Hard drive space comfort zone.

[pvt_awol]

Dang, now I feel like a hoarder of useless data. LOL. I have tons of space, and it's always full!

[RCBH928]

I was wondering why is your computer HDD is 60GB only? I had a computer I bought 11 years ago and it had 80GB of HDD and I believe that was not the maximum limit by that era.

I feel my computer is choking up when 10-20GB is left in the system. I think there is a general rule where you have to keep 10-15% free as J T said, scratch space or something like that. You probably can get a 250GB drive for something like $30.

I must say though , that I am upset with software creators(games or not) because their game sizes seem so way too blown up. My jaw drops when simple games on iOS are like 200-300mb . Other games like Team Fortress 2 is 10GB!!!! I can be wrong but isn't that even more than the capacity of a 360 disk?

I so much more respect developers of the past that could cram something like a full mario game in 1-2mb which is a size of 1 picture today , or 35mb of a long , 3D game lik zelda or 64mb(not exactly sure of a the number) for Resident EVil 2(64)

[isiolia]

I was wondering why is your computer HDD is 60GB only? I had a computer I bought 11 years ago and it had 80GB of HDD and I believe that was not the maximum limit by that era.

I read that as there being 25 and 35GB free, not that their combined total was only 60GB.

There could still be people who have a ~60GB primary drive that's an SSD. It's not uncommon these days to use an SSD for some things (OS, applications, possibly basic user profile data) while keeping larger media files, games, and so on on other drives. Go back a few years and that could easily mean a 60GB main drive (though probably complemented by larger HDDs).

It's not exactly new for SSDs either, before that people might get a 10k RPM HDD, RAID array, or some other higher performance setup for their system drive.

I must say though , that I am upset with software creators(games or not) because their game sizes seem so way too blown up. My jaw drops when simple games on iOS are like 200-300mb . Other games like Team Fortress 2 is 10GB!!!! I can be wrong but isn't that even more than the capacity of a 360 disk?

I so much more respect developers of the past that could cram something like a full mario game in 1-2mb which is a size of 1 picture today , or 35mb of a long , 3D game lik zelda or 64mb(not exactly sure of a the number) for Resident EVil 2(64)

Some games may be a bit bloated, but to be entirely fair, most of them expand like that due to necessity.
It's not uncommon for a modern PC title to be in the 10-20GB range, and I've seen a few in the 20-30GB range. But, the main thing that's driving that isn't the size of the actual application, but rather the art assets (textures, audio, etc). Compression/optimization has improved over time, but so have target resolutions, standard detail levels, all that.

[Hobie-wan]

Other games like Team Fortress 2 is 10GB!!!! I can be wrong but isn't that even more than the capacity of a 360 disk?

Textures on consoles are also lower resolution than on PCs.

[ninjainspandex]

Other games like Team Fortress 2 is 10GB!!!! I can be wrong but isn't that even more than the capacity of a 360 disk?

Textures on consoles are also lower resolution than on PCs.

I'd hardly consider Team Fortress 2 to be graphically intensive, and the xbox version came with half life 2 with all the episodes, portal, and Team Fortress 2. How the heck did they fit all that on a DVD?

[Hobie-wan]

Other games like Team Fortress 2 is 10GB!!!! I can be wrong but isn't that even more than the capacity of a 360 disk?

Textures on consoles are also lower resolution than on PCs.

I'd hardly consider Team Fortress 2 to be graphically intensive, and the xbox version came with half life 2 with all the episodes, portal, and Team Fortress 2. How the heck did they fit all that on a DVD?

The console version will be outputting X by 640 or X by 720 or whatever. When Orange Box came out I was playing it at 1200 by 1600. So that's over 4 times the amount of pixels I was expecting to have good fidelity. The textures might also be stored less or uncompressed on the hard drive since room isn't at much of a premium and you don't want to have to wait for your console to load (and maybe decompress) the textures every time from the DVD, which is much slower than a hard drive. The PC version of Orange Box also came on 2 DVDs, not just 1. There have also been tons up PC updates with all the hat madness and whatever else. Have console versions gotten all that? If so, how much HD space do they take to add onto the DVD space?

Not trying to be a jerk, but this is why there are all the 'PC Master Race' jokes.

[RCBH928]

I thought he meant his total hard drive space was 25GB+35GB . Well , even for an SSD you can purchase one that is 120GB for $100 on Amazon . I always wondered why do people cram themselves in those 60GB SSD drives when you can get 16x that space for about the same price on an HDD . I am using an HDD and its not that bad, is it possible that SSD is really worth cramming yourself into an 60GB space?
Any how, i do not undersand how come SSD are a lot more expensive than the mechanical ones. mechanical ones seem to have a lot more going on in them with a lot more parts than just electronic chips. Same issue with DVDs when they first came out. I do not recall how much did a VCR cost in '96 but DVD players were something around $1000 as far as I can remember . My jaw dropped when I knew how a VCR works, there is just so much going on yet a DVD player that just has a laser reading lens was way more expensive.

As for game size , I still have a hard time believing that textures take all that space but it is what it is. My problem is whenever technology brings us fast enough speed we bring extra heavily load. I mean can you imagine having a 1mb internet connection back in '98 ? But now with 10-20mbs they keep pushing the boundaries, first we had DVDs then HD and coming up 4k. This way it will never be enough.

@Hobie-Wan

Does it really make that much difference to play in 1200 x 1600 ? I mean I think 720 is beautiful and will be lighter load on any system on performance and game size . Can you really play a game on 720 then look at a 1200x1600 and go "WOW thats amazing!" ?

[fastbilly1]

I thought he meant his total hard drive space was 25GB+35GB . Well , even for an SSD you can purchase one that is 120GB for $100 on Amazon . I always wondered why do people cram themselves in those 60GB SSD drives when you can get 16x that space for about the same price on an HDD . I am using an HDD and its not that bad, is it possible that SSD is really worth cramming yourself into an 60GB space?
Any how, i do not undersand how come SSD are a lot more expensive than the mechanical ones. mechanical ones seem to have a lot more going on in them with a lot more parts than just electronic chips. Same issue with DVDs when they first came out. I do not recall how much did a VCR cost in '96 but DVD players were something around $1000 as far as I can remember . My jaw dropped when I knew how a VCR works, there is just so much going on yet a DVD player that just has a laser reading lens was way more expensive.

New technology = cost more. And yes SSDs are worth cramming your OS and critical programs into a smaller space. Watch this video:

Since the data is at hand, it is the fastest we can do on consumer gear. As you can see in that video it took the load time for the game from 37 seconds to 13. That is even more important when you change that from game load to turning on your pc.

@Hobie-Wan

Does it really make that much difference to play in 1200 x 1600 ? I mean I think 720 is beautiful and will be lighter load on any system on performance and game size . Can you really play a game on 720 then look at a 1200x1600 and go "WOW thats amazing!" ?

Yes there is, it is almost double the resolution (like going from a DVD to a Bluray). Granted 1200x1600 is an odd resolution.

[isiolia]

Yes there is, it is almost double the resolution (like going from a DVD to a Bluray). Granted 1200x1600 is an odd resolution.

Assuming it's just reversing 1600x1200, which is/was a common resolution for 21" CRTs (or the better 19" ones).

[MrEco]

Uh, no, lol. I meant I had 25 and 35 GB still free on each of those drives.

My C drives max amount is 169 GB, and my D drive is 279 GB.

And as of this post, I'm down to only 14.5 and 16.6 GB free respectively. >.>