PS4: Was "copying" always a thing?

[Seraphis Cain]

As others have said, it's always been a thing. They just changed the wording and put it at the end of the download instead of the beginning.

EDIT: Seriously, how do people not remember how long the "calculating" step used to take before a download would start?

 

[Mengetsu]

It's only some games that do this. It wasn't a thing until the past year or so. Destiny 2 and Rainbow Six Siege are a nightmare to wait on if it didn't catch it in rest mode.

 

[Wraith]

https://www.reddit.com/r/PS4/comments/9x834j/why_the_hell_does_copying_take_so_long/

LassTrainer 30 points · 9 months ago

To save bandwidth PS4 patches can be delivered as bytepatches. This is basically a small (relatively) file that only contains the changes between files. For instance if you have a 20GB file and change a 5MB graphic within it then the bytepatch will be only a 5MB download instead of a 20GB download again for one file.

This helps to massively reduce download times and to save Sony a lot of bandwidth in update files. It is also good for people with slower internet connections as then the patches do not take as long to download.

Click to shrink...

What happens when the PS4 is "copying update" is that it basically has to make a brand new copy of this 20GB file and apply the patches during the copy. After it has performed the patch to the file it then moves it back in place overwriting the original file with the new updated file.

For large games with many files changed in patches this process can take a long time to copy the update and it is a CPU & storage i/o limited process. Upgrading the internal drive to a faster 7200RPM drive will help make this a little faster but due to what's involved in the process it will never be quick.

Click to shrink...

I assume the above answer is on point? I'm rarely ever sitting at the PS4 watching updates finish installing/copying. Having slow internet, I usually start an update and put the console in Rest mode, coming back sometime later to see if it's done.

 

[IIFloodyII]

It never used to be as bad, but I'm pretty sure it's always been there, maybe had a different name. I'm not sure what update cause it to take so long but it happened at least over a year ago.
Edit: Ah calculating.

 

[Gamer4life]

Haven't noticed any issues like that. I do have an internal SSD though. Have an external SSD for my Xbox One X too. Updates seem to take a minute or two longer now but thats about it.

 

[EccoCid]

I noticed the same, first time was after God of War launched last year and there seemed to be another update every day for a few weeks. It just took so long to install every update that it kind of killed the moment when I just wanted to jump in to the game. I've got a SSHD (Firecuda).

It definitely feels like things have regressed in that regard since 2013 and I don't know why. PS3 was a fucking nightmare when it came to install times though, at least it's not that bad. Would be nice if it was pretty much instant like on my PC/Steam though.

Click to shrink...

But cant you just start the game while it downloads the patch or just ignore the installation? It is a singleplayer game so you must be able to launch the game even tho its not the latest version?

 

[eso76]

That's why I've been avoiding confrontation with my PS4 for the last couple months, which makes things worse because the moment I turn it on I know is going to be brutal. And the longer I postpone, the worse it gets.
Couple that with my shitty connection and my PS4 is basically blueballing me whenever I'm up for a quick session; it's just never ready when I am.

Ok, sure, I'd imagine using the convenient stand by function might help.

 

[BoxManLocke]

Haven't noticed any issues like that. I do have an internal SSD though. Have an external SSD for my Xbox One X too. Updates seem to take a minute or two longer now but thats about it.

Click to shrink...

That's what makes all the difference. It's a lot more useful than whatever improvements you get in loading times.

If you really can't stand copying (which I would get, it's awful with the standard HDD), then a cheap SSD is the way to go.

 

[hydruxo]

It's so bad with Destiny 2. Takes longer to copy each update than it does to actually download it.

 

[LossAversion]

It's super annoying. It only affects specific games for me though. Most notable example being Black Ops 4.

 

[Majik13]

Always wondered this for awhile, so I looked into a couple months ago. Apparently with this new way it is patched. They can do these smaller(and faster downloads) Less bandwidth , smaller files etc, but in turn, to apply the patch, it needs to make a full copy of the game. Hard to tell what is the better trade off, and if indeed the patches are truly smaller than the other way. Probabaly a greater benefit to Sonys servers than users.

 

[Azerach]

I think it became a thing around the time when delta patches were added. Though I'm sure it was a thing before because of the ps4 file system basically making a partition to the hard drive for every game and I believe the "copying" means the system is moving files around to expand the partition... probably maybe perhaps i think so.

Edit: or as mentioned above the whole game is being copied to a new partition.

 

[Ploid 6.0]

Is it allocating space for it before it install? I had to download the standalone client for Path of Exile (PC) because the Steam version would take so long to update no matter how small the patch was. More than 10 or maybe even over 20 minutes. I would just let it start then wish it was done trying to forget about it.

Here's how it works on PC, Valve response.

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com

This is true. Steam uses the space to create a temporary backup copy of each file that is being patched. We do this because we have no idea if your internet or wifi will cut out during the download, or if your PC will shut down, or if Steam will crash for some reason. If any of those things happen and the patch is only halfway done, and we didn't have the backup files, then the game would be in a totally broken state and wouldn't be playable until you got online again and Steam could do a full re-download of the broken files.

Back when games were 5-10 GB this was totally uncontroversial. Now that many games are in the 20-50 GB range, it's kind of annoying. We could add a prompt like "If your computer or internet access shut down for any reason during the patch process, you may have to redownload the game" and make you click the "I'm a Cowboy" button. But I think you can understand that even if we do that, it will generate a lot of angry people saying "I went on vacation and took my laptop and I don't have internet access and MY GAME DOESNT WORK" and asking for refunds.

Click to shrink...

 

['V']

The combination of Sony's slow download speeds and copying makes even a 3GB Fortnite update a lengthy process especially compared to PC and other consoles.

 

[pswii60]

But cant you just start the game while it downloads the patch or just ignore the installation? It is a singleplayer game so you must be able to launch the game even tho its not the latest version?

Click to shrink...

It disconnects you from PSN doing that though. That's not a good feeling.

 

[Deleted member 12833]

It's fucking awful, especially for GaaS games which have regular updates. Basically stopped playing GT Sport because of it

 

[MegaSackman]

For several years at least. It's the worst!

 

[NightShift]

I think it became a thing when the PS4 allowed for external HDDs because some of them need it. It is fustrating as fuck when you are just using the standard HDD though which obviously doesn't. I also hate how it doubles the storage space during downloading and installing. Meaning you can't download something else until it's finished if there's not enough space.

 

[AllMight1]

the copy thing wasnt always a thing on ps4, it started about a year ago.
I'm always thinking that hopefully they get rid of it on ps5

 

[Ascenion]

Sony needs to do whatever the Xbox does. Patches never take long and once I got gigabit internet nothing takes long on it tbh.

 

[Respawn]

Xbox doesn't "download and install". It just downloads, and as soon as it is finished, the game is ready.

Sony is not good with online and infrastructure though, so it doesn't surprise me in the slightest that their system seems to be almost unusable.

Click to shrink...

Is this a real post?🙄

 

[Tunesmith]

https://www.reddit.com/r/PS4/comments/9x834j/why_the_hell_does_copying_take_so_long/

I assume the above answer is on point? I'm rarely ever sitting at the PS4 watching updates finish installing/copying. Having slow internet, I usually start an update and put the console in Rest mode, coming back sometime later to see if it's done.

Click to shrink...

This is correct.

 

[etta]

Yea, it's ridiculous.
The wait is incredibly exaggerated and prolonged.

 

[Toni]

I downloaded a 94 GB Red Dead Redemption 2 on a 400mps wifi connection on basic PS4, in just under 12 minutes. I'm in Florida.

Throughout this entire generation, not once have I had the connection / speed issues so many encounter in this Forum.

 

[Tunesmith]

the copy thing wasnt always a thing on ps4, it started about a year ago.
I'm always thinking that hopefully they get rid of it on ps5

Click to shrink...

It's been around longer to my knowledge, games just got bigger and more complex to make it more apparent.

What you save in bandwidth you make up for in offline copying time. Read the quoted reddit posts a few spots up for info.

PS5 almost assuredly won't "get rid of it" but with faster drives the curve for it to be an annoyance will again be much lessened, until we have yet-bigger games that is.🙃

 

[shinken]

Yep, it's really shit now, well, it's like this for a while already. In the past you could also pause your download and resume right away. Sony changed it and now it does this percentage thingy and you have to wait a long ass time before your download resumes.

 

[Dave.]

So much misunderstanding on this.

a) It has always been a thing, since launch. Prior to a system firmware update about a year ago, it was called "Preparing (to download)" and took place before the download started, which made it less obvious as the update was complete the moment the download bar completed (which you probably weren't watching at the start, but were at the end).

b) It gets worse over time, based on the sum total of patches a game has received without a "rebase". The system has to verify file checksums of all previous patches as they cumulatively build on each other. This reduces download sizes but obviously impacts "copying" (nee "preparing") times. This is why "it wasn't a thing at launch" - because no games at launch had three years of regular patching to deal with in their history.

This is actually on the devs! A long life service game such as Destiny / The Division / FFXIV etc will degrade heavily over time under the weight of many numerous patches. The only dev I know of to regularly fix this issue is the outstanding Digital Extremes, with Warframe. See: https://forums.warframe.com/topic/1...e-revenant-update-2350-hotfixes-chroma-prime/ - They have done this on at least two occasions (I can't fine the link but the ~2015 one went in to more details than this one), and it is obviously is great for future patches but other people will complain of the one-off large download size for the "remaster" as it is a whole "new" game rather than a delta patch.

It is easy to verify for yourself that this is the case. Buy a new game on disc, download the inevitable large Day 1 patch - "copying" will be very quick! Especially when compared to Destiny 2.

c) An SSD greatly improves matters, as one would expect for a process dealing with the filesystem.

 

[ManaByte]

So much misunderstanding on this.

a) It has always been a thing, since launch. Prior to a system firmware update about a year ago, it was called "Preparing (to download)" and took place before the download started, which made it less obvious as the update was complete the moment the download bar completed (which you probably weren't watching at the start, but were at the end).

b) It gets worse over time, based on the sum total of patches a game has received without a "rebase". The system has to verify file checksums of all previous patches as they cumulatively build on each other. This reduces download sizes but obviously impacts "copying" (nee "preparing") times. This is why "it wasn't a thing at launch" - because no games at launch had three years of regular patching to deal with in their history.

This is actually on the devs! A long life service game such as Destiny / The Division / FFXIV etc will degrade heavily over time under the weight of many numerous patches. The only dev I know of to regularly fix this issue is the outstanding Digital Extremes, with Warframe. See: https://forums.warframe.com/topic/1...e-revenant-update-2350-hotfixes-chroma-prime/ - They have done this on at least two occasions (I can't fine the link but the ~2015 one went in to more details than this one), and it is obviously is great for future patches but other people will complain of the one-off large download size for the "remaster" as it is a whole "new" game rather than a delta patch.

It is easy to verify for yourself that this is the case. Buy a new game on disc, download the inevitable large Day 1 patch - "copying" will be very quick! Especially when compared to Destiny 2.

c) An SSD greatly improves matters, as one would expect for a process dealing with the filesystem.

Click to shrink...

This is correct. It was also how it was done on the PS3.

 

[Strelok]

I've never encountered it, I'm always confused when people mention it

 

[Vex]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/al...tem-ever-when-dealing-with-game-updates.4550/

Yea, op it is shit.

2017. Boy how time flies.

 

[Dave.]

I think it became a thing when the PS4 allowed for external HDDs because some of them need it.

Click to shrink...

Ah that seems very likely. Although see my above post, it has always been a thing. But now since the hard disk may not be present / may be moved and connected to a different PS4 by the time the download completes, it makes a great deal of sense to do the time consuming calculations at the end of the download rather than the start (and potentially have to do it multiple times).

 

[Deleted member 36054]

Lol Xbox is the worst for this shit.

It literally made me upgrade my PC to play on that instead because downloading and installing a game took half a day.

Click to shrink...

My Xbox One X downloads are 10x as fast as my PS4. I swear I've never seen my PS4 get faster than 5 Gbps.

 

[StrykerIsland]

It's been that way for a few years now, but definitely wasn't always like this. It's fucking painful and by far the worst part about the PS4. I'm hoping with the SSD that it becomes a thing of the past on ps5.

Games like Destiny are especially bad because of how large the game files are.

 

[TheRaidenPT]

Yeah that copy process has been getting longer and longer, even for patches as small as 500MB, not sure if my HDD is starting to get old or just some changes on firmware, I know it wasn't like that before for all of my games.

Click to shrink...

Not sure I have packed an SSD inside the Pro and I still get these issues.. Sounds like the Jaguars aren't doing a good work at unpacking and copying system files.

Bring Ryzen already

 

[Belthazar90]

I never notice it as all my updates are done automatically during 4 am, or something.

 

[Bojanglez]

It took an hour to 'copy' today's destiny update 🤦‍♀️ I hope the new gen of consoles sort this crap out, my gaming time is valuable and this eats into it.

 

[IIFloodyII]

It's so bad with Destiny 2. Takes longer to copy each update than it does to actually download it.

Click to shrink...

Destiny is definitely the worst I've experienced it too. Like today the update took like 10 seconds to download and almost 1 hour to copy.

 

[Strangelove_77]

Destiny 2 is the goat at taking for-fucking-ever to copy updates on PS4.

 

[Kaah]

I downloaded a 94 GB Red Dead Redemption 2 on a 400mps wifi connection on basic PS4, in just under 12 minutes. I'm in Florida.

Throughout this entire generation, not once have I had the connection / speed issues so many encounter in this Forum.

Click to shrink...

It is to not a connection or a speed issue.

 

[Lokimaster]

Xbox doesn't "download and install". It just downloads, and as soon as it is finished, the game is ready.

Sony is not good with online and infrastructure though, so it doesn't surprise me in the slightest that their system seems to be almost unusable.

Click to shrink...

This is hilarious because this literally has nothing to do with online infrastructure!
The PS4 literally is almost double the speed of what it takes to install a game on the Xbox one and the X.
what people here are talking about is the "copying" that the PS4 recently started doing. Even with the copying the PS4 still installs games almost 2-3 times faster than it takes on the Xbox one.
You'll always be able to start a game on the ps4 faster than the Xbox one
🤣🤣 this guy said "infrastructure 🤣🤣🤣

 

[Kaah]

For some games it's actually faster to delete and redownload entirely than to download and install the patch.

 

[arodgers12]

I feel like I've seen it before, but I don't remember it being this bad. FFXIV had an update that was rather small - something like 150 MB - but when it was done, it began "copying". Took quite a long time. I assumed it changed the files, then reinstalled the entire game again.

 

[Sirhc]

Drives me insane every FFXIV patch, takes 2 mins to DL on PC and PS4, PS4 then just sits around doing jack all for 20-30 mins.

 

[Kyrios]

I don't remember it being like that in the first few years of this gen but my god some games. Destiny 2 or Siege gets a patch and it's 'Well I'm not playing for another 45 minutes I guess" Thank god not all games do this, but when they do, hope you have something else to play in the meantime lol

I'm just glad you can still play other games while it "Copies" in the background.

For some games it's actually faster to delete and redownload entirely than to download and install the patch.

Click to shrink...

Shit you not, I do that sometimes.

Worst part is, it's true.

 

[CRIMSON-XIII]

I swear to you this copying crap for ps4 after downloads started in 2015 or 2016 . I swear it. haha

Never on ps3 or launch ps4 was this a thing. At least they made the keyboard open on the ps store... Though it still has a terrible scroll down list to look at searches.

 

['V']

Sony is not good with online and infrastructure though, so it doesn't surprise me in the slightest that their system seems to be almost unusable.

Click to shrink...

Agreed. PSN has been around for what, 10+ years now? I still remember the maintenance which would occur frequently on the PS3 which I never experienced once when using Xbox 360 stores or Steam stores back then. And now this gen every service I use can and does take full advantage of my 250mbps download yet my wired PS4 never does over half that (around ~120mbps). When I was at my old place with a 100mbps connection the PS4 never did more than 30mpbs wireless and ~50mbps wired. It always seems to download half as fast as your maximum speed.

 

[Deleted member 28962]

I noticed the PS4 tries to download/copy multiple patches at the same time which makes it take longer, so pausing all downloads/copies except one helps, but it'll still take awhile.

 

[Unknownlight]

I don't have an Xbox, but I know the Switch doesn't take forever to install updates like the PS4 does. Is that just because Switch games tend to be small in the first place, or is it using a faster method?

 

[Lord Error]

No, it was not always there, and it's almost for sure not renamed "Calculating" or whatever there was before. That process that was there before was 10x faster, no exaggeration. "Copying" is (my theory at least) the disk defragmentation. It's the only way I can explain how insanely slow it can be for some really small games. It's a way to ensure that no matter how many games you have installed, the minimum constant data streaming speed can be guaranteed.

 

[Niks]

Gran Turismo Sport gotta be the worst offender. Holy shit 40 mins copying.