Comments on: 360 installs improve load times by “30%”

By: mightyhokie

mightyhokie — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:29:54 +0000

I didn’t own a PS2 so I didn’t know that. I just know the only person I know who didn’t have a HD couldn’t save his games.

By: Psychotext

Psychotext — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 20:45:46 +0000

Yeah, there’s a memory card in the arcade ecu. There wasn’t one in the core though… that said, there wasn’t one with the PS2 either (well, not the one I bought) so I wouldn’t have though it was particularly complicated for people.

By: Syrok

Syrok — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 20:43:32 +0000

Which is great once it comes to installing games…for Mircosoft, cause then you have to buy another product made and sold by them.

By: ecu

ecu — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 20:39:45 +0000

They use memory cards. The arcade comes with a memory card, doesn’t it?

By: mightyhokie

mightyhokie — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 20:36:27 +0000

I’m confused about something. I know that some people don’t have HD. I don’t know why, but they don’t. I only have the 20 GB one that came with my 360 when I bought it. While I have not really ever filled it up (I erase demo’s when I’m done and don’t really buy movies and such), I haven’t needed the space. I am excited to be able to write to the HD. However, why would someone not have a HD? If you don’t have a HD, how do you save games? I let a friend borrow BioShock once and he didn’t have a HD and had to play the same thing over and over again.
If you don’t have a HD, how do you play a game like GTA4 or BioShock, Oblivion, etc?

By: Tiger Walts

Tiger Walts — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:47:28 +0000

I’ve found that some Flash memory devices are terrible at reading/writing multiple small files. 100 files at 1MB each would take about 3 to 4 times longer than a single 100MB file simply because of the way it seeks to the location it’s accessing. It effectively walks through the entire array until it gets to its desired location.

By: DrDamn

DrDamn — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:40:09 +0000

@Blerk
I think someone did some analysis of the PS3 DMC stuff and found it copied loads of little files across rather than a big PAK of data which was then uncompressed. That would explain why a PS3 install would be much longer as Psychotext points out it’s seek speeds which are more of the issue.

Effectively a full ISO copy can be streamed start to finish with no messing about, an install of a large number of elements is going to take longer.

By: Blerk

Blerk — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:24:31 +0000

God, yeah. It’s going to be absolute hell. Plus it’ll get delayed until the Spring.

By: morriss

morriss — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:23:36 +0000

Can’t wait for this update and all the complaints of bricked consoles that comes with it.

By: Psychotext

Psychotext — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:20:51 +0000

I was always under the impression that it was the seek times that were slow on a blu ray rather than the read times (which are comparable to a dual layer DVD). Not sure why that would affect an install though.

By: Blerk

Blerk — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:16:30 +0000

Interesting stats. Is the read speed of the Blu-Ray drive really that much slower than DVD? I knew there was a difference, but this is a much bigger difference than I expected.

10 minutes for a 9gig DVD versus 20-odd minutes for 4-5gigs for a PS3 install? That’s a huge difference. No wonder the PS3 devs like you to install stuff.

By: Tiger Walts

Tiger Walts — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 14:56:34 +0000

Yeah, HDLoader installs take about 10 minutes for a DVD so this is no surprise. As with HDL on the PS2, the 360 is most likely copying the disc image direct to the HDD. This method also preserves any data-level protection and a disc check can simply involve a hash check at any random location on the image as well as the Disc ID along side the standard disc check. A random hash check would stop people from getting around the protection with a simple image patch.

By: Whizzo

Whizzo — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:45:31 +0000

I played Yakuza from HD (a legal copy running using the very first version of HD Loader) and I remember a lot of complaints about how the load times for all the fights were painfully long. I lent the game some time later to a friend who was hard driveless on his PS2 and then witnessed the load times, ouch!

On the 360 it’ll already be caching stuff to the hard drive anyway so it probably won’t make as much difference but for something like Mass Effect where you would see definite texture loading going on it’ll be nicer to play I’m sure.

Not that I care about that title too much, I have the PC version!

By: Blerk

Blerk — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:36:53 +0000

I recall your comments on how much improved Yakuza was from HDD, Whizzo. That’s what popped into my head when I first heard this announcement.

I still can’t quite believe they’re going to allow you to do it. Legally. It’s great!

By: Whizzo

Whizzo — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:35:28 +0000

Sounds very good to me, it’ll be interesting to see if it has any positive effects on certain games that rely on streaming data constantly too. Playing PS2 San Andreas from hard drive versus from disc was a night and day difference for example.

By: Psychotext

Psychotext — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:34:05 +0000

They really need to announce a caddy. To please the geeks and otaku you know?

By: Blerk

Blerk — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:32:01 +0000

I’m pretty sure this was the most interesting thing of the whole show, actually.

Ten minutes isn’t half bad. I think I’d probably install everything, given that I tend to only play one game at a time.

By: Psychotext

Psychotext — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:29:51 +0000

It’s quite strange that I find this more exciting than most of the stuff shown at E3.

By: morriss

morriss — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:28:23 +0000

10 minutes?! Fucking hell.

By: Syrok

Syrok — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:22:57 +0000

Interesting but pretty much pointless for everyone who doesn’t own a Elite and absolutly pointless for all those without any HD at all.