XBox 360 game patches (split from RFA thread)

antares · Post by **antares** » Mon Jun 15, 2009 8:45 pm

Another update for this game was available today (jp version).

Does anyone know what it does?

Kiken · Post by **Kiken** » Mon Jun 15, 2009 8:46 pm

antares wrote:Another update for this game was available today (jp version).

Does anyone know what it does?

When was the last time you played your JP version of the game?

antares · Post by **antares** » Mon Jun 15, 2009 8:53 pm

I guess you refer to the "today" - maybe two months ago.

Kiken · Post by **Kiken** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 6:08 am

antares wrote:I guess you refer to the "today" - maybe two months ago.

That's what I was referring to. Updates do not permanently load to your console, they get D/Led to onboard flash memory. If you don't play the game for at least 3 weeks, the update is automatically deleted. You'll simply download it again the next time you boot up the game.

antares · Post by **antares** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 2:28 pm

Really? I wasn't aware of that.

So this means in a few years time when MS stops support for X360 games we will end up with all the buggy first versions of the games?

Kiken · Post by **Kiken** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 2:39 pm

antares wrote:Really? I wasn't aware of that.

So this means in a few years time when MS stops support for X360 games we will end up with all the buggy first versions of the games?

What they need to do is change the system to allow patches to be permanently downloaded to the HD or Memory Card.

Doctor Fugue · Post by **Doctor Fugue** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 2:56 pm

Am I crazy? All the patches for every game I have were only downloaded once; and even after a year or two of not playing them the patches were not required again.

I've never heard of games reverting back to their pre-patched state on the 360. Even switching between consoles but still using the same HD does not initiate a repeat patch request.

I just popped in RFA which I haven't played in over a month and it didn't ask to download the patch again.

I must be misunderstanding something.

Edit: I do know, however, that using system maintenance to clean up the hard drive and clear the cache will remove your patches.

CStarFlare · Post by **CStarFlare** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 5:41 pm

It sounds pretty ridiculous, but it would explain why I had to download a rock band patch last week.

Post by **Ghegs** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 5:57 pm

Kiken wrote:Updates do not permanently load to your console, they get D/Led to onboard flash memory. If you don't play the game for at least 3 weeks, the update is automatically deleted. You'll simply download it again the next time you boot up the game.

Do you have any source on this? Because this sounds like an absolutely stupid approach to handle patches.

Zuhzuhzombie!! · Post by **Zuhzuhzombie!!** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 7:18 pm

Ghegs wrote:
Kiken wrote:Updates do not permanently load to your console, they get D/Led to onboard flash memory. If you don't play the game for at least 3 weeks, the update is automatically deleted. You'll simply download it again the next time you boot up the game.
Do you have any source on this? Because this sounds like an absolutely stupid approach to handle patches.

I'm gonna have to disagree with him simply on the basis that patches would eventually exceed the allotted space.

Some updates, like the most recent one for L4D, make drastic changes to the game, add extra modes, and change levels around, and even introduce a new level.

Kiken · Post by **Kiken** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 7:22 pm

Ghegs wrote:
Kiken wrote:Updates do not permanently load to your console, they get D/Led to onboard flash memory. If you don't play the game for at least 3 weeks, the update is automatically deleted. You'll simply download it again the next time you boot up the game.
Do you have any source on this? Because this sounds like an absolutely stupid approach to handle patches.

Ok, here's the thread on the X-Box.com forums discussing patch pool size:

So to sum up, the behavior is as follows:

The xbox 360 only retains the most recent patches. The exact number seems to be about 20, but it might be tied to number, or disk space used.

The problem arises if you cycle a lot of games through the system (download a lot of patches), then patches will disappear. If you don't always go online (perhaps only going online the first time you get a new game disc) then you'll get the patches, and your game saves will depend on those patches, which may be gone later, when you return to the game, rendering your game save useless.

The workaround is to go online so game updates occur, though this has the price of sometimes taking a long time before playing a game (for a big update, that you had downloaded before).

Post by **Ghegs** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 7:55 pm

Where'd you get the three weeks and onboard flash memory details? That discussion thread just says that the updates get downloaded to the hdd or memory unit (also confirmed by this article) and that the pool starts deleting older patches after a certain amount of games have been patched...which sounds far more reasonable.

antares · Post by **antares** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 8:07 pm

Wow, quite a long discussion going on there.

So it seems patches are deleted only to make space for new patches and that the XBox can hold around 20 patches at a time.

Still this doesn't explain why my RFA patched again, as I only have 28 games in my list (retail + xbla) and approximately less than half of them downloaded patches

Anyway so the solution in a few years will be to patch those games which had the most bugs before X360 games support gets turned off. And RFA is clearly #1 on my list for mandatory patching.

Kiken · Post by **Kiken** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 8:35 pm

Ghegs wrote:Where'd you get the three weeks and onboard flash memory details? That discussion thread just says that the updates get downloaded to the hdd or memory unit (also confirmed by this article) and that the pool starts deleting older patches after a certain amount of games have been patched...which sounds far more reasonable.

Whoo.. 3 edits! Nevermind. Anyway, this helps explain things.

E. Randy Dupre · Post by **E. Randy Dupre** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 10:03 pm

Honestly, it sounds like a load of balls. I've loads of 360 games here, all of which have save data on my HDD, and I've never had to redownload a patch once, regardless of how long it's been since I last played the game.

zakk · Post by **zakk** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 10:55 pm

E. Randy Dupre wrote:Honestly, it sounds like a load of balls. I've loads of 360 games here, all of which have save data on my HDD, and I've never had to redownload a patch once, regardless of how long it's been since I last played the game.

save data is not 'patch data', they live on different parts of the 360 drive. The area where patches are stored is a 'hidden' system partition; that partition is why there's always space 'missing' on your drive.

Also keep in mind there's a difference between 'game patch' and 'additional content'. Often 'patches' are bundled with other content, and this is handled as DLC and lives in a different place entirely.

Strider77 · Post by **Strider77** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 11:51 pm

this all sounds odd.... I've never had to do this ever. I will say that last night and today xbox live is going through some issues and I can't use my mass effect save b/c of the extra content I downloaded can't be verified (have gotten around to transferring my download liceses to my new 360).

very annoying.

Post by **Ghegs** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 7:27 am

Xbox LIVE will be offline for scheduled maintenance on Tuesday, June 16, starting at 12:01 a.m. PDT (2009-06-16 0701 GMT) for up to 24 hours. Thank you for your patience.

^ Message they sent out last thursday, I got it to both my e-mail and the inbox on Live.

antares · Post by **antares** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 8:26 am

Out of curiosity I started Commando 3 today, which I hadn't played in a long time and it required to patch again. Then I started Space Giraffe which I hadn't played for an equally long time and it didn't require to patch again. Then I played Deathsmiles for which I got the patch just a few days ago and it downloaded the patch again.

So it seems the system on which patches are deleted is completely random!

Strider77 · Post by **Strider77** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 9:00 am

this will be really awesome 8 years from now.

E. Randy Dupre · Post by **E. Randy Dupre** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 11:28 am

zakk wrote:
E. Randy Dupre wrote:Honestly, it sounds like a load of balls. I've loads of 360 games here, all of which have save data on my HDD, and I've never had to redownload a patch once, regardless of how long it's been since I last played the game.
save data is not 'patch data', they live on different parts of the 360 drive. The area where patches are stored is a 'hidden' system partition; that partition is why there's always space 'missing' on your drive.

No, I know that. I mentioned the save data to make it clear that I've played those games previously, so would have downloaded the patches as and when they appeared.

I'll fire up a few of the older games tonight just to test this out, but I really doubt it's true. I'd imagine that the issue of having to redownload the Deathsmiles patch, mentioned by antares, might have something to do with swapping the HDD between consoles. That's if you've got two consoles, antares?

Kubrick · Post by **Kubrick** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 7:17 pm

AFAIK, the 360 stores up to 10 patches, and yes it does seem to be quite random which ones get deleted. Perhaps the largest ones are always axed first?

antares · Post by **antares** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 9:25 pm

E. Randy Dupre wrote:I'd imagine that the issue of having to redownload the Deathsmiles patch, mentioned by antares, might have something to do with swapping the HDD between consoles. That's if you've got two consoles, antares?

Nope, I just have my japanese one.
A friend of mine confirmed that he also had to redownload patches for several games which he hadn't played for a longer time.