Just wondering, is there a particular game file size that would put you off downloading a game? The Apprentice II was about 40MB or so... how many people didn't download it because of that? I ask because my game is looking to be about 50meg (maybe more), and I don't want this to stop too many people from being able to download it. I understand the pain of being on dial-up ^_^
I will definately not download a 50 meg size game. At leat not until I get a connection better than dial-up (that will probably happen in 2030 or something like that).
if it's a good game then it's worth the download no matter what size it is but it can depend on what is taking up all the space. for example, if you have a fairly small game but with mp3 music and speech it's probably best to do what they did with king's quest and offer them as seperate downloads.
but personally as long as i have the drive space i'll download it, but if people with dialup don't want to just because they have dialup then they need to stop feeling sorry for themselves...
I'd probably download it, if it were a good game. But I have a fasr connection, and not too worried about filling space in my system. Putting it in two seperate packs, if the size comes from music, is a good idea.
Quotebut if people with dialup don't want to just because they have dialup then they need to stop feeling sorry for themselves...
Um...some people don't have a choice, either because dial-up is their only provider, or they live under their parents rule. So if you have dial-up, be strong, use and use some sort of download excellerator.
-MillsJROSS
I'm using broadband, so maybe I'm biased in this respect. I frivolously download 50-100 meg files and delete them without a second thought, but even when I used an old 14.4, I at times connected and left an 80+ meg download running all night when I had to. For dial-uppers, programs like GetRight and so on (if my memory serves me) have built in 'hang up after download finishes' options.
I guess the bottom line is that if the game looks good, people are more likely to download it no matter what the size is. Regardless of filesize, it seems that most of the people here have played Apprentice II and the King's Quest remakes. Of course, there are always going to be people who just shun larger files simply because they're the size they are. Your best bet is to use a split archive so that people on dialup can get the game in chunks (5 or 10 megs, or whatever), and to have a seperate file for those whose bands are broad. Or you could just say 'Sorry, it's a big file', and let people decide whether it looks good enough to download anyway.
Well, I don't fancy splitting the file up much, and it's not that large due to music or speech packs, rather just a large game. I guess it'll be as big as it is, and if dial-up users don't want to download it themselves, perhaps they can get a friend to. I think most people at least know someone with a fast connection.
now is this 50mb zipped or rared?
I don't have a problem downloading 50 megs, since I'm on cable, but I probably would only do it if I had a couple of kick-arse screenshots to tempt me. Otherwise I just tend to assume it's 50mb of music and speech...
But I guess having played Apprentice II, it will probably be a game I'll enjoy muchly... (EDIT: Assuming you are comparing it to Apprentice II because it equates in awesomeness...)
Have you already tried compressing it or is 50MB the raw file size?
QuoteYour best bet is to use a split archive so that people on dialup can get the game in chunks (5 or 10 megs, or whatever)
Aside from speech and music packs, I don't understand why splitting up a game in multiple parts is better for dial-up users.
I imagine most of them use a download manager that can pause and resume anyway?
That also depends on whether the site hosting the file can resume downloads.
In my opinion I'd rather download large file in pieces if possible.
The file isn't -any- size yet because it's not finished. I'm simply estimating it may be 50MB :) It may be 60, or 100. I don't know.
Have you tried to ZIP it yet? It's incredible how much winzip compresses AGS games.
Of course you haven't, because the game isn't finished yet. Anyway, Winzip can probably sqeeze down a 50MB to only 7MB. It's awesome.
If that's the case, it should be alright. I've never taken much notice of how much Winzip ... er, zips. If it's that much, the whole thing should be no problem ^_^ Thanks.
It depends, if the game consists mostly of mp3/ogg/wav recorded soundtracks and samples and/or FMV AVI's, compression probably can't help much.
If most of the game's size is just made up of sprites and rooms, compressions can possibly do miracles. :=
Quote from: Gilbot V7000a on Wed 02/03/2005 08:22:10
If most of the game's size is just made up of sprites and rooms, compressions can possibly do miracles. :=
Isn't it just one of them which matters? (forgot which one) I thought either rooms or sprites were compressed in the engine itself, making further compression ineffective.
Well, the 50 MB to 7 MB seems a bit over-optimistic. However, you can get fairly decent ratios. Fatman seems like a good example. Using the (non-talkie?) Underdogs version, the decompressed size is: 61.7 Megs (on disk filesize). The total size for WinRAR archives is: 24.7 Megs. So, roughly 40% of the original diskspace.
WinZip's ratios (v.8.1) are normally lower, though I haven't messed with their newest version. The newer version runs into compatibility problems with other archiving software. Winzip (8-ish) has the advantage of being ubiquitous at least. AGS only does some mild compression with the graphics but doesn't have the advantage of a full-tilt archiving program, it does more when compressing its scripting, I would guess.
[Edit: Good topic, by the way. It's been discussed before, but it's a good one to revisit occasionally - certainly better than "What's your favorite Strawberry Sundae?" I, for one, will download almost anything when on dial-up. I just do a lot of research first.]
Well my game was 91 MB uncompressed :D and 35 under ZIP..... But a think main conceren is that AGS uses his own backgroun format for pics, that makes him very long...
In my experience you get compression down to between 1/4 and 1/3 of the uncompressed size.
The main pitfall is MP3/OGG sounds and music that don't compress well at all. (duh!)
Quote from: Andail on Wed 02/03/2005 09:09:05
Isn't it just one of them which matters? (forgot which one) I thought either rooms or sprites were compressed in the engine itself, making further compression ineffective.
Well, yea, mainly sprites actually, which are not compressed, but I think apart from the compressed backgrounds, rooms do contain other stuff like data and (compiled) scripts, etc. which may still benefit from further compressions.
Well for me, if it was a good game, like I am pretty sure yours will be, I wouldn't mind downloading it even if I was on a modem still.
Quote from: YakSpit on Wed 02/03/2005 09:23:59
Well, the 50 MB to 7 MB seems a bit over-optimistic.
Not really. When Barbarian zipped down the newest version of our ATC game(which was 58,6 MB), it was only 7,48 MB. :o
[quote author=HowStuffWorks.com (http://www.howstuffworks.com)]
The file-reduction ratio depends on a number of factors, including file type, file size and compression scheme. In most languages of the world, certain letters and words often appear together in the same pattern. Because of this high rate of redundancy, text files compress very well. A reduction of 50 percent or more is typical for a good-sized text file. Most programming languages are also very redundant because they use a relatively small collection of commands, which frequently go together in a set pattern. Files that include a lot of unique information, such as graphics or MP3 files, cannot be compressed much with this system because they don't repeat many patterns
[/quote]
[quote author=HowStuffWorks.com (http://www.howstuffworks.com)]
This efficiency also depends on the specific algorithm used by the compression program. Some programs are particularly suited to picking up patterns in certain types of files, and so may compress them more succinctly. Others have dictionaries within dictionaries, which might compress efficiently for larger files but not for smaller ones. While all compression programs of this sort work with the same basic idea, there is actually a good deal of variation in the manner of execution.
[/quote
For other information about compression, and comparrison of different formats and software, see this page:
http://compression.ca/act/act-win.html
Quick links for what we need working with and outside AGS:
http://compression.ca/act/act-executable.html
http://compression.ca/act/act-graphics.html
http://compression.ca/act/act-sound.html
http://compression.ca/act/act-text.html
[/quote]
I did some experiments with a few popular AGS games that I had on my disk and found that 7zip seems to give the best compression on average for AGS games (excluding sound packs, of course, which tend not to compress very well). 7zip also can create a self-extracter, which is a small percentage overhead on a big download, on the other hand, that often made the 7zip result abou thte same as a RAR, so there's not much in it.
Quote from: Kinoko on Wed 02/03/2005 03:06:23
Just wondering, is there a particular game file size that would put you off downloading a game? The Apprentice II was about 40MB or so... how many people didn't download it because of that? I ask because my game is looking to be about 50meg (maybe more), and I don't want this to stop too many people from being able to download it. I understand the pain of being on dial-up ^_^
My game is looking to be that sort of size unfortunately, despite being graphically simple and with little music. For reasons I fail to grasp, whenever I import an image file it is bloated up to many times its actual file size. 5KB graphics have jumped to 200KB ones. It is... odd.
7Zip was best for me too, but the difference is small. John Stickman currently compresses from 15mb down to 2mb, depending on how much of your filesize is sprites you can get great compression.
Anyway, 50mb isn't a lot, I'd download that without too much hesitation when I was on dialup, and most people are on broadband these days, and most of those have no problem downloading multi gigabyte files.
DystopianR - the jump is probable because AGS compression is pretty basic compared to the files you import, like png, (or non existant in the case of sprites), this is mostly for speed.
Even though I have broadband now, I would still hesitate before downloading a game of 50MB (or over). I would have to hear good things about it, or at least see some interesting screenshots and a detailed description.
If some new member were to post a game that was even 20 MBs, without screenshots or anything, I wouldn't download it. But if a game looks good (Description, screenshots), i wouldn't bat an eye at downloading a file up to 150 MBs large.
Your game looks amazing Kinoko, don't comprise it's amazingness just because you're worried about file size.
Aww, shucks *^_^*
Kinok0 iz dum!!1
[sorry, just had to even it out so you didn't get a big head!]
Phew, thanks... back on the ground now.
Personally, I would balk at a 50mb download in the days before I got a cable connection. Splitting a big file into several chunks sounds like a good idea for people who still use dial up (and let's face it - that's still the majority of the people on the net).
Of course, if a game looked really, really cool then I would have probably just used a download manager before I went to bed.
But with good compression, AGS really seems to squeeze down to a tiny nugget of downloadable goodness. Part two of my much-too-long-in-the-works game The Forever Friday is 181 megs, but WinRar crunched it down to 7.5 megs. Of course, all the music is in MIDI format, otherwise it would be a lot larger. So don't scale back your cool looking vision, Kinoko. Cirque de Zale was super cool and it would be a shame to scale back your plans solely over the concern of bandwidth.
-Ponch
That's good to hear. All in all my game will be roughly the same size as Kinoko's I guess, so I'll do everything to zip it down. Personally I use UHarc GUI for file compression. It also has self-extracting archives, and a lot more options than anything I've seen in other file compression programs. It zipped a 700 mb cd-rom ISO into a 200 mb SFX! For my demo it just about halved the filesize.
ORRR, if you want to please everyone, you could start a 'store' where people with a 56k connection can order the deluxe version of your game for a dollar. Burn the files on disk, throw in some extras, make a nice cover and mail it out. That's what I'm gonna do...