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PS4: Was "copying" always a thing?

Pankratous

Pankratous

Member
Oct 26, 2017
9,263
My god, it's so fucking slow. 30 seconds to download a 2GB patch, only for me to then have to wait 30 minutes for it to copy.

Why? I swear when the PS4 came out, it didn't do this. What changed? Are the updates compressed now? Well, cut that shit out. I'd rather just download it uncompressed.

Bit of a moan thread of course but I really wanting to squeeze time in before bed, and instead I'm staring at an update slowly making its way to 100%.
 
GinoFelino

GinoFelino

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,234
I've been wondering the same. Updates weren't always this painstakingly slow. Since about a year or so, it's horrible.
 
fdst1983

fdst1983

Member
Aug 26, 2018
305
Today, I needed to delete a (100gb) game, even with 60 gb free, because the destiny 2 update (128mb) said I hadn't space enough
 
Velocity:Design:Comfort

Velocity:Design:Comfort

Banned
Nov 23, 2017
4,302
Yeah I copied for like 25 minutes just to play FFXIV which had a pretty minor patch. I get its a big game but I was playing it just fine the day before, what is it copying for half an hour
 
Syysch

Syysch

Member
Oct 30, 2017
422
It used to be that "calculating" or whatever happened BEFORE the download, now it's "copying" which happens AFTER. Same thing, different name, but you notice it more because you see it when the download is done.
 
A Ream of Paper

A Ream of Paper

Member
Apr 8, 2018
1,806
Nope I definitely don't remember it from the first few years the PS4 was out. First time I experienced it was with God of War last year IIRC. It's super annoying.
 
Mugman

Mugman

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,369
It's honestly ruined multiple game nights with friends lately. And yes, I didn't start noticing it until around a year ago.
 
Fatoy

Fatoy

Member
Mar 13, 2019
7,230
PS4 has always had a stupid architecture for patching, but the process has got noticeably worse / slower in the last year or so. It's like when the PS3 used to download the original package for a digital game AND THEN the latest patches, instead of just downloading the up-to-date versions.
 
Orbis

Orbis

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,339
UK
I stopped applying patches to F1 2019 since they were taking what seemed like an hour each time, just for 'copying'. Sucks for people playing online who have no choice.
 
Komo

Komo

Info Analyst
Verified
Jan 3, 2019
7,110
BradleyLove said:
I believe PS4 uses a copy of the existing game to apply the patch to.

This is why seemingly innocuous updates require so much space.
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Yeah it's because the PS4 is delta patching the files it needs to. So the less packed the game the faster it will go but if the game uses large 20GB files it'll literally take forever.
 
pswii60

pswii60

Member
Oct 27, 2017
26,673
The Milky Way
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.
 
Fantastical

Fantastical

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,371
pswii60 said:
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.
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Yeah that was so annoying. I'm all for update from developers but I don't think you should put out these patches every couple of days like they were doing.
 
EternalWinter

EternalWinter

Member
Oct 27, 2017
816
Oklahoma, USA
I looked into this when I was playing Elder Scrolls Online and it would take a little over an hour to "copy". Apparently the PS4 makes a copy to apply the patch to in case of failure. This was not a thing at the beginning of PS4's life. It was added afterwards and it sucks.
 
KanameYuuki

KanameYuuki

Member
Dec 23, 2017
2,650
Colombia
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.
 
ItsTheShoes

ItsTheShoes

Attempting to circumvent ban with an alt
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
334
I don't remember this being a thing in the first year or 2 of the ps4's lifetime. Then one of the major patches (I forget which one) introduced it and now patching is almost as terrible as it was on the ps3.
 
IvanSlavkov

IvanSlavkov

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,907
Bulgaria
I've noticed that two. A 50GB game is downloaded within 20 min and then I wait an hour for copying! This was not the case when PS4 launched and the PS4 started doing it in recent years. Sony must have changed something.
 
Ryo

Ryo

Member
Oct 28, 2017
1,523
I first noticed it with Spider-Man last year, now everything takes forever to copy.
 
BarryFishFinger

BarryFishFinger

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,486
I don't recall being bothered by copying until maybe the start of this year so not sure if I just wasn't paying attention of something changed?

Either way, it's fucking egregious. I'm on 220mb ftth, I can download a multi GB patch in a few of minutes, but have had to wait, no word of a lie, almost an hour for the data to copy.

I did it with a Division 2 patch, jumped on with a mate to play, said "Oh there's an update, I'll only be a minute": few minutes for the patch then it took 40 minutes to fucking copy before I could play, by which time my mate had had to drop offline.

It's really irritating and I'm good at waiting, I grew up playing C64 games.
 
NewDust

NewDust

Visited by Knack
Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,602
Yes it was always a thing, they just changed the wording (and order of the process).
 
Valcrist

Valcrist

Tic-Tac-Toe Champion
Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,707
Whenever a new update comes out for FFXIV the copying part alone takes like an hour. I hate it.
 
Diablos

Diablos

has a title.
Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,595
I want to say since upgrading to a SSD this helps address this issue considerably. It doesn't seem to bother me as much.

Still, no one on a PS4 of any kind should have to put up with this.
 
Ænima

Ænima

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,513
Portugal
Always been a thing. Some games u dont notice, but big games like GT Sport the coping takes a long time. I guess the same applies to other big games with multiple patches.
 
SunhiLegend

SunhiLegend

The Legend Continues
Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,573
No, was added in an update, used to be download, install and that's it, until it changed to download - install - copying. Don't remember when that started but it might have been sometime last year or the year before I'm not sure.
It's so painstakingly slow I don't know why it was changed to add the copying process, sometimes an update that's like a few GB will take half hour to an hour to copy whereas before it took nowhere near the same amount of time to install.

Edit: Just having a look seems like it was always there but under a different name? Weird, since before the copying process whenever I downloaded an update the download+install time was relatively quick for something a few GB, now it's much slower.
 
Aswitch

Aswitch

Member
Nov 27, 2017
5,125
Los Angeles, CA
I agree. While I don't really run into the issue as much since my PS4 does a great job of downloading and installing while in sleep mode(when i'm not around) I never noticed until roughly within the last year or so. I'm curious if the external HDD support and how they structure that has to do something with it?
 
Absolute Zero

Absolute Zero

User requested ban
Banned
Sep 1, 2019
44
I didn't ever notice it being this bad until about a year or so ago, so I think an update may have made it worse.
 
Desmond

Desmond

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,387
Was there a Destiny 2 patch today? Reinstalled Fallout 76 and had to remove a few games. Updating Destiny 2 will kill me haha
 
RoninStrife

RoninStrife

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
4,002
You know what? I don't believe it was a thing at launch... and if it was, it said it for like 5 seconds.
Now.... GT Sport, I love that game... but dang, it's currently 105GB on my HDD and when theres a 2-5GB update, after it reaches 100%, it literally takes 15-20 minutes to "copy". ANNOYING as hell..
Does anyone know if it's dependent on the size of the game in question? Because I don't understand it.

The biggest games on my HDD are:
RDR2 101GB
GT Sport 105GB
Battlefield 5 78GB.

Of the three... GT Sport takes the longest to "copy" after downloading an update. Battlefield 5 actually takes longer than RDR2. So it's not the actual space being taken up thats making it take longer.
 
poklane

poklane

Member
Oct 25, 2017
27,934
the Netherlands
Whatever causes it, I hope it wont happen for PS5. It can be quite frustrating to spend a few minutes to download a patch only to then spend an hour+ copying the update.
 
Katori

Katori

Member
Oct 30, 2017
309
You're not wrong, I heard them talking about "copying" on the Bombcast and was confused as hell. When I had a PS4 2 years ago this was NOT a thing. Now, the PS4 might have always done it, but it definitely didn't used to call it "copying" and I think maybe it was included in the process before? But it sounds pretty sad nowadays.
 
Stillmatic

Stillmatic

Member
Oct 28, 2017
511
Melbourne, Australia
It wasn't always a thing. Updates used to be pretty quick, then bang, 40 minute wait to 'copy'. I think things changed a couple of years after launch and never went back.

It's probably my biggest annoyance with the console.
 
RivalGT

RivalGT

Member
Dec 13, 2017
6,399
I think it only happens with some games, and depending on the structure of it, it will have to copy multiple files to the game. So I dont think its size dependent, but more on the file structure of the game. At least thats what ive read in similar threads here on ERA. I know Doom 2016 and GTS are 2 of the ones that take the longest to update.
 
Pwnz

Pwnz

Member
Oct 28, 2017
14,279
Places
It's probably choking on disk io for fragmented non ssds and if it does a ton of decompression it could be single threaded and choking on that ancient AMD core.

If what they claim about PS5 this will virtually be eliminated.
 
Golvellius

Golvellius

Banned
Dec 3, 2017
1,304
Raiden said:
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.
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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.
 
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