5-6GB patches *every few days*, is this normal?

wombat140

Just a quick question. I finished downloading a 5GB patch no longer ago than Saturday. Today it's wanting to download another patch of 2GB. I tried turning off on-demand patching to see if it helped (can never remember which way that works), but that took it up to 6GB. That's like 10% of the whole game download, if I'm remembering rightly. Is this normal, are other people getting this too, or do I need to adjust something? I'd just like to know. Especially since the last time I got as far as clicking "Engage" it crashed and I don't know whether the changes I've made have fixed the problem yet or not, so I don't even know yet whether it'll work after I've waitied for all that patch!

Also, if so, is this normal for other MMORPGs, or is it just STO? Because a patch that size takes several hours on my connection, nd for one reason or another it's not oncvenient to let it run overnight, so if this is to continue it may be better for me to defect to GW2, D&DOnline or SWG:Legends (other games my fleet-pals play).

salvation4

How much has been received? Thats whats been downloaded..Yesterdays patch size was 4154MB but downloaded about 1024MB for me..Also patchs this size are normal when STO has an expansion out and big updates introducing new stuff to the game or changes..Otherwise I have seen a max of about 500MB and thats preety much it..

wombat140

For me, it's always much the same amount Received as Patched, perhaps a few megabytes less. What does that mean, anyway, "received" as opposed to "patched"? I've always wondered. How can it patch more than it's received?

I never usually used to get patches this size myself, either, excepr when it was a new season. I've been away from the game for months and now I've been trying to get it running again and these enormous patches keep happening.

arionisa

wombat140 wrote: »

For me, it's always much the same amount Received as Patched, perhaps a few megabytes less. What does that mean, anyway, "received" as opposed to "patched"? I've always wondered. How can it patch more than it's received?

Patches are normally compressed (zipped or something similar) to reduce file aize, which means less bandwidth used and faster downloading. Then they are uncompressed on the fly as they are received. So, any given patch file, once uncompressed, will be larger (sometimes much larger) than the size of the downloaded patch file.

If you watch as it goes, received and patched sizes will be almost identical with the patched size getting larger and larger in comparison to the received size as it goes.

wombat140

Ah, I see, good explanation, thanks. Yes, patches that end up being about the same size as the "received" figure are normal for me, too, IO don't know why it's different for Salvation4.

salvation4

wombat140 wrote: »

Ah, I see, good explanation, thanks. Yes, patches that end up being about the same size as the "received" figure are normal for me, too, IO don't know why it's different for Salvation4.

From my QA days at codemasters..The received amount can be anything except bigger than the actual patch size..So basically the client will download the patch (RECEIVED) and expanded it and replace the files of the game (PATCHED), so it means that the downloaded amount can be compressed alot and then expanded by the client to patch the required files..Note STO patches while it downloads..I have seen games that first has a bar go by for download then a bar that goes by for installing the patch downloaded..Thats why a month back we had the issue of a corrupt file on the server that was in the patch set which killed the patch right at 95-99% for many of us..Like last weeks patch was some 500+/-50MB where the client only downloaded half the amount in a few minutes..