PC Game Pass (was Xbox Game Pass for PC)

Pighardia · 22 Sep 2019 at 21:57

robfosters said:
I have a 970 in one of my PC’s. Great card. Punches well above it’s weight. An upgrade will be needed soon though mate.

Yeah I'm planning for it already.... What a great servant it's been though!

NZXT30 · 22 Sep 2019 at 23:24

Pighardia said:
I'm still on a 970. Don't think I'd get much out of Gears, my PC would melt! I'm doing OK with Metro though, on mostly medium settings

Gears 5 is better optimized compared to metro exodus.

bobboberts · 22 Sep 2019 at 23:30

Pighardia said:
I'm still on a 970. Don't think I'd get much out of Gears, my PC would melt! I'm doing OK with Metro though, on mostly medium settings

From what I understand, the port for Gears 5 is superbly done and is well optimised.

ic1male · 22 Sep 2019 at 23:52

bobboberts said:
From what I understand, the port for Gears 5 is superbly done and is well optimised.

the PC guy from Digital Foundry reckons it could be the best PC port ever!

bobboberts · 23 Sep 2019 at 06:54

I can believe that, Gears 4 is a fantastic port too.

McPhee · 23 Sep 2019 at 08:25

wunkley said:
Noticing something very annoying with xbox gamepass - games are taking double the amount of diskspace than they need, that I really can't afford to be wasting (I have 2 gaming SSD drives already almost full).

What I've found is ( taking one game as an example, Metro Exodus...)

- On whatever base drive you choose to install on, It will create a "WindowsApps" folder and then in there a folder called "DeepSilver.ProjectWindfall_1.0.18.0_x64__hmv7qcest37me". This folder will be the size of the game - 60 odd GB's in Metro's case.

- The problem is there is another folder created in the WindowsApps folder called "MSIXVC". In this folder there are various long string filename entries ('files' and 'XVI files') that also end up totalling the same amount of GB's as the other folder. This means one game is taking up about 130GB of space!

Anyone else found this or know what's going on? In the interests of science I tried deleting the MSIXVC folder and it wouldn't let me. I terminated any xbox gamepass instances running in Task Manager and tried again, this time it worked. As feared though now the game won't launch, even though the xbox gampass launcher still has a 'play' option. Even weirder, the other folder - "DeepSilver.ProjectWindfall_1.0.18.0_x64__hmv7qcest37me" - now contains 0KB of data and I've had to uninstall the game and redownload it.

I know it's a beta, but WTF. What a mess of a system, and what possible logic is there to have already massive games taking up twice the diskspace that they need!?

I haven't had that problem, but I've had others.

My 1TB game drive was full. But there was only 700GB of files on it. No idea if this was down to Game Pass or not. Formatting fixed the problem, but Sea of Thieves still showed as installed, wouldn't launch, and couldn't be redownloaded. Can't remember how I fixed that now, but it was weird.

Gears 5 wouldn't launch due to some supporting software that "wasn't" installed. Except it was. Reinstalling Gears did nothing to fix the problem. Reinstalling the other bit of software broke all of my Game Pass titles, which had to be downloaded again.

Sometimes games refuse to download for nonsense reasons (drive full, no Internet connection, or just plain "failed"). Same goes for updates.

The bizarre way that games are installed makes it really awkward to integrate them with other launchers. This isn't really a Game Pass issue; all Windows Store apps are like this. But it is annoying.

It's easily the worst PC gaming platform. But for how little it costs, I can ignore the issues.

Tombstone · 23 Sep 2019 at 09:27

I begin to think that I must have fallen into the cauldron of magic potion as a baby because I havent had any issues so far (I also havent had any issues with my Borderlands 3 whereas lots of others have), in fact in a wider scope than MS Gamepass, I essentially almost never have any issues with any titles on any platform. I've no idea why that is so I can only put it down to magic

wunkley · 23 Sep 2019 at 12:19

satchef1 said:
I haven't had that problem, but I've had others.

My 1TB game drive was full. But there was only 700GB of files on it. No idea if this was down to Game Pass or not. Formatting fixed the problem, but Sea of Thieves still showed as installed, wouldn't launch, and couldn't be redownloaded. Can't remember how I fixed that now, but it was weird.

Gears 5 wouldn't launch due to some supporting software that "wasn't" installed. Except it was. Reinstalling Gears did nothing to fix the problem. Reinstalling the other bit of software broke all of my Game Pass titles, which had to be downloaded again.

Sometimes games refuse to download for nonsense reasons (drive full, no Internet connection, or just plain "failed"). Same goes for updates.

The bizarre way that games are installed makes it really awkward to integrate them with other launchers. This isn't really a Game Pass issue; all Windows Store apps are like this. But it is annoying.

It's easily the worst PC gaming platform. But for how little it costs, I can ignore the issues.

I think I've solved my own problem. Long story short I now don't think the game files are actually / technically duplicating in the MSIXVC folder. I only had 3 gamepass games installed so I uninstalled all 3 and noted my free drive space, made sure everything was clean as it should be in the WindowsApps folder and then redownloaded/ installed the 3 games again.

Doing some basic maths it turns out that files are not duplicating in the WindowsApps folder. For want of a better phrase they are somehow mostly 'mirroring' between the MSIXVC folder and the individual game folders within it.

eg I downloaded Prey. The MSIXVC folder had a few files in it and the total size when right click checking was 38GB (Preys stated size in the Xbox App). The 'game' folder that gets created in the WindowsApps folder for prey is "BethesdaSoftworks.LiluDallas-Multipass_1.11.7.0_x64__3275kfvn8vcwc". Right clicking this the size was slightly smaller at 37.7GB.
So, from this you would think that for this one game it was taking up 75.7GB of space no? But when back out one step and right clicking the WindowsApps folder it was just showing 38GB.
So I can only conclude that some weird 'file linky'/ mirroring is going on, and games aren't actually physically taking up double the space after all!

And yeah, like you I think it's a clunky platform, but it is beta, and for the current price given it has games on it I've been wanting to try/ play - it's a no brainer really.

iv-tecman · 23 Sep 2019 at 14:25

robfosters said:
I have a 970 in one of my PC’s. Great card. Punches well above it’s weight. An upgrade will be needed soon though mate.

970 has always been a decent card - I was using a 980ti for quite some time however and did eventually when I found one for a good price replace with a 1080ti, I did notice an huge increase - however the 900 series cards were very good and had good legs.

iv-tecman · 23 Sep 2019 at 14:27

Tombstone said:
I begin to think that I must have fallen into the cauldron of magic potion as a baby because I havent had any issues so far (I also havent had any issues with my Borderlands 3 whereas lots of others have), in fact in a wider scope than MS Gamepass, I essentially almost never have any issues with any titles on any platform. I've no idea why that is so I can only put it down to magic

Voodoo !! lol some just manage to keep their gaming rigs clean and run into few issues, I've had my fair share in the past however I do tend to find a vast majority of what I attempt to run does run, I've had issues with .dll files or Visual basic files in the past, oh and a few third party tools have caused issues, such as rivatuner and some overlays .

robfosters · 23 Sep 2019 at 14:33

Tombstone said:
I begin to think that I must have fallen into the cauldron of magic potion as a baby because I havent had any issues so far (I also havent had any issues with my Borderlands 3 whereas lots of others have), in fact in a wider scope than MS Gamepass, I essentially almost never have any issues with any titles on any platform. I've no idea why that is so I can only put it down to magic

You should deffo request a forum name change to Obelix

Tombstone · 23 Sep 2019 at 14:39

robfosters said:
You should deffo request a forum name change to Obelix

I've certainly got the belly for it

robfosters · 25 Sep 2019 at 10:45

Some new games coming in the next few weeks:

Dirt Rally 2.0
Cities skylines: windows 10 edition
Saints Row IV - reelected (basically the game and all DLC)
Bad North - Jotumn edition.

McPhee · 25 Sep 2019 at 12:52

Not the best announcement really considering what's on console.

Cities Skylines without most of the DLC or mods isn't going to be brilliant. Already included in Origin Access too.

Saints Row 4: Reelected has been out ages and is regularly cheap. Pretty sure I got it for free at some point.

Dirt Rally 2.0 is a decent addition though, and Bad North looks interesting.

wnb · 25 Sep 2019 at 12:53

I tried gears of war 4,I just don't understand what's so good about it their are far better cover based shooters for the pc.

ic1male · 25 Sep 2019 at 13:13

wnb said:
I tried gears of war 4,I just don't understand what's so good about it their are far better cover based shooters for the pc.

It didn't get good until the middle for me. The last level is the best one. It might be a bit naff but I had the most fun.

Tombstone · 25 Sep 2019 at 13:53

Shadow Warrior 2 was recently added for anyone who missed it, highly recommended

On a side note, I was watching Cohhcarnage stream Surge 2 yesterday and it looked pretty decent, then I remembered that Surge 1 was on the MS Gamepass, so I gave it a go and have quite enjoyed it so far. Another title that I've played thanks to the Gamepass which I would never have bought in normal circumstances.

AWPC · 25 Sep 2019 at 23:00

wunkley said:
I think I've solved my own problem. Long story short I now don't think the game files are actually / technically duplicating in the MSIXVC folder. I only had 3 gamepass games installed so I uninstalled all 3 and noted my free drive space, made sure everything was clean as it should be in the WindowsApps folder and then redownloaded/ installed the 3 games again.

Doing some basic maths it turns out that files are not duplicating in the WindowsApps folder. For want of a better phrase they are somehow mostly 'mirroring' between the MSIXVC folder and the individual game folders within it.

eg I downloaded Prey. The MSIXVC folder had a few files in it and the total size when right click checking was 38GB (Preys stated size in the Xbox App). The 'game' folder that gets created in the WindowsApps folder for prey is "BethesdaSoftworks.LiluDallas-Multipass_1.11.7.0_x64__3275kfvn8vcwc". Right clicking this the size was slightly smaller at 37.7GB.
So, from this you would think that for this one game it was taking up 75.7GB of space no? But when back out one step and right clicking the WindowsApps folder it was just showing 38GB.
So I can only conclude that some weird 'file linky'/ mirroring is going on, and games aren't actually physically taking up double the space after all!

And yeah, like you I think it's a clunky platform, but it is beta, and for the current price given it has games on it I've been wanting to try/ play - it's a no brainer really.

Something is clearly wrong on your system I have a couple 100GB of gamepass games NONE use duplicate HD space at all!

bobboberts · 26 Sep 2019 at 00:02

So did the Xbox event last night really only mention 4 PC Game Pass titles?

ic1male · 26 Sep 2019 at 13:43

bobboberts said:
So did the Xbox event last night really only mention 4 PC Game Pass titles?

Yes but any massive announcements will be held until X019 in November now.

If I'm right, Gears 5 is the last big, first-party game now until Project Scarlett arrives next November so Game Pass will just be topped up with indies and third-party stuff til then.