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Is PS4 (or modern console) games need to be installed?

Maybe late to the game (no pun! :)) but ok.

I must say that my last console was a PS3, then I played on steam 2 or 3 times a year, now I was lend a PS4 by a friend cause I wanted to try some exclusivity but is it normal to install 20-30GB even when you own physical game ?

It was already a thing annoying back in the day on PS3 for some game (GTA 5 being the worst as far as remember) but here, it is getting ridiculous and seems to be default behavior for most games.

On PC, which is mostly dematerialized, why not, at least, you can use your computer in during the time but I don’t expect that from a console.

timo_timboo_ ,

Great question, always wondered about that too. Interesting to read through the answers.

cyanarchy ,

Yes. The bottleneck with games consoles has basically always been how fast you can get into data into memory and optical media has become a limiting factor in the last few hardware generations. I would say games started recommending installation to reduce load times in the late 360/PS3 era and have slowly started requiring it as the latest games are targeted at systems with SSDs and no optical drive at all.

WuTang OP ,
@WuTang@lemmy.ninja avatar

I never thought I would say that but if remote/streamed gaming is a thing and it works fast, I might consider this option. Pretty sad how the media evolved.

sparky ,
@sparky@lemmy.federate.cc avatar

There is basically no other choice now as optical drive speeds haven’t kept up with hard drive and SSD speeds. The PS5 for example can read blu ray discs at around 35 MB/s, compared to its internal SSD speed of 7100 MB/s. Doing the math that makes reading the disc over 200 times slower. Imagine the loading screens.

arquebus_x ,

I can't imagine there's any way to make optical drives that much faster. The spin rate is already very high and the media size has been standardized. (You'd get a lot more data throughput with a laserdisc-sized drive spinning at the same speed as a CD/DVD.)

MrZee ,

Optical drives were a major bottleneck in every gaming system that used them. They were convenient because they offered a lot of data storage for cheap, but the trade off was that games performed worse than they could. The fact that consoles have moved off of optical storage and onto fast internal storage is a boon to people that care about performance. That may be a sad situation for you, but a lot of people find it to be a good thing.

WuTang OP ,
@WuTang@lemmy.ninja avatar

It makes sense. thanks

thejml ,

I once installed a 540MB hard drive in my 486/33, dumped the Wing Commander Privateer CD onto it, and was amazed at how fast it ran, the lack of loading wait, and just how much more smooth it was than my 4x speed CDROM. It was great for a few days until I needed the space (I didn’t buy it just for gaming).

Yea, I feel old.

MrZee ,

Old farts unite! I’m right there with you, although I think my first wing commander game was 4. I think I did something similar with Myst to escape constant “hunting” on the disc drive. The noise of the cd drive revving up and down 2ft from my head is seared into my brain.

haui_lemmy ,

Good news: steamlink can stream your pc games to your tv and you can play with a ds4 or xbox controller. It’s the more environmentally friendly way anyway and it works well.

WuTang OP ,
@WuTang@lemmy.ninja avatar

I don’t mind downloading stuff (ie from steam) on PC as this device is multitasking but for a gaming console aka “appliance”, I expect a plug n play approach. and when i speak about streaming, I mean, plug n play, no downloading time and minimized loading (between 5 to 10sec max).

Rascabin ,

Not all but some do. It depends on the developer. I think there is a website that lists which games need to download additional data. Just search for it.

sparky ,
@sparky@lemmy.federate.cc avatar

Half right. They all need to be installed, as in run from the hard drive and not directly off the disc. Some games require you to also download even more content, as in, the disc doesn’t have all the data needed to run the game.

Rascabin ,

TIL

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