built around streaming - and that usually puts restrictions on level design. There's no such thing as a free lunch in computing.

 

[arussell]

no files on hardrive = no user mods =

 

[deathkiller]

Long time ago when CD games were too big for all people install them in hdd they were playable with a small(<10MB) install but load times sucked. There is no reason for PC developers to lose time in releasing games optimized to be played from the disc.

Buy a bigger HDD and leave the games in it, even better, use NO-CD patches so you don't have to lose time looking for the game disk and inserting it in your drive.

 

[anachronous_one]

Hmmm ... now that you mention it, I could've sworn that concept was actually touted as one of the "pillars" of the Games For Windows initiative. What did they call it again? "Tray and Play" or some nonsense close to that?

EDIT:

Bingo, here we go. Article is from early 2005, but addresses the topic.

To this end, we were shown a demonstration of "Tray and Play" with the PC version of Need For Speed Underground 2. "Tray and Play" is exactly what it sounds like--dropping a game disc into an optical drive and loading it up immediately, rather than having to install it to a hard drive. True to form, the game itself cut straight to a start-up screen in less than a minute (including the game's own built-in load time). Lester suggested that this functionality will take advantage of the generally faster optical drives that most consumers have, and that some games might be able to run directly off the disc, or use minimal caching. This new feature allegedly won't be exclusive to Microsoft's upcoming Longhorn Windows platform and could theoretically be put into games today, provided it gets planned for in development early on.

 

[MoxManiac]

no files on hardrive = no user mods =

You could have a folder on your HDD and it could take data from that while still running off a disc.

What I hate is still requiring the disc in the drive after installing the game. I realize it's for security concerns, but it forces me to find a crack to circumvent it, even though I own the game legitimately.

 

[plagiarize]

Long time ago when CD games were too big for all people install them in hdd they were playable with a small(<10MB) install but load times sucked. There is no reason for PC developers to lose time in releasing games optimized to be played from the disc.

Buy a bigger HDD and leave the games in it, even better, use NO-CD patches so you don't have to lose time looking for the game disk and inserting it in your drive.

right. and a LONG time ago drive speeds were ass, streaming didn't exist yet, and compression wasn't remotely close to where it is now.

why do you guys hate options?

 

[Magicked]

What I hate is still requiring the disc in the drive after installing the game. I realize it's for security concerns, but it forces me to find a crack to circumvent it, even though I own the game legitimately.

I hate this as well. It's one of the reasons I prefer to buy some games through Steam.

 

[FauX]

come on guys, you're telling me that no console game has good load times and ignoring that streaming content off disc works bloody well these days. gears of war had almost zero load times and looked awesome, without a fifteen minute install time.

drop and play games as an option would be a great thing for PC gaming.

i don't know the answer to the question though. i haven't heard as much so i'd presume no, but here's hoping.

You know.... Vista installs in less than 15 minutes.... So I'm sure games on vista will install in less minutes....

Besides PS3 is like a computer eh? and I'm positive Sony will use its HDD to intall games... so why the hate?

 

[LuCkymoON]

One of the reasons, I like console gaming is because I don't have to install and uninstall games. i can go back to my older titles and play it without having to reinstall it. I can't keep them all on my HDD because games are big these days. So if Vista can play "pop-in" disc games, I think I will buy more PC titles.

It's possible to do this by using a RAM Disck utility. It basically makes part of your RAM a temp drive so you can installed programs on it. You need alot of RAM for this to work. I know it's not really what youre looking for, you still have to install games.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_disk

 

[clav]

I think i remember last year's CES (or was it GDC?) that Gates showed off a feature with a Need for Speed (Eww) game that ran off from a DVD without installation. Since the X360 is basically running a similar OS to Windows, I would believe no HDD install could be possible.

Although it has existed in the old days... sort of.

 

[ElectricBlue187]

Sure it's possible, but why?

You'd be giving up all the mods and player content and opening the door for plenty of DRM restrictions...for what? Not having to install games?

Seems like a pretty lame alternative to me. But this probably is what Games for Windows intends to do

 

[Armitage]

What happens if you break the disc?

 

[SlaughterX]

I guess many PC gamers like to pretend that games liek HL2 don't have plenty of spots where the game has to stop and load in the middle of levels, and this loading time usually takes just as long, if not longer than most of the console games I play...

 

[TheJesusFactor]

Well, i use my computer for a lot of productivity work and when you install a lot of games, what tends to happen is reduce performance on your PC. You get issues such as slower HDD performance, longer bootup time, and a lot of cluttered windows registry data. You then start to notice hiccup and problems from a bad registry, from all the programs installed. This means reduce framerate performance in games and slow app performance. I will need to spend more time with maintenance for optimal performance. If they made the "Tray and Play" work, I would have a solid performing computer at the expense of slightly longer load time. The big advantage is that you don't have to worry about the computer messing up or slowing down from all the programs you install on it. I can see this being an issue if games were made without requiring a disc, but since you got to put it in anyway, what is the point.

I guess many PC gamers like to pretend that games liek HL2 don't have plenty of spots where the game has to stop and load in the middle of levels, and this loading time usually takes just as long, if not longer than most of the console games I play...

Lazy programming, but they can get away with it since everyone is required to install it on PC.

 

[radioheadrule83]

I always thought it would be nice if real future PC gaming rigs could have two modes -- one with all the standard computing stuff and one strictly for games, that makes it act more like a console. The way I envisage it, it'd just be a nicer way of doing what you can do already: you can make different boot profiles in Windows (safe mode is such a profile). For example, on my old PC I have a video editing profile that doesn't load any programs or services that I don't need when video editing. You could make a profile that optimises loading and playing videogames, and give it a nice GUI, and you'd most likely get the effect I'm after.

 

[Zombie James]

Bingo, here we go. Article is from early 2005, but addresses the topic.

They've been saying that since Windows 95:

Publishers can set up their disc so that it automatically starts up when inserted in the CD-ROM drive. You'll get a simple menu of options, rather than an obscure installation procedure. Furthermore, Microsoft guidelines for software developers strongly suggest "zero-footprint" operation, which will require very little installation, and use little or no space on your hard disk.

From the Sept. 1995 issue of Home Computing & Entertainment.

 

[Armitage]

I always thought it would be nice if real future PC gaming rigs could have two modes -- one with all the standard computing stuff and one strictly for games, that makes it act more like a console. The way I envisage it, it'd just be a nicer way of doing what you can do already: you can make different boot profiles in Windows (safe mode is such a profile). For example, on my old PC I have a video editing profile that doesn't load any programs or services that I don't need when video editing. You could make a profile that optimises loading and playing videogames, and give it a nice GUI, and you'd most likely get the effect I'm after.

Back in the good ole days you'd actually boot from game discs. PCs have changed a lot since then. You used to turn a PC on to accomplish a specific task - you'd turn it on, type a document and turn it off. Now, PCs are always on, and always multitasking. People don't want to reboot to start their game up.

 

[Prime crotch]

Hell I hate old multi cd games because you can't install the game fully sometimes. You got to go around and copy all the cds to a folder and edit the .ini file.

 

[Ravager61]

Installation of games one of the things that makes me prefer PC gaming over consoles. It allows for things like mods, tweaking, and other things that just arent possible on consoles. Just look at all the extra stuff you can get for the PC version of Oblvion that you cant get on console.

 

[plagiarize]

Installation of games one of the things that makes me prefer PC gaming over consoles. It allows for things like mods, tweaking, and other things that just arent possible on consoles. Just look at all the extra stuff you can get for the PC version of Oblvion that you cant get on console.

we're just asking for the option.

 

[Fragamemnon]

Hell I hate old multi cd games because you can't install the game fully sometimes. You got to go around and copy all the cds to a folder and edit the .ini file.

Yeah I've done that for a few of the Infinity Engine games.

Tray and Play doesn't really offer very much to enthusiast PC gamers-we don't mind waiting on our installs and no one wants the overhead and (most importantly IMO) noise of constant optical disc access while playing their games. The sheer volume of hard disk writes would bog down most machines while playing, resulting in poor performance in the "first impression" of the game.

A far better option is to provide a form of entertainment for the user while the game is installing if it is going to take some time. Stuff like a intro movie or a developer interview and introduction while installing is a better choice IMO.

If you don't like installing files, don't play on PCs. I don't want my DVD drive running for any longer than it has to in order to play a game.

we're just asking for the option.

Not worth the extra effort and resources, IMO. If it was a painless thing to setup I'd be all for the option, though I can't see it really benefitting anyone in any substantial manner.

 

[trancejeremy]

we're just asking for the option.

It's an option now. It's just not used by developers because it sucks.


PCs have a lot more memory than a console. A 360 or PS3 has 512 megs total. An average gaming PC will have at least 1 gig system memory and probably 256 megs (at least 128) of video memory. Given the slower rates of DVD and CD-rom drives compared to hard drives, loading times would be a real bitch.

Not to mention, the constant noise of the drive would be annoying.

 

[Rhindle]

I for one would do more PC gaming if HDD installs were eliminated.

For some reason, the thought of doing an install, and then having to finish a game in order to eventually remove the install = too much of a commitment for me.

I don't really think the load times would be that much of an issue compared to consoles. Keep in mind that a big portion of PC memory is consumed by system functions vs. minimal system overhead on a console. There's no particular reason why a PC game should have longer loads than the same same console game running at the same resolution.

 

[Rhindle]

Double post.

 

[M3d10n]

Today's PC CD/DVD drives aren't as efficient as the ones used in consoles, and that's one of the reasons that made most devs abandon the minimal install option. Console drives are assembled to remain spinning constantly for long periods of time, while PC drives will stop spinning quickly after they're done reading.

Anyone ever noticed that discs get very hot when you keep them spinning for a while on your average drive?