Titanfall Dev Explains The Game's 35 GB of Uncompressed Audio

[Steven Bogos]

Titanfall Dev Explains The Game's 35 GB of Uncompressed Audio

Respawn says Titanfall's gargantuan file size is so they can dedicate more system resources to running the game.

PC gamers (especially those with SSDs) were puzzled to find out that Titanfall had a gargantuan 48 GB file size, despite the lack of a single player campaign and the fact that it was running on a modified source engine. Some digging around in the files revealed that a huge portion of that size was due to a whopping 35 GB of completely uncompressed audio. Respawn has now explained that the reason the audio was not compressed was so they could dedicate more system resources to running the game, and less to unpacking audio files.

Key to Respawn's ethos is pursuit of low-latency controls, the best possible 'handshake' between the player and the game, something that having compressed audio and having the CPU uncompress it on-the-fly, could possibly interfere with, Respawn lead engineer Richard Baker explained to Eurogamer [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-titanfall-tech-interview].

He did, however, admit that most PC gamers probably wouldn't even notice the difference. "On a higher PC it wouldn't be an issue. On a medium or moderate PC, it wouldn't be an issue, it's that on a two-core [machine] with where our min spec is, we couldn't dedicate those resources to audio."

Baker also talked about the game's visuals, and how they were also toned down in order to accommodate the game's low-latency ethos. "People tend to trade a little more visual quality for more latency. It seems like everyone wants to give up the gameplay for slightly better visuals - especially on the PS3 games, there'd be a really long rendering chain," he mused.

For me, I'm loving Titanfall, but geeze does that 48 GB size make my 240 GB SSD cry. Since it apparently wouldn't effect the performance on my high-level PC anyway, I don't see why the uncompressed audio couldn't have been an optional download...

Source: Eurogamer [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-titanfall-tech-interview]

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[Shaidz]

Yeahhhh 256gb SSD with a 50gb/50gb peak/off peak download cap...That really made me hurt -_-"...

 

[Covarr]

It doesn't even need to be uncompressed. There are lightweight codecs that perform plenty well enough for this, even on a dual-core PC. Wouldn't get nearly the compression level that you get from Vorbis or something, but I'm sure they could bring it down by about 20%-30% without a significant performance impact.

P.S. Thanks

 

[Caiphus]

But... Weren't they all different languages anyway? I can understand not having the audio compressed, and having one language-worth taking up 4GB (or whatever it may come to). Then the dev's explanation would make sense.

But uh, yeah. Languages. Why?

And that's not to say "Ew, they shouldn't have translated it to all those languages how dare they what the fuck who speaks German?". I'm just only ever going to use one. And I can't imagine I'm in the minority on that.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I don't see why the uncompressed audio couldn't have been an optional download...

Someone with a low end machine might not have the fastest internet or a healthy monthly cap. Perhaps if the compressed were the optional download, it would fit more in line with the higher end gamer spectrum, since they usually do have the better internet connection.

 

[TheMemoman]

Did Eurogamer write "effect" instead of "affect"? Nope.

 

[Furism]

That's the shittiest excuse ever. I'm playing a FLAC file right now (which is much heavier than mp3) and it's taking a whooping 0.5% CPU load. Many sound cards decompress mp3 in hardware, too, so the "it takes CPU resource" is BS. Also, people using low end PC probably don't play competitively and wouldn't care if the game isn't reactive - it's not going to be reactive ANYWAY due to their bad PC.

I won't even mention that it's stupid to make EVERYONE download 50 GB just to accommodate a few percentage of customers, not to mention bundle every single language. It's just stupid, and they should admit it.

 

[Strazdas]

SO its been confirmed that they didnt bother using compression because they failed to realize that average PC gamer has a machine more powerful than severely limited consoles?
Sure looks that way.

No, audio uncompression does not take much processing power. This is not 2000 when MP3 compression gave your CPU a workout. you can easily play 100 losless FLAC files and your CPU wont even budge. this looks liek scrappnig the bottom of the barrel for resources because their target machine (console) cant run the game proper.

Someone with a low end machine might not have the fastest internet or a healthy monthly cap. Perhaps if the compressed were the optional download, it would fit more in line with the higher end gamer spectrum, since they usually do have the better internet connection.

Not always true. For example i was always in the low end machine high end internet category untill 2 weeks ago when i got a high end pc for the first time in ever.

 

[seditary]

They really think everyone is an absolute simpleton don't they?

Yeah, make everyone download 12 different languages (or however many it is) of uncompressed audio because 'we don't want players to devote system resources to unpacking audio files'

Guys, many many PC players know how their machines work and what they can do.

 

[gamegod25]

Have to admit the size of the install did raise an eyebrow, guess that explains why. Not sure if thats a legit excuse or not but its quite a lot of space just for audio ;/

 

[Buizel91]

Im not a computer gaming wizz.....but can't the unused files just be deleted?......

Wish I could play this though, hopefully it will go multiplatform.

 

[Bke]

Im not a computer gaming wizz.....but can't the unused files just be deleted?......

Wish I could play this though, hopefully it will go multiplatform.

The issue, I think, is downloading these huge ass files in the first place, never mind the space they take up. Not many people have the cap to download this amount of data, and lord knows the physical copies of the game will probably only install 10/20 GB before downloading the rest. Also the time that it'll take to download these files makes it more of a pain when you consider it will also be patched to hell in the coming months.

Seems someone didn't think this whole thing through or fucked up at some point.

 

[rofltehcat]

So basically the real issue, needlessly downloading all the language files available, isn't anything they even thought about. People wouldn't care if the files were compressed or not if they only had to make space (and download) English + their language(s) of choice.

Other than that the "it takes too much processing power" excuse sounds like bull. Compared to any other process this really shouldn't be an issue and surely the performance gain from improving other processes ever so slightly would have far outweighed that. However, it'd make more sense if for some unknown reason the xbone had some problem with the process (which would surely be fixed in software/firmware updates) or if the game pushed the xbox360 too hard to its limits and this was basically the last possible thing available for improving performance.
But even then they could have made a difference between the different systems. It isn't like they are cross-compatible anyways.

 

[Sol_HSA]

This seems completely bonkers. It's as if they want to fill people's hard drives for no reason..

Keeping the audio uncompressed actually harms performance, as reading stuff off disk is (relatively) slow; having even a slight compression on it would actually speed things up. Sure it will be in your disk cache most of the time, but having it uncompressed will take more space off the disk cache..

Having people to download the audio uncompressed is also rather bonkers, as they could easily decompress it at install..

 

[Caiphus]

if you play it on pc, you can still delete the other audio files...

Only after you download them, presumably?

 

[softclocks]

if you play it on pc, you can still delete the other audio files...

The point was that some people still live under draconian rule of american internet-providers and can only download 50gb a month.

I don't see why they couldn't just have the language packs as free dlc or something.

 

[Bindal]

if you play it on pc, you can still delete the other audio files...

The point was that some people still live under draconian rule of american internet-providers and can only download 50gb a month.

I don't see why they couldn't just have the language packs as free dlc or something.

Or they should have used Steam instead of Origin, then the only language you are forced to download would be english (and the one your Steam is set to if the game support that langauge).
Every other language? Select them as part of the settings, THEN Steam downloads it and ONLY that one.

 

[softclocks]

Or they should have used Steam instead of Origin, then the only language you are forced to download would be english (and the one your Steam is set to if the game support that langauge).
Every other language? Select them as part of the settings, THEN Steam downloads it and ONLY that one.

An ideal solution, though perhaps a tall order for EA.

If it's convenient then they don't want anything to do with it

 

[The Feast]

Good lord, look at that gigabytes for a graphically unimpressive multiplayer game. Guess I have a good reason not to buy Titanfall.