Fallout 3 using HDD smartly -- no upfront install

by Nick Doerr on May 29th 2008 12:30PM

Bethesda sat down with our big brother site, Joystiq, and spoke a little bit about Fallout 3. As many people know, it's pretty much customary for developers to slap a giant mandatory install onto our PS3 titles. It's mildly annoying if you don't have a big hard drive. Bethesda echoes these sentiments and as such, have declared that the PS3 version of Fallout 3 will not have any upfront install whatsoever.

Pete Hines, marketing man for Bethesda, confirmed this and then went on to say "that doesn't mean we don't use the hard drive, just that it does it in the background as opposed to a large, upfront install." The game will require an estimated 4-5 GBs of space, similar to Oblivion, though. So even without a large install, you'll have to make sure you've got adequate free space to let the game work its magic.

[via Joystiq]

Source

Tags: bethesda, fallout-3

Reader Comments (30)

Would make more sense for companies to do it this way. So the game only uses the space while playing it.. All you'd need is 5gb spare before playing any game.. thats fine!

Excellent response. But I'm not sure many developers know how to do it, which is another nod to the people working on this. Basically, the intro screen and startout screen write to the drive 5gbs of stream, for a lake. Once the lake is built, it only has to dip into it in small measures, moving from point A to point B, with a Corona of backup, the data to be streamed, which is constantly albeit slowly updated in the background, always remembering that the playing field must always be there.

Now that is a developer with its head on right, not stuck up its rear end. This looks to be a sign of great things to come.

Wait now id RATHER have the Install then in-game usage

If you think about it either way = It uses 5GB~ of your HDD. (Not an option) Which has been the major problem with these installs are how they force you to install it before you play...

Now this means, instead of installing it before you play, you will have to deal with it during your gameplay? Would this mean things will run a bit slower? Load times increase as it finds what is needed? Since they state its doing it all in the background, which can only take time...

Or did I get the whole concept of this thing wrong, please let me know

They're not improving anything, they're just hiding it. It still uses 5GB. This is no better than an upfront install when your concerned about running out of HDD space.

Well, in Oblivion, I didn't notice the install at all, it was running smoothly for me...

One game might not make a different but imagine if you had 4 or 5 games that used this virtual memory like system. Instead of having 20 or 25 gigs used up from those games, now you only have the 4 or 5 you need at run time.

Good! I don't mind installs so much if I am not forced to sit through them. It was surprising when I thought Oblivion didn't need any data, and then I checked and it was a whopping 5.7GB... But if I really need the space, I can delete it and the next time I put in Oblivion, I don't even have to wait for it to copy, I can just play. Bethesda is a good example that Capcom should follow if they must do installs.. It's the closest thing to having a simple swap space, really.. Xbox 1 had three partitions for temporary data, and I wish the PS3 had that instead of these installs... But hey, the most important thing is less wait times to get into the game.

Can't wait for Fallout 3. :D

I don't have a problem installing games upfront if it is for the better. I'd rather to wait even for 30mins but have a smooth game throughout.

I agree. Besides, when else am I going to eat a sandwich?

Bethesda has my respect as PS3 developers. They managed to do the install correctly and gave PS3 users the best version of one of the best RPG's ever imo.

I agree. Bethesda did a great job porting Oblivion. I can't wait to see how awesome FO3 turns out. Bethesda rocks.

better than the PC version eh? oh. ok then.

I don't understand the issue with installs. You have a Harddrive, why not use it? And if you have enough cash to buy enough games to fill the harddrive, you should be able to save for a bigger HD. Here you go http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=21131&vpn=ST9160821AS&manufacture=Seagate

70$ for a 160GB drive. That's a bit more than one game.

In this case, I don't see why anyone is celebrating. You still need to have the space available on your drive.

It does not bother me, but the point is that the install is done in the background so as not to be obtrusive to just starting the game up initially and playing.

That sounds even better. But I wonder won't it slow down the game though if you perform it in the bg?

Do none of you have a PC? All PC games require an install.

Seriously, one install when you first get the game and it's done. People are such whiners these days.

And I'll echo what is said above. Suck it up and get a bigger HDD if you're really concerned about filling it up.

Main problem is that games should just work when you put them in. This is not a PC, it should not auto include installs.. if I wanted to game like PC gamers then I would buy and play on a PC.

Some games get it right. Just like this one. Some give you the option to speed up the loading....

And some just do it perfect.. COD4!!!!.. no install... NONE! and it works fine.

So please just let developers stop being lazy and work it out!!.
And yes this is coming from someone with a 120GB HHD in his PS3.

Quite frankly, as the games get bigger and better, we're going to see more and more of this. I'd get used to it.

Lazy? This has nothing to do with being lazy.. the whole idea is to speed up load times. The harddrive is considerably faster than any optical drive.

@wicko

Doe the 360 version of the EXACT SAME GAME require an install?

Yes = you lie.
No = lazy devs.

The 360's optical drive is only faster on the outer edges, otherwise they're pretty much the exact same. The fact that Oblivion and Fallout 3 have to install over half the size of a 360 disc is retarded, but that's a different issue than not having to sit through an install. If I have to have installs, I'd much prefer to have it done seamlessly in the background.

One thing I've noticed after installing the map pack for COD4 is that the maps load waaaaayyy faster during multiplayer from the HD than from the disc. I almost wish they *did* preinstall maps to the hard drive.

why are games doing big installs anyway? Uncharted had the one load at the start of the game and it wasnt that long at all and there was no more loading the rest of the game.

Uncharted = technical marvel through and through. I am going to replay this again soon. (will be my 6th time)

yeah Uncharted is great and even better with the rumble controls.

Its too good of a game.

Based on my experience with Oblivion, I'm not sure this is the ideal solution. After playing for a while in Oblivion, the game got very choppy. The various message boards indicated that this was a common experience. You could erase the game file (not your save file) to fix this, but it came back after a while for me.

I don't particularly like the need to install, but the drive speed of the PS3 does seem to make it an attractive solution for developers. And after the initial inconvenience, it does work better... unlike the system in Oblivion, where gameplay progressively suffered over time.

It's not customary at all to have forced installs. Only 20 PS3 games have forced installs. Study up PS3fanboy.

Why don't they find a better way to stream it. They could duplicate data on the blu-ray disc, and if they had a better streaming model they could have no load times. Uncharted had no load times. They probably don't care, they just want an easy simple way of making the game playable. At least it does it in the background.

I don't want to start a console flame war but I do have a question (please note I love both my PS3 and 360).

If the PS3 is such an advanced machine, then shouldn't it be able to handle the game just as well as the 360 does without an install. I could understand if the installs yielded improved definition, no load times or some other benefit but as it stands the games are pretty even with small to negligible differences.

The benefit of Bluray was increased storage capacity but it seems at the expense of read speed which seems to be the cause of these forced installs (understand my understanding of programming is limited so I basing this on the bits of info I have gleaned from the web).

Fallout 3 using HDD smartly -- no upfront install

Reader Comments (30)

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