Size of X4 Steam download?

[DanielCoffey67]

I am looking forward to the release at the end of the month and I wondered if the Devs were able to give some guidance on how large a download X4 will be on Steam?

The reason I ask is that I am on a relatively slow rural internet connection and I need to schedule my online usage with when the connection is shared. It took me over two hours to download the 6Gb that X3:TC required.

I know that the X4 System Specs advise 12Gb storage required but I wondered if that was up to date?

[Alan Phipps]

It also rather depends on what version with or without extras that you order.

[DanielCoffey67]

I will be picking up the regular (non-collectors) version.

[Alan Phipps]

I can only give you an analogy from X Rebirth for which the specs said 12GB storage needed whilst the actual Steam download was about 7.7GB of files.

Hence if you use that transferred to X4 (including CE) with a spec requirement of 12GB storage for the game plus any digital extras, then I would probably guess that the X4 basic game download should be no more than about 8GB or so of files in total.

This is all unofficial of course. I have no idea what scale of file compression is used for the download.

[nemesis1982]

I agree. I do not think it'll be higher then the required system specs at least. Worst case it'll be double that which would 24GB. Which would take 2 days using a 1Mbit connection (which is quite slow."Overall, average global internet speed is 5.6Mbps, as of Q4 in 2015" quoted from: https://www.fastmetrics.com/internet-co ... ountry.php).

They'll probably make it possible to preload the game 1 or 2 days before and have a release day patch.

[Alan Phipps]

There's no way that Egosoft would offer a basic game version always requiring a 24GB download. The storage spec makes that most unlikely. I suppose that the actual download volume could increase if you suffered from a buggy connection and had to keep redownloading the same packets, but then the download speed would be being dropped to reduce error rate long before the overall volume had to increase dramatically. That would affect download time more than any ISP data cap.

I'll still stand by an estimate of about 8GB or so as a best guess of the top limit and even perhaps less if Steam use a good data compression rate.

[DanielCoffey67]

Thanks for the opinions. I reckon I will be looking at around a three hour download, four at the outside then. I was dreading something that was as fat as Fallout 4 - that took me over twelve hours!

I am technically a FTTC customer (BT Infinity) but due to the distance from the cabinet (3300m) physics takes over and my speed is around 6Mbps down, 0.8 up. That is one of the down sides to living in the country... gorgeous views, lousy internet.

[Vandragorax]

It'll be no more than 12GB, I'm pretty sure Egosoft bumped up the estimate on purpose, likely it will be around 8-10 but maybe a little more once installed and files unpacked.

It's pretty reasonable really.... I remember when I played Shadow of Mordor and added the official 4K cinematic pack, there was suddenly a 120 GB download in my Steam list hahaha! Freaking insanity. That was when I was stuck on a 14 Mb/s connection too and I feel your pain even with 'so called' FTTC the speeds can be abominably slow. I'm very lucky that I was able to upgrade to FTTP earlier this year with a 300 Mb/s connection so I'm not too bothered as 12GB for X4 should take no more than 10 mins, but I count myself lucky for that speed for sure as I know most people especially in the UK are still way behind.

I'm pretty sure a pre-load will happen anyway.

[VALERIVS]

Just out of curiosity: Would it really matter if the download was not 12 GB but 13 or 14 GB? I mean, I can see that it might be difficult if the size jumped from 12 GB to let's say 90 GB, but that will not happen for sure.

[Alan Phipps]

The impact will vary depending upon the individual's download speed and error rates, and any ISP monthly data cap or charge per GB, if applicable.

Also I'm unsure as to the impact of too many users hitting the download and ISP servers at around the same time.

[Billynomates]

That's why it would be nice if they open pre downloads before the day it's due to hit live otherwise I can see lots of folks being disappointed for different reasons this time. Saying that I have not and don't plan of pre purchase after the last fescoe so it really doesn't matter to me but I'm sure many folks would appreciate it.

With just over 11 days to go with no information it's a little concerning and I would of assumed we would of been given some idea what will happen and other titbits as described in the last video they posted with regards to expecting information. <But we don't talk about that here though. Alan Phipps>

[FalconGrey]

The size will most likely be no more than 12gb as suggested, however if you are actually looking for HD space that will temporarily be used, expect up to TWICE this as Steam tends to download to a temporary location and unpack / copy to the final install location. But to answer the 'download' size, no more than 12gb as I suspect as updates are generated this will very from time to time.