Half-Life 2 Automatic Updates, Size Of

[Gabe1972]

Hi. I haven't bought Half-Life 2 yet, as I understand that the game automatically updates itself every time you go to play it. No big deal, but I have Hughesnet, and I am limited to 350MB of downloads per day, basically. When the game updates, how large are the update files, on average? If they are larger than this, can it be paused and finished the next day?

If they are constantly this large or larger, I am not going to buy the game. I don't mind having to register and verify the game online everytime I start it. It's just the size of the updates that concern me.

I know Hughesnet is terrible, but I have nothing else available to me out here in the boonies. Too far away for DSL and no cable on this four house road. I am only five miles away from Verizon's central office, and they are constantly updating, so hopefully in the future DSL will become available.

Thanks in advance for the info.

 

[kineaesth]

Well, if you buy a retail copy, you may have quite a lot of updating to do. However, the good thing is that you can pause the updating at any time, so you never go over your limit.

 

[Hectic Glenn]

Would it just be Half-life 2 you are looking to purchase? When you buy a retail copy of the game, it will obviously need to be registered with Steam and updated. All the updates for Half-life 2 will be downloaded and installed at this point. Because the game came out a good few years ago now, there aren't 'daily' updates any more. Half-life 2 hasn't been updated for a while now as most bugs have been completely fixed.

I see your download cap is only 350mb. The updates don't come close to this as far as I remember for Half-life 2 specifically. Obviously if you purchase the game from Steam, downloading the entire game would be problematic for you. The updates to any games can be paused and resumed at any time (for example if you want to play online multiplayer) so if need be, you can continue the next day.

The updates for games such as Team Fortress 2 and Counter Strike Source have been fairly large since release, and these could tip you over the limit doing more than 1 in a day. Also, to clarify you don't need to verify your game every time you play. Once you've registered it to Steam, just log into Steam and open the game from your 'My games' list to play, no further activation required after the first instance.

 

[Gabe1972]

Thanks for the info.

It will definitely be a retail version that I purchase. If I purchased it through Steam, it would take me 4.7 years to download. LOL.

Knowing that the updates aren't that big is good, and even better, knowing that I can pause it is even better.

Thanks again for the info.

 

[Xendance]

I believe that if you pause an update and try to play, Steam forces you to install the updates.

 

[Gabe1972]

Xendance, that would be okay. Even if it took a couple of days to update the game fully so I could play it, I wouldn't mind. I was more concerned with the average size of an update, so this wouldn't be happening all the time. I know that when I first install it there are probably going to be quite a few updates to get it up to current, but I can deal with that.

I can't wait for DSL or some other thing to be available for me, as this satellite internet is really restrictive. Causes too many problems, such as this.

 

[Epsi]

Depending on what retail product you buy, there will be different sized updates required.

Buying the Orange Box, you'd need no updates for HL2 at all, and probably not for Episode One either.

Episode Two and Portal would need some fairly small engine updates, and TF2 would need pretty huge updates to add all the extra content they've put in since release.

The older the retail box you buy, the more updates there'll be.

 

[Adabiviak]

Gabe has officially passed the trial by fire by getting past his first post without any hazing. Welcome to the forums! I think you'll find Steam to be a treat once you get it up to speed.