The
mandatory installs of the past few months have shaken us up quite a bit, making us keep our eyes peeled for any future PS3 games that may have the dreaded feature. So, when we heard that the install for
Valkyria Chronicles was an optional one, we sighed with relief. Still, it would've been better if there was no install at all, but it looks like this is the way it's going to be. If you've noticed that your games and their installs are starting to take up too much space on your 40 or 80 gig system, then it would be a good idea to start
upgrading that HDD.
Valkyria's install is sized at 3.3GB and will cut down regular 15-second load times significantly. The game will be out in Japan soon on April 24, and an
Autumn 2008 release is scheduled for North America and Europe.
{ Apr 14th 2008 at 6:30PM } 
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ninjakamster @ Apr 14th 2008 6:35PM
Thank goodness, this is a positive step.
Though I hear these installs happen because the Blu-Ray drive is slower than the DVD drive in the 360?
Still its strange to see like DMC4 was designed for the PS3 yet that needs the install but not the 360 version.
But also, it can be because of sloppy, lazy programming, some technically amazing games like Uncharted need no install.
Sorry to go off topic but Capcom should just state they loathe the PS3, give an official press release, removing Monster Hunter and putting it on Wii, making our DMC4 install mandatory, same with Lost Planet and which is a poor port as well. : (
Afro_Dude @ Apr 14th 2008 6:45PM
Yes blu-rays are only read in at 2x speed I think - don't quote me on that, so obviously its not as fast as DVD. However I think that because it has a higher bitrate the difference is negligible.
Most of the time its just devs taking advantage of the built-in harddrive, though I admit that it could serve as a handy way of "getting out of" witing efficient code & optimizing multiplatform titles for blu-ray.
Extinction @ Apr 14th 2008 7:40PM
"Still, it would've been better if there was no install at all"
Actually no, it's better they give us the option.
"Yes blu-rays are only read in at 2x speed I think - don't quote me on that, so obviously its not as fast as DVD."
Disc Transfer rate in Megabytes per Second (Single Layer discs)
PS3: 9
360: 6.65 (inner edge) to 16 (outer edge) average 11.325
(Dual Layer discs)
PS3: 9
360: 4.389 to 10.64 average 7.5145
These are using official specs from a manufacturer of drives for 360
And most 360 games are on dual layered discs
Lilinka @ Apr 14th 2008 8:14PM
I should note that the "average" stat is worthless because any game designers worth their salt optimize load times by balancing where the material is on the disc, so for all practical purposes excluding multi-disc games the 360 has a flat out lead.
That being said, those "x2" multipliers are equally worthless, if not more so, because those multipliers are based off 'how fast it can read' versus 'how fast media plays' and is thus is based off the file size, 2x Blu-Ray > 2x DVD > 2x CD, so it's not really a good unit for comparison.
The X-Box 360 reads faster, but the PS3 wins in having the -option- for a developer to install content to a hard disc, which games like Mass Effect would have benefited from immensely.
It really depends on the game itself, most games won't load that much slower on the PS3, while some, like oblivion, have to struggle with redundant data placement to get those load times to par with the 360 counterpart.
David @ Apr 15th 2008 2:38PM
"Actually no, it's better they give us the option."
I think he meant that it would be better if Blu-ray technology wasn't limited to the point an install is required at all. It's an indication of a half-baked technology when you can't read the disc fast enough to load the game at a reasonable rate.
Afro_Dude @ Apr 14th 2008 6:37PM
Cool, I'm all in favour of optional harddrive installs because at least you can choose to either use up your space removing loading times, or storing other media.
I'd say I'll have to upgrade my 60GB harddrive in the not-too-distant future because of all the games demanding hard drsk space :P
Popfrogs @ Apr 14th 2008 6:57PM
Technically, and this has been gone over in excruciating detail on the Sony forums, the Blu-ray drive is much faster overall. DVD-9 only reads faster than the BR drive for a very small fraction of the disc. BR has a constant read speed of about 72Mb/sec.
Anyway I'm glad they're doing optional installs. I hope eventually Sony updates the PS3 to treat external hard drives more fairly. You can't do background downloading to external drives nor game installs.
Afro_Dude @ Apr 14th 2008 7:11PM
Yes backgound downloads are needed. Also make NTFS formatted externals compatible! :)
BowserUSC @ Apr 14th 2008 7:31PM
Yeah, there's no chance the sony forums could be biased in any way.
Popfrogs @ Apr 14th 2008 9:04PM
Bias doesn't nullify technical facts. It has been proven by some developers that do intelligent placement and duplication of data that the BR drive is just fine. Lazy, confused developers like Capcom use the hard drive to cover up their ineptitude.
Jonathan Coole @ Apr 15th 2008 9:02PM
such a beautiful ending *snif-snif* thank you sega, thank you
just wish they'd hurry up the release in america
boxmyth @ Apr 14th 2008 7:32PM
First, whoever did the comments to this article's pic deserves a sundae.
Second, I really want to know how much space all the required/optional installs add up to for PS3 games released so far. Is anyone really in danger of filling their hard drive?
Third, do want this game.
papertiger201 @ Apr 14th 2008 7:59PM
I believe the latest Game Informer (w/ the Gears 2 cover story) had a brief story about PS3 games with installs. There's I believe there were about 15 that do, however some of them were extremely large. I believe Hot Shots: Out of Bounds had something like 5 gigs (!) of install data.
I could definitely see someone's 40 gig model getting filled up plenty fast depending on how many games they play.
mathab @ Apr 14th 2008 9:54PM
@Boxmyth: Here's a short (most likely incomplete) list.
-Mandatory installs: Oblivion (4.4gb), Devil May Cry 4(4.8gb), Lost (3.7gb), Lost Planet (5gb), Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds(3.6gb), Assassin's Creed(1.4gb).
This comes to about 22.9GB for only 6 games... a 40 gig PS3 would have very little left for demos, pics, music, save files, psn games, etc.
held225 @ Apr 14th 2008 9:43PM
Well the install is optional, and thats a good thing since i dont care about the 15 sec load time (gives me time to get something to snack on ^^) and about that BD vs DVD load time thing, look at it this way a DVD drive has to find a needle in a haystack while a BD drive has to find the same sized object in a haystack 3 times bigger.
theydidntnameme @ Apr 15th 2008 12:13AM
that was the best point made so far about dvd-bd read speeds. u guys all missed the point that bd has a much larger space to search