360 Dash Update Reduces Size of Hard Drive Installs?

[Queasy]

Gamespy among many others is reporting that gamers have discovered that the install sizes on the games they are installing to their HDDs have dropped after receiving the NXE Update Preview.

How much of a drop depends on the game but, according to Gamespy, games that were installed prior to the update will have to be reinstalled to work correctly.

CAG has a looooong thread of people testing out various games.

Forza 2 went from 5.3gb to 4.7gb (-11.32%)
NHL09 went from 5.7gb to 5.0gb (-12.28%)
COD4 went from 6.7gb to 6.5gb (-2.99%)
CODWaW went from 6.5 gb to 6.4gb (-1.54%)
Sacred 2 went from 6.5gb to 6.3gb (-3.08%)
Left 4 Dead went from 4gb to 3.7gb (-26.00%)

many more in the thread.

Obviously the biggest benefit will be for those with 20GB or 60GB HDDs and close to filling them up.

 

[BoberFett]

Any theories? Compression? De-duplication?

 

[R Nilla]

Raiden Fighters Aces 3.4GB > 484MB :Q

 

[Ramma2]

From my own games:

Game - Before - After

Lego Star Wars: Complete Series - 5.8 - 5.7
Lego: Indiana Jones - 4.4 - 3.5
Burnout Paradise - 3.4 - 2.8
Fable 2 - 6.8 - 6.6
Battlestations: Pacific - 5.0 - 4.9
Rockband 2 - 6.3 - 4.6
Scene It: LCA - 6.8 - 5.6

 

[tw1164]

Are the install times any different?

 

[viivo]

Originally posted by: BoberFett
Any theories? Compression? De-duplication?

The consensus on CaG is that a lot of the dummy and protection files that the old dash needed in order to properly read the image are no longer installed.

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

I read about this over the weekend. Sweet deal! Maybe I can install more than one game on my HDD at a time.

 

[Kabob]

Someone figure out the side difference for Lost Odyssey.

 

[JackBurton]

And when will this be available to everyone? I've got a lot of games installed so it sucks that I have to reinstall them. But if it shrinks the size, I'm all for it.

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: JackBurton
And when will this be available to everyone? I've got a lot of games installed so it sucks that I have to reinstall them. But if it shrinks the size, I'm all for it.

8/11

Originally posted by: kabob983
Someone figure out the side difference for Lost Odyssey.

Someone in the CAG thread said it reduced the total install by 1.5GB.

 

[erwos]

Hey, even with the 120gb HDD, a gig here or there will add up.

 

[JackBurton]

Originally posted by: erwos
Hey, even with the 120gb HDD, a gig here or there will add up.

Yep. I've got an XBox Elite with 120GB, and I'm running low on space. This will help.

 

[JackBurton]

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: JackBurton
And when will this be available to everyone? I've got a lot of games installed so it sucks that I have to reinstall them. But if it shrinks the size, I'm all for it.

8/11

Awesome. Thanks!

 

[Pheran]

Originally posted by: Queasy
Left 4 Dead went from 4gb to 3.7gb (-26.00%)

Hmm, someone on CAG is having a math failure.

 

[Kabob]

Originally posted by: Pheran

Originally posted by: Queasy
Left 4 Dead went from 4gb to 3.7gb (-26.00%)

Hmm, someone on CAG is having a math failure.

Wow, I missed that as well!

 

[JackBurton]

Originally posted by: Pheran

Originally posted by: Queasy
Left 4 Dead went from 4gb to 3.7gb (-26.00%)

Hmm, someone on CAG is having a math failure.

LOL, I have no idea how they got 26% out of a 7.5% reduction. That math is waaaay off.

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: kabob983

Originally posted by: Pheran

Originally posted by: Queasy
Left 4 Dead went from 4gb to 3.7gb (-26.00%)

Hmm, someone on CAG is having a math failure.

Wow, I missed that as well!

I think they meant 5GB to 3.7GB as 5GB is the reported size of the L4D install. That would make the -26% reduction accurate.

 

[R Nilla]

Interesting speculation from Digital Foundry. More or less what CAG users were speculating as well:

So, just what is going on here? Are games being compressed and decompressed on the fly? The answer is no. For some time, I've been looking at the size of the actual game data by running debug review code on a 360 test station, where most of my Xbox gaming takes place these days. The sizes we're seeing with the new NXE installs correlate very closely to what I've been seeing on the test kit, which features its own minimalist dash that shows the total disk space occupied by the game code only.

What appears to be happening is that the new dash is simply much more efficient in terms of the amount of useless data it strips away from the disc before transferring it across onto HDD in whatever the 360's internal equivalent of the ISO format is. The bottom-end install always used to be 3.4GB (exactly half of the usable 6.8GB on a 360 game DVD - not a coincidence) regardless of the size of the game itself, which makes me think that some of copy-protection system's filler bytes were being transferred in the old installation procedure. Additionally, some files may be mirrored in multiple locations on the disc in order to speed up access times. This duplicated data can be easily eliminated for a hard-disk install with no untoward effects on game performance.

 

[zerocool84]

Hmm interesting. I only have a 20GB so this should help. I didn't really notice the size difference cus I wasn't paying attention for I'm all for more efficiency.

 

[Kabob]

So here's a question, will I have to uninstall all the games from my HDD or will it automatically somehow reformat the data when the update is installed? Also, I assume the answer is no but are any of the arcade games smaller (assuming it was a better compression rather than how the game is ripped)?

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: kabob983
So here's a question, will I have to uninstall all the games from my HDD or will it automatically somehow reformat the data when the update is installed? Also, I assume the answer is no but are any of the arcade games smaller (assuming it was a better compression rather than how the game is ripped)?

You'll have to delete the install and re-install.

Arcade games are not affected.

 

[herkulease]

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: kabob983
So here's a question, will I have to uninstall all the games from my HDD or will it automatically somehow reformat the data when the update is installed? Also, I assume the answer is no but are any of the arcade games smaller (assuming it was a better compression rather than how the game is ripped)?

You'll have to delete the install and re-install.

Arcade games are not affected.

sure waste of time. I might have re-rent some scratched up discs now.

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: herkulease

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: kabob983
So here's a question, will I have to uninstall all the games from my HDD or will it automatically somehow reformat the data when the update is installed? Also, I assume the answer is no but are any of the arcade games smaller (assuming it was a better compression rather than how the game is ripped)?

You'll have to delete the install and re-install.

Arcade games are not affected.

sure waste of time. I might have re-rent some scratched up discs now.

You have to have the disc anyways to play games installed on to the hard drive.

 

[herkulease]

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: herkulease

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: kabob983
So here's a question, will I have to uninstall all the games from my HDD or will it automatically somehow reformat the data when the update is installed? Also, I assume the answer is no but are any of the arcade games smaller (assuming it was a better compression rather than how the game is ripped)?

You'll have to delete the install and re-install.

Arcade games are not affected.

sure waste of time. I might have re-rent some scratched up discs now.

You have to have the disc anyways to play games installed on to the hard drive.

I have some games that are totally scratched up. Like left 4 dead. someone decided to tilt the 360 when it was spinning scratched the game the hell up.

couldn't install it at all. I had to rent another copy to be able to install.

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: herkulease

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: herkulease

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: kabob983
So here's a question, will I have to uninstall all the games from my HDD or will it automatically somehow reformat the data when the update is installed? Also, I assume the answer is no but are any of the arcade games smaller (assuming it was a better compression rather than how the game is ripped)?

You'll have to delete the install and re-install.

Arcade games are not affected.

sure waste of time. I might have re-rent some scratched up discs now.

You have to have the disc anyways to play games installed on to the hard drive.

I have some games that are totally scratched up. Like left 4 dead. someone decided to tilt the 360 when it was spinning scratched the game the hell up.

D'oh!