Helldivers 2 developer explains why it's so big to install on PC, and why that won't be changing anytime soon
Helldivers 2 takes up around 150GB to install on PC (three times larger than on console), and the game’s deputy technical director has now explained why that won’t be changing anytime soon.
In a new blog post on Steam, Arrowhead’s Brendan Armstrong explained for the PC version the developers utilised data duplication to reduce loading times, something that’s primarily used to optimise games for HDDs.
As the older storage drives use a physical arm to read data, duplicating that data can make it quicker to find and thereby reduce loading times. SSDs don’t work in this way, which explains why the console versions of Helldivers 2 take up less storage space.
However, as Armstrong acknowledged, HDDs are part of the game’s minimum specs on PC but the studio doesn’t know how many players are still using them.
“Our best estimates put it at around 12 percent of all PC gamers but the data is very unreliable and relies on a lot of extrapolations,” said Armstrong. “Until we can more accurately determine the number of mechanical HDDs that Helldivers 2 is installed on, it is difficult to know how many players will be impacted by reducing the amount of data duplication. Even if that number is small, keep in mind that the load time for each player dropping into a mission is determined by the slowest member of the squad.”
Still, the studio is “actively exploring” a number of solutions for the future, although it “cannot eliminate all duplication without making loading times for mechanical HDDs 10 times slower and we do not feel that this is acceptable”.
In the short term, unused assets will be removed in the next update, though these will be replaced by new additions so won’t reduce the amount of storage space required.
A medium term solution is to bundle frequently used assets and remove duplicates, though Armstrong admitted this would increase load times for players using HDDs. In the long term, engine improvements are planned to not waste RAM loading data that isn’t needed.
