New Xbox update to shrink some hard drive installs

by Justin McElroy on Aug 3rd 2009 11:30AM

Posters on Cheap Ass Gamer who keep track of Xbox 360 hard drive installs noticed that those who'd been admitted to the dashboard update preview program were seeing games take up markedly less space than before (a fact later confirmed by Digital Foundry). How much smaller? Well, DF noticed that King of Fighters XII and Raiden Fighters Aces went from 3.4GB to 703 and 484MB respectively, post update.

By DF's approximation, the update allows the system to be more efficient in selecting what non-essential data it puts on the hard drive. Though that results in a big savings in some cases, there are exceptions. Fable 2, for example, is no smaller post-update, leading us to assume Lionhead needed every inch of the disc for all that GOTY material.

Source

Tags: hard-drive, installs, king-of-fighters-xii, microsoft, nxe, raiden-fighters-aces, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (80)

good news for those games....but I'd much rather Fable 2 be shrunken down....I mean its MS...SURELY they can further compress stuff without harming file integrity....

According to the article, the image isn't being compressed but striped of duplicate files and dummy data. Pretty much what most of us CAGers have thought since this occurred.

Good to know that the theory was correct. Now if we could figure out why some titles won't install at all that would be better :)

yea I'm curious as to why Crackdown doesnt install myself

I thought Crackdown didnt install because of the Halo 3 beta

Halo3 Beta?? whats that got to do with Crackdown not installing?

I thought the beta was included as a code on a card and not on the disc. (I waited about a year to purchase the game, myself)

Crackdown actually requires a hard drive to play online co-op, running the install off the hard drive while also using it for the game was probably too detrimental to performance. I remember reading comments along those lines from someone who worked on the game that pretty much confirmed this.

yea darkworm I just got it a few months ago....

lol, "darkworm"

Now all you need is a decent collection of disc games for 2009 and Microsoft will be set. Oh wait...

Now all you need to do is learn the art of relevancy.

Straying too far away from your fanboy cage sir.

So does the 360 have to spin up the disc to get non-essential data that doesn't make it into the install? Or is it truly junk data that won't be missed?

I don't know for certain, but I would assume it is filtering out duplicate data and padding. And maybe videos/files for alternate regions if they happen to be on the disc too.

I tried it on the 3 disc games I currently have.

Fallout 3 went from 5.9 to 5.5 gigs.

Rock Band 2 went from 6.3 to 4.6 :D

Oblivion went from 6.7 to 6.3ish

Use this to see the old install sizes. It won't help you with newer games like Ghostbusters but it's good for everything else pretty much.

http://www.stripesonfire.com/nsc/#O

Both the CAG thread in the article and gameinstalls.com have more updated lists, including the new NXE sizes for games already tested.

BTW, the link for stripesonfire.com just had a malware detection warning pop up on Chrome. Weird.

Oh damn don't click on it just in case then guys. Nothing popped up for me, but that could be a good or bad thing lol.

Hmm.. So trying this.. got about 12.6GB left on a 120 hdd (yes I could delete some - but they're on my 'play list')

okay, maybe i missed this, and i'm assuming here, but i'm guessing that these games have to be REinstalled on my hard drive to benefit from this, correct?? doesn't just magically happen with the new update???

Yeah you have to reinstall them

drats!

Maybe they think the installs are contributing to the slowness of the current dashboard's start-up? Also: When did Terry become a spokesman for Subway? Because that is AWESOME.

So do you have to re-install the games, or will the update automatically shrink existing installs?

Reinstall

Crap, I better uninstall my old saved disk and reinstall them now. Thanks for the heads up on this. I never would have noticed this myself.

Yay!! mass effect went from 6.8GB to 6.8!! well, at least burnout went down almost a gig.

GTA IV is 6.5, down from 6.8

Left 4 Dead went from 5 GB to 3.7GB. Pretty impressive.

I think Valve is to thank for that.

Well, the install for Mass Effect went down from 6.8GB to 6.7GB. Not really a noticeable improvement.

Huh. My didn't change at all. Maybe because it's the PAL version?

i dont have the pal version, and mine still didnt go down. and mass effect is the game that takes up the most of my hd space, 11 gb.

The PAL specific data might be what was not installed for non-PAL consoles.

Tried on the 3 games I own. I can confirm what was said of GTA4 and F3 and add that Mass Effect does NOT shrink. Guess Bioware crammed every bit of data they could onto the disc :)

Wow, those are some Cheap-Ass Gamers... Watching the space on the HDD is... well, I don't want to be judgmental.. Does it seem a little anal?

Well, when you install a lot of games, you need as much space as you can get...

Me, I just got a 120, and I'm really not sure what to do with all the space yet.

When you see the high price of 360 hard drives, you'll know why. ; )

WHOA! $169?????

You could buy a DS, or a PSP with that!

Where do you live and where are you looking? Yeah, they're stupidly priced, but even $169 is above MSRP ($150, I think?). I picked mine up for $135 from Amazon.

'Wiizer' = TROLL!!!

He never has anything good to say about the XBOX 360 - even about this!
This is obviously great news, but 'Wiizer' finds some way to try & put it down.

"WHOA! $169?????"
^ Shows that you don't know how to shop around.

Amazon $129.99: http://www.amazon.com/Xbox-360-120GB-Hard-Drive/dp/B000OYKQBU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1249318364&sr=8-1

On further investigation, K1LLER HORNET, it seems you're an ill-informed fanboy.

The 360 comes with a 5400 RPM drive, with a 8 meg cache. On Amazon, that's worth $52.99.

So, let's compare your $129.99 hard drive with some others. Western Digital Scorpio Blue 500 GB Hard Drive with an 8mb cache is $94.99. Seagate SV35.3 Series ST3500320SV - Hard drive - 500 GB with a 32mb cache is $128.64, and that's the original cost. Right now, it's $68.99.

So, I would suggest just buying your own drive, and that you 'don't know how to shop around'.

Ugh. For the nth time.

YES the 360 hard drives are more expensive, but comparing them to any OEM or boxed hard drive on newegg is absolutely retarded.

The 360 hard drive is plug in and turn on. No opening of the box, no jumpbers, no snaking a power or data cable, no screws, no drivers, no formatting, no nothing.

I would say there is a $50 premium on top of how much it costs MS to make them, because MS knows they can sell it for that price and they want to, gasp, make a profit this generation.

@wiizer
They are stuck with buying the proprietary hard drives from microsoft, or they have to buy a certain type of hard-drive to put into their old hard-drives case and do a bunch of stuff while its hooked up to a computer and then risk getting banned from microsoft. Can't just plop a 500gigger into a xbox360 like you can with a PS3.

@ Mike

Oh, thanks for the info, Mike! I kinda thought that since the PS3 just lets you swap it, MS would do the same thing with the 360... It's a shame, really.

Oh my!

Thanks to Mike and Wiizer's witty banter, I have decided to ignore the 360's superior game library. I will instead run right out and purchase a PS3 based solely on the fact that I can upgrade it's storage with an off-the-shelf hard drive.

That is quite a system-selling feature that you have highlighted, guys.

Thanks, Mike & Wiizer!

@Sean

"YES the 360 hard drives are more expensive, but comparing them to any OEM or boxed hard drive on newegg is absolutely retarded.

The 360 hard drive is plug in and turn on. No opening of the box, no jumpbers, no snaking a power or data cable, no screws, no drivers, no formatting, no nothing."

No, the comparison is not retarded. The comparison is made because of how easy it is to swap out the PS3 hard drive. It's not really much more involved than the 360, except you get a LOT more storage for your money.

@ ArtVandolay

Well, if you need further convincing (and I wasn't set on convincing anyone to buy a PS3, but since you brought it up...), the PS3 does have Uncharted 2, God of War III, and Gran Turismo... Also, it has this crazy idea of having "free" multiplayer via the PlayStation Network! We're even getting voice chat in a couple of months! The PS3 can communicate with its handheld counterpart, the PSP. I haven't seen Microsoft's handheld, but I'm sure it's nothing like that Zune. The PS3 has the capability of playing Bluray Discs; the official winner of the HD format war... AND Battlefield 1943 works flawlessly on our network, as well as all multiplatform games!

... But really, I'm more of a Wii fanatic. Let me know if you're interested in buying one of those, and I may be able to get you one in black!

While you are right about the drives being way more expensive than it is to buy the actual drive, the ST3500320SV is a 3.5" drive and can not be compared.
If you want to, you can easily save a LOT of money and buy a Western Digital BEVS 120GB 2.5" drive and replace the 20GB in your current case with it. It just takes a little bit of work on the computer and it works fine. I did this a year ago for $65.
I use it online and never have been banned.

But Wiizer I must say you are an annoying troll.
I have both systems and I barely play my PS3. I don't see the $50 a year for xbox live as a huge deal ESPECIALLY considering it has (and has had since launch) WAY more features than the PS3.
No cross-game chat? Really?
I like my invite system, party system, easy website where you can view and send messages, etc. The PS3 has a better hardware value, but the 360 just has better games and is easier to use.

Good luck not getting banned, Peter!

The way you even compared your 360 to your PS3 says a lot about why you felt the need to comment on the topic.

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New Xbox update to shrink some hard drive installs

Reader Comments (80)

Posted: Aug 3rd 2009 11:38AM Chris DPSN AggieCEO XBLThe Aggi said

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