In this installment, we will be providing insight into how we are streamlining the patching process, what goes into creating a patch, the improvements you will experience, improvements to the HD texture packs, and why this will result in a larger-than-average Y2S3.0 patch.
Y2S3.0 Patch Size
In the Y2S3.0 patch, we will be making some changes to how our data is organized, as well as how we generate patches moving forward. There is more information below on exactly what we are doing, and why, but we are currently looking at the following patch size breakdown per platform:
*The patch sizes are estimates, and subject to change as we draw closer to release.
With this new patch, we plan on resetting the foundation that future patches are built upon, and establishing the Y2S3.0 patch as the new baseline that we will update the game client from. As a result of resetting the baseline, we must replace a significant number of the existing data forges. This is why the Y2S3.0 patch is as large as it is.
All game data is stored in what we refer to as a “forge”. This is a compressed archive containing other files. When we need to modify a file that is part of a forge, we simply download a new forge that contains the new file without replacing the original forge. This simplifies the patching process, and reduces the download size. Over time however, it leads to a lot of wasted space on disk, as there are more and more modified files.
In the Y2S3.0 patch, since we changed many existing textures, we decided that we need to consolidate our forges. The impact of this will result in a smaller overall footprint on your hard drive, taking up less space. By consolidating our patches and data players will see a reduction “seek time”, which means faster load times for all players. While it is difficult to determine an exact loading time reduction percentage for PC due to the variety of configurations, consoles will see about 10% faster loading times for matches.
Additionally, we have taken advantage of the fact that we are replacing all our forges to upgrade the compression algorithm used. This will reduce the overall size of all future patches by approximately 12-15% and will have an improvement on loading time as well.
Texture Quality (PC)
We have adjusted the texture quality for each level of graphics settings on PC, low to Ultra. This will result in a slight increase in quality for character textures and a significant increase for environment texture quality available for all settings. The updated HD texture pack on PC will effectively be an unscaled source quality of our texture UV Maps. Details about the improvements that you will see can be found in the Maps and Operators blogs.
For players that meet the 6GB VRAM minimum to use the Ultra HD pack, you will see an increase in environmental texture quality. Environment textures take up ~60% of available VRAM, and without making the Ultra HD pack unusable by anyone but those with the most powerful builds, the upgraded environment textures did not fit into the Ultra HD pack. Now that we have streamlined the way data and textures are handled, we are able to include these upgrades in the Ultra HD pack, and make it accessible by players that meet the 6GB VRAM minimum requirement.
We hope that you enjoyed our data cleanup series, and what goes into the creation of maps, Operators, and patches. We would love to hear your thoughts on it, so join the discussion on Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, and the Forums!
