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Wad size and downloading additional texture wads.

Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2005 5:37 am
by Lexus Alyus
My mod is currently quite large. So far the resources are 22megs. That's without levels, although it does zip down to 16meg... I reckon the final size zipped will be about 20megs. Is this going to be problemsome for most users?

Due to the large size of the resources I was thinking of giving people a link to the texture wad. I'm going to use a texture wad made by someone else anyway, so that will be freely available from where its hosted. Does this bother anyone?

Does the FTP archive managed by Ty accept large files of about 22megs? My resource pack has resources pritty much modified or created by me, so there is no copywright breaches as far as I'm aware (unless you count wav files and sky textures... but loads of people do that).

Just wantig to know, I do want most people to be able to enjoy my final level set.

Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2005 5:46 am
by jallamann
AFAIK there's a 50 meg limit without asking prior to uploading.

Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2005 10:07 am
by Lexus Alyus
Ah, that's cool.

Re: Wad size and downloading additional texture wads.

Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2005 1:35 pm
by Sir_Alien
Lexus Alyus wrote:I do want most people to be able to enjoy my final level set.
:shock:

Are you sereous?!

Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2005 1:43 pm
by Hirogen2
cab-ify if needed, but then you're faced rejection at 3darchives.

Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2005 1:51 pm
by MasterOFDeath
Do .cab files even compress? IIRC they don't at all.

Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2005 1:52 pm
by Ixnatifual
The amount of users affected by the size (providing it's not too big to be at the archives) is very, very small.

Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2005 2:27 pm
by TheDarkArchon
MasterOFDeath wrote:Do .cab files even compress? IIRC they don't at all.
You don't recall correctly: The opposite is true: they compress well.

Posted: Thu Nov 24, 2005 7:41 am
by Hirogen2
MasterOFDeath wrote:Do .cab files even compress? IIRC they don't at all.
Cab files don't compress. Compressing applications do. You seriously mixed something up.

Posted: Thu Nov 24, 2005 8:16 am
by Enjay
Speaking as an ex-dialupper, I used to find that large if a WAD was large then I really would think twice about downloading it. Unless I knew it was going to be good, I probably wouldn't bother.

However, as a dialupper, my definition of large was probably about 6-7 MB. So, unless you were planning on cutting yours down by 2/3 then it's already gone above what I would have considered "critical mass". Once it's above the "limit" 6, 22, 122 MB was irrelevant.

The bright spot, however, is if I knew a WAD was going to be a guaranteed good one (either because of information given prior to release or possibly reviews) then I would grit my teeth, accept it was going to take hours to download and just get on with it. So, despite the slow connection speed, I eventually got all the big good WADs. And again, if it was a WAD like that, the size became irrelevant because I'd already decided I was going to get it, I knew it was going to take ages and 1 hour or 5 hours didn't really matter either because I'd accepted it was a WAD that was going to take a long time to DL.

Posted: Thu Nov 24, 2005 8:24 am
by Graf Zahl
...and if a WAD gets large only because of music it often leaves a bad impression of needless inflation.

Posted: Thu Nov 24, 2005 9:21 am
by Enjay
I'd agree there, and I used to welcome WADs where the author had made the music an optional download. However, I'd also say that one of the main reasons to download a Lexus WAD is the music. So perhaps the size of the WAD being mainly down to the music lumps is less of an issue in this case.

Posted: Thu Nov 24, 2005 9:27 am
by Daniel
Graf Zahl wrote:...and if a WAD gets large only because of music it often leaves a bad impression of needless inflation.
You're despising the importance of the music! A good music certainly is 50% of a great mod.

Posted: Thu Nov 24, 2005 9:39 am
by Belial
So fucking seconded. Having recently downloaded a few sets of mods ripped from games I have now realized how important music was in titles like Radix, Piranha or Stargunner. I can't see why a wad would be any different (ZDCMP1 and ROTGS spring to mind).

Posted: Fri Nov 25, 2005 7:53 am
by Lexus Alyus
Yeah, the music is my own compasitions miticulously selected for suitability for the mood of the level. This is going to be my final wad, so some planning has gone into it (which is working out really well).

Now, if it was random music taken from rock/punk bands then I could see the issue, but this is suitable music created by the author. Plus, I am a musician :D.

So, would I be right in assuming that the file size isn't a major issue for most people?