If there’s one thing that you can say about OVERKILL Software, it’s that they really support their games post-launch. With the latest Payday 2 update, Overkill announced that the game would be reduced in size by a whopping 20GB!
OVERKILL went on to explain that the reduction in size is due to a restructuring of how assets were stored and loaded during the games loadout phase. Fans of the game are likely familiar with the way that Steam grinds to a halt every time there is a new Payday 2 patch; hopefully this reduction in size will at least help a little to lessen the time that it takes to get your copy up to date.
We’ve got the full Q & A related to the size changes below. You can read the rest of the announcement at http://steamcommunity.com/games/218620/announcements/detail/1715056000687092409
If you’ve been slacking, you can grab PAYDAY 2 PC on Amazon.com
. It’s highly advisable not to pick this up for consoles though, as this latest update is #28 for PC; the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions are still months behind in content.
Q: How did OVERKILL reduce the size of the game?
A: The content system has been restructured to allow some assets to be loaded during loadout and the blackscreen instead of during the loading screen. This eliminates the need for duplicates between bundle files.Q: How is ingame performance affected?
Because of the background streaming during loadout, you might notice drop in framerate. The streaming speed can be tweakd by adjusting the size of the streaming chunk size in advanced video options. After loadout and the blackscreen, the performance is not at all affected.Q: How is loading performance affected?
A: Loading times from lobby/Crime.net to loadout will become shorter.
But since the loading continues into loadout, the total time will be longer than before.Q: Will the new system be used on console?
A: No final answer yet. We are still working on it. HDD access speeds on PS3 and Xbox 360 are not as good as on PC.Q: What was wrong with the old system?
A: The old system did not scale up well and we still want to release lots of content. Patching was slow, due to the size of the files and the install size was too much for a lot of systems.Q: Why do you not compress the data?
A: If we did that then patch sizes would increase dramatically.Q: How is gameplay affected?
A: Not at all.Q: Who wins with the new content system?
A: Winners are those who are short of HDD space, slow internet connections, HDD with average-good access times. Moreover, everyone loads faster into loadout.Q: Can I switch to the old content system?
A: No. The data is optimized for the new system and using the old system with the new data will be terribly slow.Q: Will you change the patching system for PAYDAY 2?
A: No, we are not in charge of the patching system, Valve is. We make sure to use the latest and most modern option there is. Valve’s patch system is one of the best if not the best there is.
