What's with the largely varied filesizes in iOS games?

Discussion in 'General Game Discussion and Questions' started by Darkus, Aug 27, 2012.

  1. Darkus

    Darkus Well-Known Member

    Feb 13, 2009
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    Oh. Hi.
    Why are some games significantly higher in filesizes then previous releases on other devices?
    I understand that they may use different compression methods, or have remade music. But I just can't understand the huge differences.

    For example; (checking filesizes from various...unreputable sites I will not mention here.)

    Chrono Trigger:
    SNES 4mb
    DS 53mb
    PSP (PSN) 279mb
    iOS 630mb

    or a recent release;
    TWEWY
    DS 67mb
    iOS 600mb (packed, I've yet to purchase so I'm unaware of the uncompressed size.)

    or, the most ridiculous one;
    Puzzle Quest 2;
    DS 21mb
    iOS 1.4gb
     
  2. Dirty Harry Hannahan

    Dirty Harry Hannahan Well-Known Member

    Apr 14, 2011
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    Its a developer thing. Ask them.
    Optimizing and such.
     
  3. tops2

    tops2 Well-Known Member

    Jan 21, 2011
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    Some have uncompressed music.. I prefer smaller filesize. =P
     
  4. Darkus

    Darkus Well-Known Member

    Feb 13, 2009
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    Oh. Hi.
    Yea, I was just talking to a friend about this problem, and he told me to google it about Chrono Trigger.
    First thing I found was a link to the comments here at TA on the article about CT's release.
    Apparently the game, is about 21mb, the rest is remade music in FLAC/Apple's Lossless Format making about the other 600mb.
    Ridiculous.
    I wonder if it's possible to just replace those files with mp3s and reduce the filesize to under 100mb.
    Wouldn't be hard to do, seeing as i'm JBed and use iFile.
     
  5. Echoseven

    Echoseven Moderator
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    Jul 19, 2011
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    The red Skittle
    You're comparing resolutions of the DS (320x240) and the resolution of a Retina iPhone screen (960x640). In the case of universal apps, ADD to that the normal iPad resolution (1024x768) and now Retina iPad displays too (2048x1536). That's three sets of resolutions, each one taking a whole lot more space than the previous one.

    Then there are the music files - the iOS versions are likely to have higher quality sound which would bump up the file sizes quite exponentially.

    That's already a not insignificant difference in size right there, and I'm not mentioning the various tweaks. I would say it's largely to the fact that they have to support so many generations of iThings simultaneously in one file.
     
  6. kioshi

    kioshi Well-Known Member

    Apr 9, 2011
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    Here ya go:

    [​IMG]
     
  7. Darkus

    Darkus Well-Known Member

    Feb 13, 2009
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    Oh. Hi.
    ...Holy crap.
    Point proven...?
     
  8. Greyskull

    Greyskull Well-Known Member

    Dec 13, 2009
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    #8 Greyskull, Aug 27, 2012
    Last edited: Aug 28, 2012
    ...and, soon we should have an iphone with a 4 inch screen and an ipad with a 7 incher. I don't think I'm alone in thinking a microSD slot should be next. (I know, won't happen).

    Between the wonkieness of the appstore, the utter fail that is iTunes running on Win7 64 bit, the ever present danger that connecting my phone to my computer could result in a complete data wipe, mysterious vanishing apps, and updates which are, in fact, downdates, I figure I'll be forced to jailbreak sooner or later.

    I'm leery though of allowing mysterious coders root access to not just a handheld game console, but my primary phone/email device/communication device.

    Plus, I don't trust that a jailbreak DL won't be virus/rootkit/trojan free (PC virus, not ios).
     
  9. kioshi

    kioshi Well-Known Member

    Apr 9, 2011
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    If the reason is use of FLAC music, it's beyond ridiculous.
    I can certainly see why a game like Infinity Blade has 1 gig and such, but the other ones... The sound is the most plausible explanation. Puzzle Quest 2 was out before the new iPad.
    And it's not like games NEED to use FLAC. Look at the game people say it has the best music on iOS, Superbrothers Sword and Sorcery, the file size is 160 mb (more uncompressed I know but can't check right now) and it has a ton of awesome music, I doubt it uses FLAC or it'd be a 4 gig game.
     
  10. Darkus

    Darkus Well-Known Member

    Feb 13, 2009
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    Oh. Hi.
    Yeah, this is what blows my mind.
    I get that FLAC is the highest quality of music "compression". But human ears are NOT that sensitive to be able to detect the subtle differences easily.
    It's just not necessary, especially with the after effects of it are massively bloated filesizes.
    It's understandable in IB/Horn, or most other Unreal engine games.
    But it's what changed my mind to buy PQ2.
    I bought PQ1 on impulse when it came out at first, and loved every moment of it.
    PQ2 came out, I was excited, went to purchase and luckily noticed the filesize...So I asked my friend who had purchased it before me about the uncompressed size, and he spent a good half hour complaining about it.

    Chrono Trigger's case is also ridiculous...30mb for the game, the other 600mb in music? That wasn't necessary. At all.
    Also worth noting that the Secret of Mana port clocked in roughly 70mb.
    That's much more like it.

    TWEWY's case seems to be a bit different, I just poked around in the app files in the middle of typing this post.
    Music seems to take about 160mb, Movies take about 242mb.
    The huge chunk of space is consumed by a single file called "resources.assets" at 1.9gb.
    I assume they had good reason for the bloat in this case. But I still wish more could've been done.
    I had to dump Aralon, Shadow Era, and Trigger Fist for this beast...worth it though.
     

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