Comment by maccard
16 days ago
> They said it was for performance but the theory was to make it more inconvenient for pirates to distribute.
This doesn't even pass the sniff test. The files would just be compressed for distribution and decompressed on download. Pirated games are well known for having "custom" installers.
>The files would just be compressed for distribution and decompressed on download
All Steam downloads are automatically compressed. It's also irrelevant. The point is that playback of uncompressed audio is indeed cheaper than playback of compressed audio.
> The point is that playback of uncompressed audio is indeed cheaper than playback of compressed audio.
Even when Titanfall 2 was released in 2016, I don't think that was meaningfully the case. Audio compression formats have been tuned heavily for efficient playback.
Uncompressed audio is typically used for sound effects, while music is compressed. Latency is the primary benefit. Uncompressed audio will play immediately while an mp3 will have a few frames delay. Sounds like gunshots or footsteps are typically short files anyway, so the increased memory usage isn't that painful.
Games also can stack many sounds, so even if the decoding cost is negligible when playing a single sound, it'll be greater if you have 32 sounds playing at once.
7 replies →
It's easy to apply todays standards. Titanfall was released 11 years ago, and ran on an Xbox 360, and a Core 2 Duo. MP3 was a patent encumbered format. There's a fun DF article [0] where they say:
> Titanfall accesses Microsoft's existing cloud network, with servers spooling up on demand. When there's no demand, those same servers will service Azure's existing customers. Client-side, Titanfall presents a dedicated server experience much like any other but from the developer and publisher perspective, the financials in launching an ambitious online game change radically.
Things changed _massively_ in games between 2014 and 2017 - we went from supporting borderline embedded level of platforms with enormous HW constraints, architecture differences, and running dedicated servers like the 90's, to basically supporting fixed spec PCs, and shipping always online titles running on the cloud.
[0] https://www.digitalfoundry.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-...
I think GP was confused - Titanfall 1 from 2014 is the one with the massive volume of uncompressed audio. Though I think your point still stands.
I was trying to point out that the decision to compress or not compress audio likely has nothing to do with the download size.
> All Steam downloads are automatically compressed.
Titanfall wasn't on steam when it launched.
> It's also irrelevant. The point is that playback of uncompressed audio is indeed cheaper than playback of compressed audio.
The person that I replied to (not you) claimed "They said it was for performance but the theory was to make it more inconvenient for pirates to distribute."
> The point is that playback of uncompressed audio
Bullshit. This is not a problem since 2003.
And nobody forbids you to actually decompress your compressed audio when you are loading the assets from the disk.