FoxxyTrotty Posted July 4 Posted July 4 Just finished downloading 80GB of the latest DCS update, a little under 10 minutes on fibre. That’s great and all, but here’s a fun thought: If we’d tried this on my old 56k dial-up, back in the day - running at its usual 3-3.5kb/s (lets call it stable at 3.2kb/s) and we assume a perfect, uninterrupted connection 24/7… It would’ve taken almost a year to complete, and thats without someone picking up the phone halfway through, or some other reason for it to drop, resetting the whole thing. So next time we see 80GB map updates (or 400 odd, if they do a bunch at once) for mostly re-downloaded trees, remember: We could be hearing that old 56k bingin' & squealin' while watching a progress bar that says ETA: May 2026. (Breakdown below) Total size: 80 GB = 81,920 MB = 83,886,080 KB Speed: 3.2 KB/s Time to download: 26,214,400 seconds = 436,907 minutes = 7,282 hours = 303.4 days = 43.3 weeks = 0.83 years So yes, almost 11 months to download this one patch back in '98 5 . . . . . . . Every module/ map except the dual winged joke.
Thamiel Posted July 4 Posted July 4 Just to make sure: downloaded size != update size 3 Modules: A-10CII | OH-58D | F-5E | AV-8B | M-2000C | SA342| Ka-50-III | Fw 190D-9 | Mi-24P | SU-33 | F-4E | F-14B | C-101CC | F-86F | AH-64D | F-16C | UH-1H | A-4E-C | AJS-37 | P-47D | P-51D | Bf 109K-4 | CA | SC Maps: Cold War Germany | Nevada | Syria | Persian Gulf | South Atlantic | Kola | Sinai | Normandy | Channel Setup: Ryzen9 5950X | 64GB DDR4 | RTX 4090 | 2TB M.2 NVMe | TM Warthog & TFRP Rudder | Reverb G2 | OpenXR/TK | Win10 Affiliation: [TM]Tigermercs
FoxxyTrotty Posted July 4 Author Posted July 4 3 minutes ago, Thamiel said: Just to make sure: downloaded size != update size well spotted! give it 6 months this time 1 . . . . . . . Every module/ map except the dual winged joke.
MiG21bisFishbedL Posted July 4 Posted July 4 I don't think GetRight is going to help out, either. 1 Reformers hate him! This one weird trick found by a bush pilot will make gunfighter obsessed old farts angry at your multi-role carrier deck line up!
SharpeXB Posted July 6 Posted July 6 I remember leaving my PC on all night to download an 8GB game i9-14900KS | ASUS ROG MAXIMUS Z790 HERO | 64GB DDR5 5600MHz | iCUE H150i Liquid CPU Cooler | ASUS TUF GeForce RTX 4090 OC | Windows 11 Home | 2TB Samsung 980 PRO NVMe | Corsair RM1000x | LG 48GQ900-B 4K OLED Monitor | CH Fighterstick | Ch Pro Throttle | CH Pro Pedals | TrackIR 5
draconus Posted July 7 Posted July 7 On 7/4/2025 at 7:01 PM, FoxxyTrotty said: So yes, almost 11 months to download this one patch back in '98 In 1998 they'd rather sell it as a new game in the software store and you'd have to buy a box of dozens of DVDs. 1 Win10 i7-10700KF 32GB RTX4070S Quest 3 T16000M VPC CDT-VMAX TFRP FC3 F-14A/B F-15E CA SC NTTR PG Syria
AndyJWest Posted July 7 Posted July 7 (edited) On 7/4/2025 at 6:01 PM, FoxxyTrotty said: Just finished downloading 80GB of the latest DCS update, a little under 10 minutes on fibre. That’s great and all, but here’s a fun thought: If we’d tried this on my old 56k dial-up, back in the day - running at its usual 3-3.5kb/s (lets call it stable at 3.2kb/s) and we assume a perfect, uninterrupted connection 24/7… It would’ve taken almost a year to complete, and thats without someone picking up the phone halfway through, or some other reason for it to drop, resetting the whole thing. So next time we see 80GB map updates (or 400 odd, if they do a bunch at once) for mostly re-downloaded trees, remember: We could be hearing that old 56k bingin' & squealin' while watching a progress bar that says ETA: May 2026. (Breakdown below) Total size: 80 GB = 81,920 MB = 83,886,080 KB Speed: 3.2 KB/s Time to download: 26,214,400 seconds = 436,907 minutes = 7,282 hours = 303.4 days = 43.3 weeks = 0.83 years So yes, almost 11 months to download this one patch back in '98 How long would it take if you had to type it all in from a listing in a computer magazine, 1980s-style? Edited July 7 by AndyJWest 4
Emacs Posted July 20 Posted July 20 (edited) Is it only me, or is the update mechanism of DCS maybe not the most optimized one possible? I understand particularly included map updates (=texture) are huge. Ok. But come on... 50 gigabyte? Nearly every time nowadays? That's more or less a full download for a fresh install of Elden Ring. There has to be a more streamlined way to do this. At least let me de-select updates for maps I'm currently not using. Nice to see that some players get 115 MB/s. Where I live 10 MB/s is pretty much the fastest option available. Edited July 20 by Emacs 1
Rudel_chw Posted July 20 Posted July 20 3 hours ago, Emacs said: At least let me de-select updates for maps I'm currently not using. Uninstall those maps before updating… else you would have a mix of versions for different components of DCS. For work: iMac mid-2010 of 27" - Core i7 870 - 6 GB DDR3 1333 MHz - ATI HD5670 - SSD 256 GB - HDD 2 TB - macOS High Sierra For Gaming: 34" Monitor - Ryzen 3600 - 32 GB DDR4 2400 - nVidia RTX2080 - SSD 1.25 TB - HDD 10 TB - Win10 Pro - TM HOTAS Cougar Mobile: iPad Pro 12.9" of 256 GB
MAXsenna Posted July 20 Posted July 20 4 hours ago, Emacs said: Nice to see that some players get 115 MB/s. Where I live 10 MB/s is pretty much the fastest option available. Well, that's still 80Mbps, which is 40 times what I had back in ≈2005. Whenever there are texture updates, there will be huge updates if they add new or swap out the old ones. I can't think of any other way to do it. Maybe someone will come up with some sort of dedupe tech down the line. Maybe when the world map drops some sort of stream/cache can be achieved for the standalone maps too.
draconus Posted July 21 Posted July 21 21 hours ago, Emacs said: But come on... 50 gigabyte? 21 hours ago, Emacs said: Where I live 10 MB/s is pretty much the fastest option available. That's barely over 1h dl - what exactly is the problem? Updates are optional unless you want MP. 1 Win10 i7-10700KF 32GB RTX4070S Quest 3 T16000M VPC CDT-VMAX TFRP FC3 F-14A/B F-15E CA SC NTTR PG Syria
Kang Posted July 21 Posted July 21 7 hours ago, draconus said: That's barely over 1h dl - what exactly is the problem? Updates are optional unless you want MP. Are they? When I start the DCS launcher I can decide not to update but then I can't launch the game either.
Tom Kazansky Posted July 21 Posted July 21 10 minutes ago, Kang said: Are they? When I start the DCS launcher I can decide not to update but then I can't launch the game either. Really? Most of the time I don't update DCS in the first days after a patch is released and I never ever had a problem to launch DCS without an update. 1
draconus Posted July 21 Posted July 21 24 minutes ago, Kang said: Are they? When I start the DCS launcher I can decide not to update but then I can't launch the game either. I don't even use the launcher. Just dcs.exe to run DCS and dcs_updater.exe to run the update separately. 1 Win10 i7-10700KF 32GB RTX4070S Quest 3 T16000M VPC CDT-VMAX TFRP FC3 F-14A/B F-15E CA SC NTTR PG Syria
MAXsenna Posted July 22 Posted July 22 Are they? When I start the DCS launcher I can decide not to update but then I can't launch the game either.That should be reported as a bug, though can't remember ever not being able to start the game. Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk
TheBiggerBass Posted July 22 Posted July 22 Am 4.7.2025 um 19:01 schrieb FoxxyTrotty: Just finished downloading 80GB of the latest DCS update, a little under 10 minutes on fibre. That’s great and all, but here’s a fun thought: If we’d tried this on my old 56k dial-up, back in the day - running at its usual 3-3.5kb/s (lets call it stable at 3.2kb/s) and we assume a perfect, uninterrupted connection 24/7… It would’ve taken almost a year to complete, and thats without someone picking up the phone halfway through, or some other reason for it to drop, resetting the whole thing. So next time we see 80GB map updates (or 400 odd, if they do a bunch at once) for mostly re-downloaded trees, remember: We could be hearing that old 56k bingin' & squealin' while watching a progress bar that says ETA: May 2026. (Breakdown below) Total size: 80 GB = 81,920 MB = 83,886,080 KB Speed: 3.2 KB/s Time to download: 26,214,400 seconds = 436,907 minutes = 7,282 hours = 303.4 days = 43.3 weeks = 0.83 years So yes, almost 11 months to download this one patch back in '98 Why don't you calculate it in 1983 War Games style using a 300 Byte/s acoustic coupler ? You could have finished high school + university in that time. And where to store the 250,000 floppy disks ? 1 System: HP Z2 Tower, Win11 24H2, i9-14900K, 64GB RAM, 8TB SSD (M2) + 18TB HDD (Sata), GeForce RTX4070 TI Super 16GB VRAM, Samsung Odyssey 57" curved monitor (main screen) + BenQ 32" UW3270 (secondary screen), VKB Gunfighter Ultimate MK4 + S-TECS Throttle DCS: All terrains, allmost all modules, most user flyable mods - CA, WWII Assets
Hiob Posted July 22 Posted July 22 On 7/20/2025 at 4:40 PM, Emacs said: Is it only me, or is the update mechanism of DCS maybe not the most optimized one possible? I understand particularly included map updates (=texture) are huge. Ok. But come on... 50 gigabyte? Nearly every time nowadays? That's more or less a full download for a fresh install of Elden Ring. There has to be a more streamlined way to do this. At least let me de-select updates for maps I'm currently not using. Nice to see that some players get 115 MB/s. Where I live 10 MB/s is pretty much the fastest option available. Afaik, DCS makes a delta index and only downloads files that are changed to the previous version (which of course in the case of map updates are still huge in size and number) and flightsim maps happen to be vastly bigger than RPG maps..... So were exactly do you see room for improvement? On 7/20/2025 at 4:40 PM, Emacs said: At least let me de-select updates for maps I'm currently not using. De-install the modules and maps you aren't using beforehand and they won't be updated/downloaded. Et Voila. 2 "Muß ich denn jedes Mal, wenn ich sauge oder saugblase den Schlauchstecker in die Schlauchnut schieben?"
draconus Posted July 22 Posted July 22 On 7/20/2025 at 9:16 PM, MAXsenna said: Maybe someone will come up with some sort of dedupe tech down the line. Not likely. The files are all new, already compressed and not much is duplicated. DRM does not help here either. Win10 i7-10700KF 32GB RTX4070S Quest 3 T16000M VPC CDT-VMAX TFRP FC3 F-14A/B F-15E CA SC NTTR PG Syria
Yurgon Posted July 22 Posted July 22 On 7/20/2025 at 4:40 PM, Emacs said: Is it only me, or is the update mechanism of DCS maybe not the most optimized one possible? There are probably lots of ways to improve it, get it more streamlined, make it use less download volume and run faster. Then again, even today data transfers tend to cost money once they go beyond the threshold of what Google, MS and so on offer for free. That's even more the case when users routinely max out their connection, which I believe most of us can when downloading DCS updates. So if it's cheaper for ED to offer the bandwidth and transfer volumes the way they currently do, rather than optimizing the download system, I'd say it probably runs as well as it should.
MAXsenna Posted July 23 Posted July 23 Not likely. The files are all new, already compressed and not much is duplicated. DRM does not help here either.Unfortunately I believe you're right. Graphics and videos are not really made for that. Miracles may happen though. Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk
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