Steam Updates

npjnpj

npjnpj

npjnpj

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I'm relatively new to Steam, and the update method bothers me.

In the past I always manually downloaded any patches and stored them. This was particularly handy when I had to re-install a game and could patch it straight away without spending time downloading those patches again.

It seems that with Steam games I don't have that option any more? Instead, when I re-install a game it can take aaaaages for the download of any patch to finish before its installation process even begins, and that's not something I want to have to go through every time. Of course it takes longer the older a game is.

So, does anyone know whether there's an option to download steam patches manually?

I don't ask this without reason. I tend to spend so much time mucking around with the Windows system, so that after about 3 months it's in a state that I just have to install it again.
 
No way that I know of. A lot of us have Steam and windows on separate storage devices though, so we don't have that problem :) (or alternatively have a really quick connection)
 
The update method on Steam is very basic, they have a version on their servers, which is the game you download when you buy it. It is already patched to the latest version.
If a patch comes out whilst you have a game, they patch their Steam version and you only have to download files which have changed, it's a very easy and quick way to keep lots of people's games up to date, and seeing as you only download the changed files it is a smaller download as you don't have to download a patcher or installer.
 
npjnpj said:
after about 3 months it's in a state that I just have to install it again.
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Don't have Steam on your Windows drive. It'll run just fine from a seperate drive, or even just a seperate partition. That way, you never have to re-download anything again, and you're free to re-install Windows.
 
Cheers for your help.

Two points though: I always buy my games from a store and never from Steam, so when re-installing, I always start off with the same patch (or non-patch) level. Hence the continuously growing download times.

Where can I reconfigure the Steamfolder location for transferring the games to a separate disk?
 
npjnpj said:
Cheers for your help.

Two points though: I always buy my games from a store and never from Steam, so when re-installing, I always start off with the same patch (or non-patch) level. Hence the continuously growing download times.

Where can I reconfigure the Steamfolder location for transferring the games to a separate disk?
Click to expand...

Just cut and paste the folder to where you want it (Without steam running, natch), then next time you run it it'll spend a minute or so figuring itself out and everything will be fine. Watch out for game saves when you format though, most of them as still in Documents, not the Steam folder.

Also, if a game has several patches, it may be best to simply install from Steam rather than the CD. Afterall, you'll have to spend the time installing from the CD and then time patching it all. If there have been several large patches you may well be better off simply downloading the latest version directly from Steam.
Using Steam you can also create game backups on CD/DVD to reinstall from if you so wish. Just right click the game in the Steam and select 'backup game files'. It will then let you put check marks next to all the games you want to back up, and a couple of pages later asks you if you want to limit the sizes. For instance, you can tell it to make the bacup files no larger than 4.7Gb so you can fit them all onto DVDs.
 
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knowledge123 said:
The update method on Steam is very basic, they have a version on their servers, which is the game you download when you buy it. It is already patched to the latest version.
If a patch comes out whilst you have a game, they patch their Steam version and you only have to download files which have changed, it's a very easy and quick way to keep lots of people's games up to date, and seeing as you only download the changed files it is a smaller download as you don't have to download a patcher or installer.
Click to expand...

Well, assuming they do it properly, which most do. The only game i've had trouble with in that regard is SupCom2 (go figure) where the retards who develop it put out a tiny, tiny update with a changelog of a couple of lines that amounts to 2gb.
 
Evilsod said:
Well, assuming they do it properly, which most do. The only game i've had trouble with in that regard is SupCom2 (go figure) where the retards who develop it put out a tiny, tiny update with a changelog of a couple of lines that amounts to 2gb.
Click to expand...

Thats because Gas Powered Games decided the best thing to do was that rather than having loads of folders full of small files that the game needs, its far better just to have a couple of really big files, much tidier.
It just means that if you want to change just one line of code there... you need to redownload the whole damn file :3
 
@Evilsod

Yes, THQ games are bad to update on steam, like Company of Heroes, you basically have to download the whole game each time they release a patch.

Still, it beats manual patching
 
Steam updating is easy. COD World at War had so many patches, and the patches for WAW were version based, you couldn’t install patch 1.5 without patch 1.4 already installed and some of the COW WAW patches were quite large..

Steam took care of all of this, much easier. And as said they also update video drivers now as well, and the updating of the steam client is simple. Steam really is so easy to use, you can move the entire steam folder to another partition and run steam.exe and it’ll just run. Even if you just move steam.exe to another partition it realises this and downloads the entire client again.

Really has to be the easiest games client I’ve ever used. Its one of the plus features of using Steam for your games collection. Half Life 2 had a major update not too long ago, added a whole load of new features, HDR, better gamepad support and achievements, I knew nothing about it until Steam updated HL2. That’s how good it is, it does all the leg work for you…
 
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