Just couple of days ago I installed Sims 2 on my computer. Normal size of installation is 3.5GB?! :blink:

You can place large DOS collection on that amount of space!

For the moment I remembered C64 where rarely you had more then one 174KB floppy.

What do you think will happen in next 15-20 years of the gamming?

It certainly is a deterrent to PC gaming, and may in the long term end up turning PC gamers into console gamers. Consoles don't have those kind of problems, and most of the PC gamers out there don't want to work their way thru a system just to play their games. Everyone like it simple after all, since it's supposed to be a way to have fun and relax, not a way to bring even more problems to you before you can actually benefit from the experience.

Well, instalation speeds up as new software and medium types become available, and hard disks get larger all the time.
Instalation time hasn't increased that much from the first time I installed Settlers II long ago, and even relatively my hard disk space has increased massively. I don't see much trouble, actually. :unsure:

How did PC gaming survive up to date then? From what I remember floppy's weren't the fastest medium of them all, and yet people were playing PC games even then...
Both the capacity and speed is rising, with the overall growth in complexity (by this I mean graphics mostly)...

Well, nowadays game capacity is from 1GB to 5GB, but in my opinion - games in the next 15-20 years could be from 10 to 60 GB. Even now there are BlueRay disks and games are often placed in massive CD quantities. But if developers do decide to make a game that "weighs" 60GB, then it will be a long and hard process.

This also adds another good question:
Wonder what kind of HDD's will have in the next 15-20 years??? In the last 3 years, the HDD space jumped from 20, to 360GB hard disks. What a rush! :blink:

Somewhere there's always a natural limit, be it because of impossibility to reach higher speeds without heating the PC too much up or because of HD's need to grow larger for even more space. Eventhough modern games can be today up to 4GB large it takes more and more time to produce them. And the bugs in the games grow, together with growing absence of fun factor in them because of the work of a 100men+ team which suffocates the imagination and creativity.
I doubt there will be games much larger than 10GB in near future, unless there will be only very few games released on costs of increased size, better (how much better can they be yet? :eeeeeh:) graphics and longer play-time. Unless the tendence will go entirely over to games that are like MMORPG's that are updated, improved and corrected constantly all the time, and who knows, maybe in 3 years it will be a completely normal and daily thing to pay monthly for play a game. And then there slowly will appear flat-rates for a bundle of many games together, similar to the flat-rate of DSL providers today... :whistle:

Well, this may sound crazy, but I think the games could be smaller, they just don't want them to.

Look at this game: kkrieger

Its size: 96 kb

And this just by optimizing code and procedual creating.

If commercial companies would use similar methods, games could be a lot smaller.
Afaik a lot of content in Spore is created procedual. The game shouldn't be that big.

But of course, if every cool game would be just a few KB or even a few 100 MB, who would buy all the expensive 250 GB harddrives? Right, no one.

You get my point?

Of course, this all may sound like just another conspiracy theory, but that's exactly what it is :bleh:

On my PC kkrieger LAGED more than F.E.A.R. (it has 6-10 frames/s).
Seriously, these guys ought to stick to encoding movies, more use of talent.
As for games, let it be 10GB, but no lags.

Interesting, but I've heard of it before.
I haven't checked it out, though. How is the content vs. creation time?

I remember being aggravated at finding out that some games were getting bigger than the 200 megs back in the days. Today, I am still very annoyed when I realise that some games take up more than 1 gig on my harddrive.

A game taking 4-5 gig of space? What kind of game is that? Do you need a full encyclopedia library for reference for taking that much place on your hd, or is it just the in-game manual taking that much place? :blink:

Anyhow, you would expect games to take less and less space on a HD, not the opposite. Lag is not at all an issue here, I remember playing plenty of games back in the days in which you had no option of using the CD instead of creating a full-hd version on your computer, and those games never lagged. The only difference was that the CD-rom was working, so that argument is really null.

The only real reason why games take so much place is because of the "new and improved" graphics... Which are really not needed to have fun on a game, IMHO. Thus, I find it rather pointless. When I buy a game, I want the best I can have for the money I pay... And to be frank, that's not happening with those new games which get out nowaday. The size of the game on my HD is only one of the small issues which, brought together, make the games boring VS the old games we have on this site.

My valid point about graphics (sit back, cause this can take a while... None of this material is meant to be insulting or flaming or rulebreaking.):

Many people go around saying that graphics are the reason to buy and respect a game. Good graphics or superb graphics do not a good game make. First of all, the game is comprised firstly from the:

Story (if it ain't interesting - why play it?).
Controls (if they're unable to redefine as in old games - the game is worthless, unless it uses 2 buttons max. Who wants to have to look at a manual every sec to find out which button does what???).

Only the do we go to the graphics part. To some ppl graphics is all in a game, but if a game doesn't have the two mentioned above - it's a heap of cr4p. Needless to say...

To some of us, graphics mean less. As you stated, EoF, graphics aren't all THAT. Yes, they don't mean that much, but don't you think you would better play the same game with ENHANCED graphics? You'd probably say: "oh, no I like the old sh*tty graphics, cause they make my eyes bleed after playing my game for a few hrs". Maybe not, but some would definately say this.
Technology is enhancing and making better stuff, so that we wouldn't have to use the same sh*t over and over again or downgrade to primitive DOS or smth.
Sure, it takes a better PC for every next game to run, but do you want to spend you're whole life playing the SAME games or different games with the same graphics? Umm... NO.

So what if the game uses more HDD space for a game because of graphics, but if it saves (yes SAVES) your health - why not go for it?
You mentioned 1GB much... Pfff. Much is 5GB (F.E.A.R. uses that much diskspace). 1GB was much in 1996, but in 10 years, haven't you noticed a bit of a change in game space?

Oh cmon, it's nothing to complain about.
By a few years, a 5 gig game is going to be small, and 600 gig computers are going to be everyday.

In fact, we'll probably be complaining about the size of games then and say "why aren't they as small and compact as they were in 2006?"

It was the same with Doom and stuff, I remember when it took up a whopping ten megabytes! Some hard-drives were only twice as large as that!

To be frank, not at all. I still can't fit things I want in one CD, just like when I wanted to copy things on floppy back in the days. I still have to delete things on my HD to make place up all the time. I still get the "your HD is full, want to clean it?" automated Windows message when my HD go under 200 or 300 megs. I still... Well, you get the idea.

The main reason is because the software and games keep expanding at the same time than the HDs capacity. So no, I don't really see a difference.

I still have way more fun playing ADOM than I have in playing your new graphically glorified FPS or shooter which just got out. I still have way more fun playing Transport Tycoon Deluxe than Locomotion... And those games don't take up to 1/8 my HD all alone... Yet, they are timeless gems.

What I hate most when talking about this kind of issue is hearing people saying stupid things like "why do we need to keep playing with those old things?"... Meaning that if something it old, then it's not "hype" or "cool" anymore... Well, if you are that kind of people then by all means continue with your life and live it at 200 km/h... I myself prefer to slow down a little and really enjoy the view instead of simply passing by.

One should be careful saying that newer games with better graphics are saving health. Only to think how WoW causes many people to forget to go out, to take food, even to forget own children so much that they could starve.
The larger todays games and the more "real" they appear through better graphics the easier they sway people from the real life outside. You can't state there was the same complete mania about playing games for Dos or even earlier for Amiga and C64 and ZX-80 or similar. Today's games can take up to months to complete, where earlier one would need 3-4 hours to finish one, go figure.

The reason kkreiger is so small is the lack of textures, all are generated on the fly from equations. This may save HD space, but you need a absolutely silly amount of RAM to run it at a decent speed.

As for the size of new games, they will certainly get larger, as technology marchs on and as gaming gets to be bigger and bigger business, leading to bigger and bigger teams working on games.

Of course, someday we will reach a limit to the amount of data we can store on a computer, but with ongoing research into nanotechnology and suchlike, I doubt that will happen anytime soon.

One should be careful saying that newer games with better graphics are saving health. Only to think how WoW causes many people to forget to go out, to take food, even to forget own children so much that they could starve.
The larger todays games and the more "real" they appear through better graphics the easier they sway people from the real life outside. You can't state there was the same complete mania about playing games for Dos or even earlier for Amiga and C64 and ZX-80 or similar. Today's games can take up to months to complete, where earlier one would need 3-4 hours to finish one, go figure. [/b][/quote]
I meant "eye" health. :whistle: Bad graphics ruin a perfectly good couple of eyes. That's the only point in health. On the things you mentioned:I almost never want to eat anything when I'm at a PC, it just "recharges" my whole system. I am aware of the things you said, people dying of starvation playing games or people leaving babies alone for weeks, but that wasn't my point about health. :whistle:

Playing PC games don't "recharge" your system. The truth is that you are so immersed and so interested in what you do that you kind of forget other things. The mind is a very powerfull tool, it can do a lot of unexpected things if you really want to do it.

Unfortunatly, in this case it won't make you "recharge", it will only make you weaker with time. It just that you will be attuned to certain aspects of your life which you would normally easily perceive. Such as the need of sleep or substenance.

If you have a weak mind, I suggest you don't try that at home without supervision.

i really dont care about the size of them i have enough of it :bleh:

Not for me, I feel better when I've actually played a game or two at my PC. Not playing with my PC makes me weak. But I guess this works only for me.

@Stebbi: good 4 U. :D

Viiiiiiiiii :D

Well, one of the Biggest Games i ever Installed was 9,6 GB on a...............just a moment..........................120 GB hard drive.In 20 years it will be.......hm.............60 GB on a.................600 GB Hard Drive.

and in 60 years 900 GB on a 100.000 GB Hard Drive....................and so on.

LOL no There are now 600 gb actuly existing and some Tb harddrives just not open to the public and i think in 60 years we will maybe somethin bigger than 100TB OR everything will get smaller.

I have a 80 gig HD in this computer that I bought 2 years ago... And that's easily by 20 times the biggest HD I ever had.

As I collect a lot of stuff, I got well over 1TB of space.

80 GB can be easily filled with somewhat 20 new games. :)

I just noticed Machwarrior 3 (purchased it rescently) takes ~600MB with movies. :blink:

I believe that HD space is getting double every 2-3 years. (or that was for processors)

Processor speed doubles every 18 months or so..

I remember when i was like "WOW! if you compress the harddrive, you get twice the space" and my first brand spanking new harddrive was 20 gig and cost 110$. It is now in it's 5th computer by the way.

as for data storage, for about 600$ If i'm not mistaken, you can have a terrabyte om memory on 2 harddrives, which at this point is the most that can be put in a computer by your average computer geek wannabe(such as myself).

of course i'm downloading every abandonware game that interest me. it's not easy to find games that will run on win98(FE) with 64 megs of ram.

:Titan:

FE? :blink:

Federal Edition? :bleh:

Though graphics by themselves do not a good game make, it is silly to say that modern games that do have higher quality graphics are all in the looks only category. I far from a new gamer, and my favourite game is still an old one (1986-7), but with games like Silent Hunter III (just to mention one good looking and good all around game from the many that exist today), I find it very difficult to find an older game (of the exact same category) better in anything else than sentimental value. Sure I love Silent Service, even the original Silent Hunter perhaps, but are they actualy better than Silent hunter III? No, not even close.

Then there are games that were not that great to begin with, for example Bob Winner, I don't know if you know the game but it is an old (86 I think) game, one of the first 3 games I owned, and though it has some interesting ideas, the game is basicaly, crap. I still love it though I wouldn't play it.

Regarding the size/footprint of games. They are big, but, since to run most of them you need an equaly fast cpu and graphics card, plus ram, you probably already have the HDD to install the game to, since it will not even run on older pcs. The only time that I remember having problem with my HDD space was when I had my first HDD (for a PC, not in general) it was a 500MBs drive and it became inadequate very fast.
Games that need more than 1 GB of space exist for several years now, one that I remember right now is MS's Train Simulator, which needed IIRC 2.8 GBs back in 2001. So if you were lucky to have a 20GB drive back then, you immediately "lost" 15% of it for one game.
Now, games have not increased in size that much over the last 5 years, there are still plenty of games with less than a gig of hdd footprint, and rarely go over 2. (that is from a list of 100 PC games released last year I doubt you will find anything but a minority of them requiring 2+ gigs of space.

I am lucky enough to have recently bought a pc with 2x300GBs space, and together with my external drives I reach 990GBs of space. I am not the only one.
No, hard drive space is from my point of view, not the main threat to pc gaming. Microsoft is. Their future release of Windows Vista has caused me fear down my spine with the "good" DRM implementations and the Big Brother attitude. Combined with the usual (anyone here doubt it?) constant patches of problems with the OS that will exist, I am very seriously considering ending my PC gaming as soon as they stop making mainstream games that run on XP. An Apple computer (for video editing), and perhaps a PS3 (Already own a PSP) will become my gaming solution..

Enough of this from me. :)