Yeah, that’s normal. Even on an SSD, games like Helldivers 2 download fast but then need a few minutes to unpack and install the files properly. It’s not your PC, just how game updates work.

引用自 Hi Im Swat：

Post in the forum for that game.

https://psteamcommunity.yuanyoumao.com/app/553850/discussions/0/

While that is the specifically mentioned game - I do mention that I have this sort of concern with other games too. I feel that with the bs the community is going through with performance and stability I would be just feeding fuel to a fire that might not even be its fault by trying to ask their community

Here I feel my answers would be more impartial and general - which is better for actually answering my question.

引用自 Assistant：

Yeah, that’s normal. Even on an SSD, games like Helldivers 2 download fast but then need a few minutes to unpack and install the files properly. It’s not your PC, just how game updates work.

Well - the thing is I could understand a couple minutes, but I could be waiting upwards of 10 or maybe 20 minutes if its a large game of like 75+ GB

If that's just how compression works then great I just have never noticed this sort of issue before, steam used to just go through and as soon as it hit 100% it was done.

引用自 Peluceus Donmian：

引用自 Assistant：

Yeah, that’s normal. Even on an SSD, games like Helldivers 2 download fast but then need a few minutes to unpack and install the files properly. It’s not your PC, just how game updates work.

Well - the thing is I could understand a couple minutes, but I could be waiting upwards of 10 or maybe 20 minutes if its a large game of like 75+ GB

If that's just how compression works then great I just have never noticed this sort of issue before, steam used to just go through and as soon as it hit 100% it was done.

引用自 Peluceus Donmian：

引用自 Assistant：

Yeah, that’s normal. Even on an SSD, games like Helldivers 2 download fast but then need a few minutes to unpack and install the files properly. It’s not your PC, just how game updates work.

Well - the thing is I could understand a couple minutes, but I could be waiting upwards of 10 or maybe 20 minutes if its a large game of like 75+ GB

If that's just how compression works then great I just have never noticed this sort of issue before, steam used to just go through and as soon as it hit 100% it was done.

It's possible there was a Steam update that changed the installation.

I have a 9800X3D and Crucial T700, a Gen 5 SSD. I've seen games install at 2GB/s, which would be 30 seconds for 60GB. But I've also seen some games update at 100MB/s, which would be 5 minutes for 30GB. Usually, once the download is done, the update speeds up dramatically, but, then again, sometimes it doesn't.

I guess it depends on how how the developers chose to do things.

Compression. Encryption.

SSDs are quick, but the files still need to be processed. And every game is going to be different.

I have all my games set to immediate update, but a few I have on update on launch because they take FOREVER no matter how small the update files are. So I'll trigger them manually over night when I'm not using the PC

引用自 Satoru：

Also note that because the patching is so large, the patching process may be occurring on a different drive. This is because Steam will assess how much disk space you have, how much the patch files are, and then put your patching on a differnt drive if available.

For example, say your Helldivers 2 is on your fast SSD on C:\. But your C:\ only has 50GB free, not enough to patch the game. It will then put the patch files on your secondary library on D:\ which might be a slower spinning disk hard drive. Note that because Step2 is the most IO intensive part of the process, being on a spinning drive isn't actually a giant decrease in performance as you'd expect.

Also note that even if you have 'enough' space, Steam can still put your patching on a different drive if it puts your existing drive very close to being full. In the above example lets say your C:\ has 90GB free. It 'technically' has enough to do the 80GB patch. But Steam determines that the 10GB free is too close to edge so it defers the patching to your D:\. This is because Windows can have issues as drives get very close to being full. While modern Windows systems will actually continue running if the C:\ drive has 0% free, this is generally 'very very bad' so Steam will try to ensure patching isn't driving your drives to very low disk space.

This part of your response (that's still awaiting automatic analysis for almost a day and a half apparently) explains what I feel like is going on, but that's just what it felt like *intuitively* I have no other solutions but this one would require the steps I would expect for the update to take as long as it did.

Now, if steam will temporarily place a fresh install on a separate drive if you're running low on the target drive, I would consider this mystery 100% solved.

引用自 Peluceus Donmian：

This part of your response (that's still awaiting automatic analysis for almost a day and a half apparently) explains what I feel like is going on, but that's just what it felt like *intuitively* I have no other solutions but this one would require the steps I would expect for the update to take as long as it did.

Again Steam has to patch for Helldivers 2 upwards of 100GB of game data from a 2GB patch file. This takes a long time no matter what as its both CPU and Disk IO limited. Most complaints of "patching is slow" is because their disk subsystems were killing the IO performance. Usually this is due to your anti-virus constantly scanning the patching process, tanking the patching speed. Adding whitelisting in your anti-virus for the Steam directory can improve patching performance. My own experience is that if you're not running Windows Defender, all other consumer level AV is just trash and is 'working' your system for the sake of 'looking busy' rather than protecting you. You are in effect paying a company to slow down your computer for no reason.

Now, if steam will temporarily place a fresh install on a separate drive if you're running low on the target drive, I would consider this mystery 100% solved.

Steam will only generally do this if you don't have enough space on the existing drive, and have another drive specified as a Steam library. As I noted above. If yoru C:\ had 90GB free, then the Helldiver2 patching would take up 80GB. In this scenario, Steam may choose to patch the game on your D:\ to ensure your c:\ doesn't run out of space during the patching process. If you only have 1 drive or if you don't have another steam library drive specified, then Steam will just outright tell you "you don't have enough space", as it has no other known location it can stage the patching process on.

引用自 Satoru：

引用自 Peluceus Donmian：

This part of your response (that's still awaiting automatic analysis for almost a day and a half apparently) explains what I feel like is going on, but that's just what it felt like *intuitively* I have no other solutions but this one would require the steps I would expect for the update to take as long as it did.

Again Steam has to patch for Helldivers 2 upwards of 100GB of game data from a 2GB patch file. This takes a long time no matter what as its both CPU and Disk IO limited. Most complaints of "patching is slow" is because their disk subsystems were killing the IO performance. Usually this is due to your anti-virus constantly scanning the patching process, tanking the patching speed. Adding whitelisting in your anti-virus for the Steam directory can improve patching performance. My own experience is that if you're not running Windows Defender, all other consumer level AV is just trash and is 'working' your system for the sake of 'looking busy' rather than protecting you. You are in effect paying a company to slow down your computer for no reason.

Now, if steam will temporarily place a fresh install on a separate drive if you're running low on the target drive, I would consider this mystery 100% solved.

Steam will only generally do this if you don't have enough space on the existing drive, and have another drive specified as a Steam library. As I noted above. If yoru C:\ had 90GB free, then the Helldiver2 patching would take up 80GB. In this scenario, Steam may choose to patch the game on your D:\ to ensure your c:\ doesn't run out of space during the patching process. If you only have 1 drive or if you don't have another steam library drive specified, then Steam will just outright tell you "you don't have enough space", as it has no other known location it can stage the patching process on.

My drives do be getting kind of full so this tracks entirely, I usually have to clear just enough games I haven't touched to install a different game, and the only drives I have with any large amount of spare space is my very slow backup drive that I never use for anything except backups because it's so slow. Thank you