Will Origin ever improve it's update process?

by Tiver7
Reply

Original Post

Will Origin ever improve it's update process?

★★★ Newbie

Currently as far as I can tell this is how Origin handles game updates:

 

1. Preparing phase.  Origin appears to be checking the integrity of the entire game.  It does so using a single cpu core, and appears to be using some overly cpu intensive algorithm for the integrity check.  As such,  this phase goes at far below both my SSDs maximum speed, and my internet's speed.  It does this across the entire data, so currently ~37GB for Battlefield V.  If the update process is interrupted in any way, say accidentically cancelling accepting a terms change, then it will repeat this entire step.

2. Downloads the game update.  Speeds for this aren't bad, but they are slower than I get for both Steam, Epic, and Uplay. 

3. Update is applied.  Again appears to be single-core CPU bound, and not disk. Likely an overly aggressive compression algorithm or patch engine.  This seems pointless when so much time is wasted in step 1.

 

Compare this to a Steam game update:

 

1. Simultaneously patch data is downloaded and applied.

 

The integrity check is entirely optional and something you're prompted to do only if there's an error with the update process. It also downloads and applies the update at the same time, thus most of the time, the download finishes and seconds later the update is complete, regardless of how large.

 

End result?

 

Origin 2GB update: 30-60 minutes to install.

 

Steam 2GB update: <2 minutes to install.

 

This is further compounded by automatic updates almost never working for me.  I play Battlefield V infrequently, and anytime there is an update I've always had to manually apply it. It'd be less of an issue if I played it every day, but I don't.  This means my playtime is lessened or generally impacted frequently.  It's also lead to me being less interested in actually playing the game knowing every time I return to it I'm probably looking at a 30-60 minute update time, regardless of how big the patch actually is.

 

This in turn makes me less interested in buying any games on Origin ever.

 

I understand it's a core design flaw in how Origin handle's its updates. Or maybe even this how they prefer it works. I can see it being more reliable to perform that integrity check every time.  It's however extremely wasteful to do so and while it may help out that one person in a thousand not having to figure out how to do the check manually, it frustrates the other 999 people who didn't need it. Is there at least something on the roadmap internally to change this though? It's been a long standing black mark for Origin in both my eyes and most friends compared to the competition.

Message 1 of 1 (111 Views)