Ask almost any PC gamer from Asia to South America, and they will tell you the same thing: FitGirl is the one name in piracy that everyone recognises
Lvxferre [he/him]
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Note plenty FitGirl repacks are lossless; as in, she isn’t taking less important files out of the game, she’s compressing it better. 90GB→35GB seems accurate; you often see ~1/3 of the original size, like this. And it shows plenty game devs

  1. do an extremely bad job at basic tasks like compression.
  2. give no flying fucks about players, who might have really slow connections.

And then those same developers get amazed at the fact FitGirl is so popular. “Maybe we’re doing something wrong? …nah.”

[object Object]
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21h

do an extremely bad job at basic tasks like compression

I’ve installed one game from FitGirl so far. It took three hours to unpack while hammering all the cpu cores, failed, and required another three-hour go to install properly.

So you’re saying that all games should install like this?

Lvxferre [he/him]
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119m

So you’re saying that all games should install like this?

Given other people addressed the same point, but unlike you they aren’t disingenuously assuming words into my mouth, I think it’s pretty safe to block you as dead weight.

Cethin
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The thing about compression is you have to process it to decompress it. It may be benificial to people with limited bandwidth, or for peer-to-peer sharing, but it’s probably better for most users for someone like Valve to share the uncompressed version. Bandwidth isn’t the issue it used to be.

It also makes progressive updates harder. The best you can do is compress each update individually, not the whole package.

Lvxferre [he/him]
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I’m aware that compression rates are a trade-off between space and processing time, and that there’s some balance to be had. However, I don’t see this balance from plenty commercial games; what I see instead is disregard.

Here’s a made up example. Suppose you have a choice between compressing a game:

  • to 10 GiB, and it takes 2min to unpack it in a certain machine
  • to 3 GiB, and it takes 8min to unpack it in a certain machine

FitGirl will consistently pick the later option. And it would be fine if devs picked the former, or a middle ground… but they don’t. Instead, often you get a 10 GiB file that takes 10 min to unpack, the worst of both worlds.

And it isn’t just a matter of the compression algorithm. The developers also have the freedom to choose how they split files; but they often create 9001 files the size of an ant, that is going to hurt decompression times. (Paradox Interactive, I’m looking at you.)

Tagging @[email protected], as it addresses what they said too.

Fiestorra
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448h

I wouldn’t really say that. The kind of extreme compression Fitgirl does comes with the tradeoff of really long decompression times. Depending on which games, nearly 45 minutes (with a 7800x3D)

Some games lack compression but I would not want those long install times by default, if you have a speedy internet connection they usually take longer to install than to download. Don’t get me wrong, for people with really slow internet those repacks are a godsend but they are not “better” on every aspect.

@[email protected]
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26h

Honestly I can’t remember the last time a fitgirl release took longer to install than an ‘official’ copy.

And pretty much as long as I’ve had a computer it’s been “bottom of the barrel” hardware.

@[email protected]
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5310h

It’s more likely that the devs are not being given the time or resources to do this kind of thing properly. Their bosses are too concerned with what will save money and generate shareholder value.

Lvxferre [he/him]
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2710h

Fair point. I guess it would be more accurate to say “development studios” (you know, the organisation… including the bloody boss) instead of “game devs”.

@[email protected]
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37h

This implies fitgirl is doing it properly. Which it’s trade off faster download longer install times or vice versa.

@[email protected]
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24h

Decompression during install is generally less of a bottleneck than network bandwidth, so fitgirl is doing it properly.

@[email protected]
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47h

No it’s making a choice. Faster decompress times. Considering a lot of their customers have fast speeds it doesn’t really matter.

Lvxferre [he/him]
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114m

Bingo. And this means they’re effectively choosing who their games are for. And then complaining the ones they didn’t choose decided to pirate it.

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