Why did Steam do this?

Q

Q-BZ

Fully [H]
Joined
Sep 28, 2007
Messages
19,789
I fire up Steam this morning and I see Fallout New Vegas downloading.

At first I think "An update after all this time?" only to realize what's really going on.

A game I never had and never would uninstall and yet it's acting like I'd uninstalled it and now it's redownloading the entire thing.

WTF happened here?
 
Could either be some sort of patch/update, or possibly they converted it to the new file format thing required to be able to install to other directories.
 
Q-BZ said:
What do you mean?
Click to expand...

Steam is just helping you reach that 250gb cap ISP's like Comcast have.
;)

Honestly, I don't know. I've had it do this with a game before. It didn't break anything, but it was rather odd.
 
Ubisoft games are notorious on steam fit doing this. But from my experience you had to select to play the hadn't to prompt the reinstall.
 
I memory serves well I read somewhere that Steam has been transitioning to a different and better (supposed to take less space) file format — this is why many people, myself included, have seen their games having 'unusual' downloads.
 
Steam has been switching its games over to a new file system and some games have to be fully redownloaded while others just a small portion.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
Steam is just helping you reach that 250gb cap ISP's like Comcast have.
;)

Honestly, I don't know. I've had it do this with a game before. It didn't break anything, but it was rather odd.
Click to expand...


except comcast has no cap now, lol. they removed it 5 months ago without telling anyone. only spot they posted it was on the bandwidth meter page in your account on their website.
 
Here is the announcement of the cap removal:

https://customer.comcast.com/help-and-support/internet/data-usage-exceeding-the-allowance/

Introduction
Frequently asked questions about excessive use of data.
Does this mean you're going to stop cutting people off who exceed your allowance?
On May 17, 2012, we announced the suspension of our 250 GB usage allowance and that we would launch new data usage plans. We will continue to contact the very small number of excessive users about their usage, which can be indicative of security or related issues.
Click to expand...
 
This has happened to me alot with TF2, i play for a while, then stop, few hours go back and it is re downloading the entire game!
 
KaOTiK said:
Steam has been switching its games over to a new file system and some games have to be fully redownloaded while others just a small portion.
Click to expand...

Right. I noticed this a couple weeks ago and didn't know what the hell is going on. The "play" button is gone and replaced by a "install" button? Huh?

All my games so far have only needed a small update and have not had to download the entire thing. You can still play the games without the download though. Go into the steamapps folder and launch the game from there and it'll play whether or not you've done the update.
 
Xonim said:
Could either be some sort of patch/update, or possibly they converted it to the new file format thing required to be able to install to other directories.
Click to expand...

That happened to a bunch of my games a couple of weeks ago and I was mildly annoyed.
 
_PixelNinja said:
I memory serves well I read somewhere that Steam has been transitioning to a different and better (supposed to take less space) file format — this is why many people, myself included, have seen their games having 'unusual' downloads.
Click to expand...

The new content system (NCS) has several advantages -

- It allows delta patching as opposed to having to replace the entirety of every changed file. In the past there were some extreme cases where a patch with only a few MB worth of changes would require GBs worth of downloads on Steam.

- I believe it also allows for better compression so the downloads are smaller now for the same game.

- It allows built in custom install directories. You will notice when you try to install games now using the NCS it'll let you choose an install directory on a different drive. Also compared to past methods like Steamover you will not have the issue of files outside the game folder being left (eg. .gcf). This is a benefit as more people are now adding a SSD to their system (perfect timing for me!).

- I believe it allows the actual Steam program to operate faster (especially going forward). For instance when you launch Steam it needed to check and download catalog information, the new system lowers the amount of data needed to be sent.

- Supposedly it'll also lead to future development for more download control (like throttling, etc.) Although I'm not sure what the actual technical connection here is and why it could be implemented on the old system. Also something like downloading a patch but applying it after you exit the game so you no longer have to wait for a patch to download and install to play.

Although Big Picture Mode and Steam Linux have been making the news the NCS really is the recent change that has the most beneficial impact to me personally (and I suspect the vast majority of people).
 
that's steam for you
my favorite crap is,
even thought I have "do not update this game" checked,
it still updates any and all games regardless. grrrr......
pure BS
 
I had a good one a few weeks ago. I had a game that wanted to install a huge patch, but it was something I didn't play anymore, so I just stopped the DL. Steam refuses to remove the patch from my queue, it keeps trying to download it every time I open it. So, I try to uninstall the game and it won't let me since and download is pending for it. I don't even have enough room on my ssd for the patch, so I can't even let it download. I end up having to uninstall another game, let this massive patch download, then uninstall the game and re-download the other game I had to uninstall. What a waste of bandwidth.
 
Some games (all Valve games as far as I can tell) will show the entire game size when its patching, so it looks as if its downloading the entire game. But the size should show something like say 4.6GB of 4.7GB downloaded, if the patch is roughly 100MB.
 
Steam - the program - being a glitchy piece of junk that Valve puts no effort into fixing might have something to do with it.
 
B2BigAl said:
I had a good one a few weeks ago. I had a game that wanted to install a huge patch, but it was something I didn't play anymore, so I just stopped the DL. Steam refuses to remove the patch from my queue, it keeps trying to download it every time I open it. So, I try to uninstall the game and it won't let me since and download is pending for it. I don't even have enough room on my ssd for the patch, so I can't even let it download. I end up having to uninstall another game, let this massive patch download, then uninstall the game and re-download the other game I had to uninstall. What a waste of bandwidth.
Click to expand...

That sounds like a pain. You should be able to manually delete the game folder, if I move a game off of my SSD to store steam just considers it uninstalled.
 
Plague_Injected said:
Steam - the program - being a glitchy piece of junk that Valve puts no effort into fixing might have something to do with it.
Click to expand...

Yes, and it seems to get worse rather than better.

The problem is probably the legions of asskissers who suckle at the Valve teet whatever they do or don't and fanatically drown out any legitimate complaints. :D
 
well you have to hand it to them they were able to integrate thousands of games on one platform, it's no easy task.

Americans have it easy with bandwith caps anyways, 200+ GB/month is golden. In Canada we'd be lucky to get 100GB/month with our mainstream internet providers. Even our fiber internet is capped at 60GB, what a shame.
 
Hell, its about time. I was so fedup of them downloading the Witcher 2 all over again the last time I bought a gog version because of this.
 
hardc0re said:
well you have to hand it to them they were able to integrate thousands of games on one platform, it's no easy task.
Click to expand...

A few simple things would do the trick. Like a feature to "stop messing with my game when I'm telling you not to update it." Shouldn't be much effort.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top