145GB Size of map

[Alpiinoo]

I think this is so much

Edited May 3, 2024 by Alpiinoo

[Trettifire]

Hey! You don't make such a beautiful region with kilobytes! 

[Minsky]

It's 153 actually (yes, that's after applying today's patch).

 

Upd. The final size of the installed map is 143 Gb. Go figure 

 

Edited May 3, 2024 by Minsky

[Essah]

I find it a bit contradicting that people complain about textures not being high enough resolution while also complaining about file size... its hard to get both.

[LucShep]

That's humongous for a single map.  

Looks like a lot of textures packaged, and possibly of really large sizes - meaning, some concern on how's the VRAM usage.
And possible stuttering issues over densed populated areas and forests (not VR friendly, I expect).

Edited May 3, 2024 by LucShep

[Bingo911]

It is VR friendly so far but I assume, like with most things DCS, that depends on your rig.

[Morat]

We need MORE Gb!!!
This map will probably be huge by the time it has been updated to all high detail.
My Eagle Dynamics folder is now 664Gb, it won't be long before DCS will need an upgrade from a 1Tb NVME but that's good news in my book.

[Beirut]

3 minutes ago, Morat said:

We need MORE Gb!!!
This map will probably be huge by the time it has been updated to all high detail.
My Eagle Dynamics folder is now 664Gb, it won't be long before DCS will need an upgrade from a 1Tb NVME but that's good news in my book.

 

Exactly my thoughts. I'm at 691GB on a dedicated 1TB NVME. One more map and that's it for this drive, I'm just pondering the transfer time to clone what's on my drive to a new 2TB Samsung NVME. They've got great cloning software, but it's going to take hours. Not to mention having to buy the new NVME. 

 

But you can never have too many maps. 

[bfr]

4 minutes ago, Beirut said:

 

Exactly my thoughts. I'm at 691GB on a dedicated 1TB NVME. One more map and that's it for this drive, I'm just pondering the transfer time to clone what's on my drive to a new 2TB Samsung NVME. They've got great cloning software, but it's going to take hours. Not to mention having to buy the new NVME. 

 

But you can never have too many maps. 

SSD to SSD is fairly rapid. There is also the possibility of copying the map folder to a second drive and using symbolic links to make it look like its still on one drive (not had to go down that path myself yet but I believe it works for DCS). As and when I start struggling for space I might just take some existing maps off for a bit (like I don't fly Nevada all that often these days and have rarely used Marianas)

[Beirut]

2 hours ago, bfr said:

SSD to SSD is fairly rapid. There is also the possibility of copying the map folder to a second drive and using symbolic links to make it look like its still on one drive (not had to go down that path myself yet but I believe it works for DCS).

 

That's past my mental snack bracket. I won't mess with that. I'll just get a bigger drive.

 

2 hours ago, bfr said:

As and when I start struggling for space I might just take some existing maps off for a bit (like I don't fly Nevada all that often these days and have rarely used Marianas)

 

The only map I'd consider deleting would be the Channel map. Normandy kind of makes it obsolete. But if I want to keep 10% to 20% free on the NVME, I've got at least 100GB left, so no rush I guess. I'll watch for a sale on storage.

[Slippa]

9 minutes ago, Beirut said:

The only map I'd consider deleting would be the Channel map.

You'd have to change your sig though, technically speaking.

Just bought Kola with your bloody sig ringing in my ears. I noticed the only maps I'm missing are the Afghans. Didn't know until just now about the 'mini-map' deal.

Edited May 4, 2024 by Slippa
typo

[Slippa]

Now do I feel lucky punk?

[Baldrick33]

Symbolic links is a good shout. Personally I find that a lot simpler than many of the aircraft systems we have in DCS!

[Beirut]

55 minutes ago, Slippa said:

You'd have to change your sig though, technically speaking.

 

That cannot happen. As a dedicated map slut, I must have everything. 

 

55 minutes ago, Slippa said:

Just bought Kola with your bloody sig ringing in my ears. I noticed the only maps I'm missing are the Afghans. Didn't know until just now about the 'mini-map' deal.

 

No Afghan on Steam yet. I can't go there.

[bfr]

1 hour ago, Beirut said:

 

That's past my mental snack bracket. I won't mess with that. I'll just get a bigger drive.

 

 

The only map I'd consider deleting would be the Channel map. Normandy kind of makes it obsolete. But if I want to keep 10% to 20% free on the NVME, I've got at least 100GB left, so no rush I guess. I'll watch for a sale on storage.

Yeah, bigger drive is the simplest but most expensive solution. At least that option isn't THAT expensive these days versus a few years ago.

I'm probably OK for the time being. Only really have the modern maps installed so I think i've still got just under 350GB to play with on a 1TB SSD.  Still haven't decided whether I want Afghanistan or not yet. Funny how big maps are getting now though. I was just looking and Kola is about as big in storage terms as Sinai, PG and Syria combined!

[Minsky]

1 hour ago, bfr said:

Funny how big maps are getting now though. I was just looking and Kola is about as big in storage terms as Sinai, PG and Syria combined!

And the funniest part is that the map doesn't look like 145 gigabytes at all. More like 45, tops.

It's almost like those high-res and winter textures are already included, but disabled for now on.

Edited May 4, 2024 by Minsky

[Japo32]

35 minutes ago, Minsky said:

And the funniest part is that the map doesn't look like 145 gigabytes at all. More like 45, tops.

It's almost like those high-res and winter textures are already included, but disabled for now on.

 

Every part of the map counts. The vectorization of lakes (lots of them), rivers, coasts increase the hard drives usage, plus every portion of forest in the correct area. Not only textures fill the SSDs. A huge work done there.

Edited May 4, 2024 by Japo32

[Minsky]

9 minutes ago, Japo32 said:

Every part of the map counts. The vectorization of lakes (lots of them), rivers, coasts increase the hard drives usage, plus every portion of forest in the correct area. Not only textures fill the SSDs. A huge work done there.

Vector data has a relatively small footprint compared to raster images, and typically measured in megabytes, not gigabytes. Same goes for forests: it's not like every single tree is individually placed. It's just a vector shape with a bunch of attributes.

If you look at the game files, you'll see that the vast majority of Kola's 145 gigabytes comes from the satellite imagery, ground textures, and mesh (~130 Gb). The rest (vectors, models, shaders) is just pocket change.

I'm not diminishing the amount of work they did. I'm saying that the map's footprint seems too large for something that is, according to Orbx, partially in low-res and has no seasonal textures.

[bfr]

2 hours ago, Minsky said:

And the funniest part is that the map doesn't look like 145 gigabytes at all. More like 45, tops.

It's almost like those high-res and winter textures are already included, but disabled for now on.

 

There might be some currently unused textures already in there but i'd be surprised if they were sandbagging an entire seasonal texture set.

Admittedly i've only clocked a couple of hours on the map so far but the towns seem a lot less cookie-cutter than in some maps in terms of variety of buildings, so those variations might explain at least some of the bloat.

[DimSim]

I'm amazed what they fit into the tiny 145GB footprint.

The terrain elevation map alone could consume more than that. Yet we need finer elevations for mountain peaks, better valleys and roads cut into mountain sides. We also could use more textures and variety.

It's important to understand large land maps that are not flat require large color and elevation imagery data to back them.

[LimePartician]

145GB for a ULQ version of what was promised:

 

[wurger13]

I made some more room on my 2TB nvme drive by deleting MSFS... who want's to fly targets anyway! 

[western_JPN]

By this July's 2.9.6 .57650 update patch with Kola winter textures,
size of Kola map increased to 166 Gigabytes.