Titanfall's Massive PC Install Explained

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For those of you wondering why the PC version of Titanfall has a 48GB install (compared to 16GB on the Xbox One), here is your answer.

The bloated file size on PC comes from developer Respawn's attempt at making the game compatible with as many machines as possible. Specifically, the game includes 35GB of uncompressed audio. Lead engineer Richard Baker told Eurogamer that "by having uncompressed audio, the game runs faster for those using slower systems." Xbox One includes an audio decoder built into the hardware, which does away with the need for uncompressed audio.
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My wife's explanation of cheating on me with her father would sound more reasonable....
 
Uh... 35GB of uncomperessed audio?

That just sounds like bullshit for "We don't know how to use a normal encode/decoder that isn't resource hungry".

What the fuck kind of processor uses "A decent chunk of one core" for audio? I have NEVER seen onboard audio require more than 1% of a processor, and I bet it shows that only because it cant show fractions of a percentage.

Disable audio in any game if you use onboard - you will not get any appreciable forms of performance gain because it doesn't put any strain.
 
WTF?!
A $5 mp3 player can play compressed audio, but a dual core PC cannot? Instead an old HD on an old PC will be spinning constantly causing all sorts of stuttering and this is better?! :confused::eek:

Ehh, again.. WTF?!
 
ummm...FLAC IS compressed...it's just lossless compression.

that said...perhaps it's something different...perhaps a licensing issue; mp3 decoding may require a license from Fraunhofer IIS which means $.
Side benefit is that the CPU overhead on low-end machines is less.
 
Audio decode, even the more complex codecs, use a small fraction of a percent of one slow CPU core.

If it wasn't online only (thus built-in DRM), I'd assume it was some attempt to slow/reduce torrent copies just by sheer size.
 
Project_Nightmare said:
35 GB of uncompressed audio? That game must have an insane FLAC library!

But I am going to call bull on this.
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Inclined to agree, even if they had a number of languages included for no other reason than to clutter drivers. 35GB does seem pretty odd, maybe they're just riding that 6.144Mbps E-AC-3 cap or something stupid like that [still 12 hours at that rate].

On a related note, if you're working on the assertion that 35GB of the install is audio, you just get 13GB of game left, so what's that work out to? $60-80 / 13GB = $4.62 to $6.15/GB :p
 
Its good to know this game will sound kick ass on my old Pentium III box!
I figured computers that have cpu's so old, they are too weak to process compressed audio files, probably don't have 50GB of HDD space anyways :D :D :D
 
"by having uncompressed audio, the game runs faster for those using slower systems."

But it runs on the Xbox One?

LOL.
 
i bet audiophiles will worship this game for its 509 bit resolution, 17.3 channels and 3.14 ghz sampling rate. those sensitive ears require top audio quality.
 
I love audio discussions because you'll quickly discover who is the most stupid or full of shit. And in this case, it's the game's own developers.
 
MoFoQ said:
ummm...FLAC IS compressed...it's just lossless compression.

that said...perhaps it's something different...perhaps a licensing issue; mp3 decoding may require a license from Fraunhofer IIS which means $.
Side benefit is that the CPU overhead on low-end machines is less.
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It is using something "modern" and "amazing"...like WAV :cool:
 
Yep, everybody knows that it is sound and not graphics that drives the performance of PC games. :confused:
 
Adelante said:
...maybe they're just riding that 6.144Mbps E-AC-3 cap or something stupid like that [still 12 hours at that rate].
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Seriously what game needs 12 hours (~13.3 to be more exact) of uncompressed audio? That is insane. 2 hours for music max, 3 hours of voice overs max, and less than an hour for sound effects. How the heck did they get to 13.3 hours?
 
When I had a dual core Athlon X2 5000+, I've never had an issue decompressing MP3 files....

What processor did they test with that would have an issue decompressing an audio file that'll diminish performance in other areas of the game at the same time?
 
GaryJohnson said:
Seriously what game needs 12 hours (~13.3 to be more exact) of uncompressed audio? That is insane. 2 hours for music max, 3 hours of voice overs max, and less than an hour for sound effects. How the heck did they get to 13.3 hours?
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Oops, forgot my smiley. Meant to write to imply that they would have to be doing something pretty crazy/stupid with bitrates to hit those numbers. After all, EA's stable's definition of music is pretty loose: Game Facts: BF3 Music ;)
 
So he's saying to all of us with even moderately powerful machines "Fuck you, we want to whore this game out to the kid still using his AMD Athlon and 7750 GPU. We totally bloated this download just so we could get an extra 0.1FPS for people too cheap to upgrade.

So glad I didn't waste money on this crap.
 
I'm beginning to want this game less & less. I found the beta fun,but no more so than say crisis 3 or unreal tournament. It's an overpticed (and if this article is true) bloated resource hog. Just my opinion.
 
collegeboy69us said:
So he's saying to all of us with even moderately powerful machines "Fuck you, we want to whore this game out to the kid still using his AMD Athlon and 7750 GPU. We totally bloated this download just so we could get an extra 0.1FPS for people too cheap to upgrade.

So glad I didn't waste money on this crap.
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No, but you waste your money on a belt buckle.
 
Not rushing to get Titanfall yet, but when I do,
a) I'll install the game on my mechanical drive
b) copy everything from Titanfall folder except for the audio files to my SSD
c) shutdown Origin
d) rename the copied folders and files on the hard disc so I have a backup version of them
e) Create symbolic link shortcuts on the HDD to the non-audio files and folders on the SSD that match the original folder structure and folder/file names.

I've already done this for my complete Battlefield and Call of Duty folders (since I grabbed an SSD late, haven't installed my OS on it, and didn't want to bother reinstalling/moving my Steam and Origin install directories), and it works well.

If your Origin folder is already on your SSD,
a) find out the subfolder under the Origin folder where Titanfall will be installed
b) create a folder on your HDD before you install Titanfall
c) create a symbolic folder link with the correct name on your SSD under the Origin folder
d) install the game to the link (which will place it on your HDD)
e) shut down Origin
f) remove the link on the SSD
g) create a folder with the correct Titanfall install folder name
h) copy everything except the large audio files to the folder on the SSD
i) create symbolic links to the large audio files on the HDD in the right spot in the SSD installation folder

To sum up, if someone wants to put everything except the large audio files on their SSDs, use symbolic links. It'll be a bit of pain, but you should only have to do it once, and it should alleviate the space issue.
 
Actually compressed vs uncompressed can make a massive difference in PC games. In many games you have upwards of 30 sounds playing at once. Not having all the dynamic range crushed into the same space can do wonders for sound.

Star Citizen is considering using either loss less compress or uncompressed audio. They though they'd be the first... maybe not.
 
I install all these games on my RAID0. The loading times are fast enough.
 
35GB of uncompressed audio sounds insane. I thought it would be something like better graphic textures.
 
No thanks I'll pass, the beta was ok but not worth $60 to me. Now if that mega d-load was content and maps and gave me like 420 hrs of single player game time then I would consider it but honestly I think this is just a pile of bloatware that I do not need.
 
My understanding is that the size is because the forces you to download the audio for every supported language.

What languages does Titanfall support? English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Traditional Chinese.

There's your answer. Apparently Origin does support allowing you to download a regional version, so this just seems like lazy programming.
 
So 35-38Gigs of uncompressed audio huh?

Sounds like brute force DRM to me "If the game is 50gigs+, they'll be less likely to pirate it!"
 
It's all languages the game ships in, installing by force, with no way to get taken out. Just what you want after spending $60 for an always online MP only game that doesn't look good in comparison to F2P titles.
 
This kind of thing has happened in the past.
Developers packed the audio as MP3's
While they aren't the same as the original uncompressed WAV's
MP3's can easily be decompressed with a build in process, like a button in the Menu options.
FLAC's could also be used and decompressed with a button option with little loss in fidelity.
Don't understand why this wasn't considered.

Ridiculous they would force push every language file.

Lets just burn up the internet with GB of useless shit.
Fuck it. We dont care.
 
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