Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead Sport Studios has introduced that the PC model’s set up measurement will probably be drastically decreased quickly.
In an replace on the sport’s official Steam web page, Arrowhead ‘s deputy technical director Brendan Armstrong defined that the workforce had been capable of scale back the PC model’s set up measurement from round 154 GB to only round 23 GB.
In October, Armstrong posted a prolonged rationalization telling gamers why the PC model makes use of up round thrice extra cupboard space than the console variations.
Armstrong defined that the primary purpose for this was to cater for gamers who nonetheless use mechanical onerous disk drives (HDDs) to play their video games, and the necessity to duplicate content material to enhance loading speeds for them.
As a result of an HDD takes time to bodily learn the information on a disk, some generally used belongings (like tree textures or sound results) are duplicated quite a few occasions within the recreation’s knowledge, to make sure the HDD’s learn head doesn’t need to go too far every time it must entry them.
Since all fashionable consoles now use stable state drives (SSDs) which don’t have any transferring elements, and since ‘search time’ is just about immediate consequently, set up measurement is way smaller on the console variations as a result of duplication is not wanted. The PC model nonetheless wants it, nonetheless, as a result of although many high-end PCs now use SSDs too some gamers nonetheless use an HDD.
In his newest replace, nonetheless, Armstrong has delivered the excellent news that after working with Nixxes – the Dutch studio which specialises in recreation ports – Arrowhead has managed to get the set up measurement down to only 17% of its present measurement, with checks exhibiting that mission loading occasions have solely elevated by “a couple of seconds” for HDD customers.
“‘Wait a minute,’ I hear you ask – ‘didn’t you simply inform us all that you just duplicate knowledge as a result of the loading occasions on HDDs might be 10 occasions worse?’”, Armstrong wrote. “I’m happy to say that our worst case projections didn’t come to cross.
“These loading time projections have been based mostly on business knowledge – evaluating the loading occasions between SSD and HDD customers the place knowledge duplication was and was not used. Within the worst circumstances, a 5x distinction was reported between situations that used duplication and people who didn’t. We have been being very conservative and doubled that projection once more to account for unknown unknowns.
“Now issues are completely different. We’ve got actual measurements particular to our recreation as an alternative of business knowledge. We now know that the true variety of gamers actively enjoying Helldivers 2 on a mechanical HDD was round 11% over the past week.
“We now know that, opposite to most video games, the vast majority of the loading time in Helldivers 2 is because of level-generation quite than asset loading. This stage technology occurs in parallel with loading belongings from the disk and so is the primary figuring out issue of the loading time. We now know that that is true even for customers with mechanical HDDs.”
Whereas Arrowhead shouldn’t be but able to roll out the smaller set up measurement to all Helldivers 2 PC gamers, a public beta is out there now to anybody seeking to check out the ‘slim’ model and assist give suggestions on how nicely it runs.
“You’ll be linked to the identical galactic conflict as everybody else and be utilizing the identical account you all the time do – so all development, conflict contributions and purchases will carry over between the completely different variations,” Armstrong defined.
“You’ll nonetheless be capable of matchmake and play with all different gamers. You may as well opt-out at any time in case you expertise points. It’s a low-risk solution to save round 131 GB of house in your drive and assist us lengthen our testing to real-life situations.”
As soon as the general public beta confirms that there are not any points within the ‘slim’ model, it’s going to roll out to all gamers and turn out to be the default model of the sport. Till that point, Armstrong warns that anybody utilizing mods with the sport might need to follow the full-sized model in case there are points.
