What is Allocating Space at the install ?

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cipher_nemo wrote:

This is an old, old thread, more than 4 years old.

Yeah, you'd think that in 4 years they'd get their shit together. But no.

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cipher_nemo wrote:

Programmers add messages to each step, but each step could actually be doing multiple tasks, and the message doesn't change until it's done with that step. So it doesn't mean it's actually doing what it says if it's hung on that message. But instead you fail to understand that and just want to moan and complain over something completely meaningless.

I sure hope English isn't your first language. But you're not making an ounce of sense anyway. Your argument is that the launcher is doing something other than what it says and this apparently makes it a-okay that the whole thing is a huge fuckup.
Whatever the launcher is doing, that shit SHOULD NOT BE HAPPENING. Ever. Got it?

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cipher_nemo wrote:

But instead you fail to understand that and just want to moan and complain over something completely meaningless.

What are you, a fucking wizard? Do you have a crystal ball? Is that how you know that what I wrote refers to the launcher hanging on a task? Which it doesn't, by the way. You're as good a wizard as these folks are good programmers.

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Zahlruebe wrote:

"Allocating space"? Are you fucking kidding me? Who's the genius who thought that having a single gigantic file that needs checking every time was a smart idea?

it's a smart idea, where are your arguments? i just see insults.

one big file has many advantages: less disk fragmentation over time, fast indexed access to resources instead of having to juggle with arrays of file handles, client's resource modification protection ...

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Zahlruebe wrote:

Oh, and checking resources/allocating space and even fucking downloading are all, for some arcane reason, extremely I/O intensive,

well, writing a 8 GByte file can cause alot of i/o. if it stesses your computer, get a better one or buy a ssd. btw, i think it defragments the harddrive before install if there is one.

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Zahlruebe wrote:

downloading is slow as tar, to boot.

if updating the client is slow, add a different patching server per command line. or get better internet.
if the system boots slowly, get a ssd.

if the client and it's resource file works for a majority, you got the problem. and i think they're always open to suggestions if worded more nicely.

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Zahlruebe wrote:

I sure hope English isn't your first language. But you're not making an ounce of sense anyway.

Trolling, trolling, trolling, keep your words a' trolling.

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Zahlruebe wrote:

Your argument is that the launcher is doing something other than what it says and this apparently makes it a-okay that the whole thing is a huge fuckup.
Whatever the launcher is doing, that shit SHOULD NOT BE HAPPENING. Ever. Got it?

Sorry if you don't understand computer programming. From the user's perspective, I of course understand and see you point, and even agree with it. From a programmer's perspective (yes, I do this in r/l), I understand why it's happening and I understand that it's common practice and usually not an issue most of the time.

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Zahlruebe wrote:

What are you, a fucking wizard? Do you have a crystal ball? Is that how you know that what I wrote refers to the launcher hanging on a task? Which it doesn't, by the way. You're as good a wizard as these folks are good programmers.

Insults and frustration. How typical.

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vio wrote:

well, writing a 8 GByte file can cause alot of i/o. if it stesses your computer, get a better one or buy a ssd. btw, i think it defragments the harddrive before install if there is one.

vio, please. We went over this shit with Drakier. You don't take 40 minutes to allocate 8Gb. More like 40 seconds. Or 4 minutes for HDD. You only can make it 40 minutes if you write it with very little pieces (like 1 to 4 Kb) while constantly forcing disk writes (effectively ignoring write cache). Which is exactly what happens on HDD, you can fkn hear it. Harder to notice with SSD because well, they don't make any sounds :)

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silumit wrote:

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vio wrote:

well, writing a 8 GByte file can cause alot of i/o. if it stesses your computer, get a better one or buy a ssd. btw, i think it defragments the harddrive before install if there is one.

vio, please. We went over this shit with Drakier. You don't take 40 minutes to allocate 8Gb. More like 40 seconds. Or 4 minutes for HDD. You only can make it 40 minutes if you write it with very little pieces (like 1 to 4 Kb) while constantly forcing disk writes (effectively ignoring write cache). Which is exactly what happens on HDD, you can fkn hear it. Harder to notice with SSD because well, they don't make any sounds :)

that forced defrag run was just a guess from my side. only ggg can really explain why the process takes so long on some harddisks. so far they didn't.

and it all depends what they do on file creation, creating a file just takes seconds, filling it with zeros to test for harddsisk errors on the allcated space can take quite some time on older harddisks.

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vio wrote:

that forced defrag run was just a guess from my side. only ggg can really explain why the process takes so long on some harddisks. so far they didn't.

and it all depends what they do on file creation, creating a file just takes seconds, filling it with zeros to test for harddsisk errors on the allcated space can take quite some time on older harddisks.

Again, creating zero-filled file takes at most 4-5 minutes, tested it in this thread already. On severely fragmented drive, btw. You are right that only GGG can explain what exactly is happening. The fact they didn't say a word about it since... what, OB?.. to me says their code (the allocating part, I mean) is so shitty they can't make up an explanation that'll make them look good.

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silumit wrote:

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vio wrote:

that forced defrag run was just a guess from my side. only ggg can really explain why the process takes so long on some harddisks. so far they didn't.

and it all depends what they do on file creation, creating a file just takes seconds, filling it with zeros to test for harddsisk errors on the allcated space can take quite some time on older harddisks.

Again, creating zero-filled file takes at most 4-5 minutes, tested it in this thread already. On severely fragmented drive, btw. You are right that only GGG can explain what exactly is happening. The fact they didn't say a word about it since... what, OB?.. to me says their code (the allocating part, I mean) is so shitty they can't make up an explanation that'll make them look good.

was pm 'ing jonathan about it (the second time?), don't really expect an answer though as he only does reddit occasionally. maybe chris or mark_ggg could shed some light into it.

i also don't see a reason why the installer shouldn't write the reason into the game's logfile when the resource file creation takes longer than usual.

For what it's worth, the 'Allocating Space' seems to be doing exactly what it sounds like. From what I can see, the installer creates an empty file (content.ggpk) and then downloads the data. I assume during an update, the file is resized appropriately, before changing any data within.

I just spent the past week banging my head against the wall with this issue. Defragging, switching to the standalone from steam, uninstalling and reinstalling, etc. You name it, I tried it. Well after getting about 1/3 of the way into "allocating space" after 16 hours (not exaggerating), my wife came up with a solution that took me less than 5 minutes.

5 minute fix = copy the updated content.ggpk from someone else, run launcher, watch downloads, launch and play.

btw, I copied my wife's across the network from her Steam client into my standalone client. It took about 3 minutes to copy. 12 Gigs in 3 MINUTES. from now on I'll just watch hers update in 10 minutes, then copy hers. I won't be waiting for hours ever again.

get a COPY of the updated content.ggpk and drop it into your game folder. Viola.

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dracoselene wrote:

btw, I copied my wife's across the network from her Steam client into my standalone client. It took about 3 minutes to copy. 12 Gigs in 3 MINUTES. from now on I'll just watch hers update in 10 minutes, then copy hers. I won't be waiting for hours ever again.

But wait, how did you pull that stunt? Drakier and Co were saying that creating such a big file should take dozens of minutes, if not hours! :D