How Do Game Consoles Play Games Without Installation?

Question by Stevensonbak: How do game consoles play games without installation?
It fascinates me that a game console like the Xbox 360 is able to read and display information from a game DVD instantly without installation, while a PC game generally requires you to install the data from the game DVD to the hard drive, and then the data is read from the hard drive when the game is played. In fact, you can install a “crack” which overrides the original game executable, completely eliminating the need for even having the DVD in the drive at all when playing.

I’ve heard that it has to do with file size, but I don’t see the logic behind that. I say this because I believe Halo Reach for Xbox 360 takes up almost 7GB on the DVD, while I can’t play Age of Empires II off a CD that probably has less than a GB of data.

So, how are consoles able to do this while PC’s cannot play games directly from the CD?

I normally wouldn’t ask this here, but I can’t find the answer anywhere else.

Best answer:

Answer by Beep Beep Meow
Because console games are optimized for consoles. PC software is often installed because it optimizes it for your computer and there are dozens of possible hardware configurations. It’s also because hard drives are faster than optical drives.

Many PS3 games do require installation because Blu-rays are so dense and the BD drive on a PS3 is like 1x or 2x speed. Xbox games get the option to install.

Answer by Smyth
A select few PC games are played directly off the CD. The original Diablo had a minimal installation, but CONSTANTLY read from the disc, at least in part because PCs discovered disc-based audio long before consoles discovered the joys of FMVs. The result was absolutely no battery life on my laptop. Just speculation on my part, but it seems like PCs are designed to read what they need from a drive, then shut it off. Consoles seem designed to constantly spin the disc. Not having to spin up the disc would give consoles a much better read time than PCs, which have long relied on faster hard drives. Also, relying on hard drives means you don’t have to switch out the disc to play the second part of a game, something I hated about the PS1 and PS2.

Also speculation, my guess is that consoles games aren’t compressed on their discs, which allows for faster playing from the disc itself. Most PC games I know for a fact are compressed on the disc, which potentially allows for fewer discs needed to install the game. Uncompressing data while playing a game is very taxing on a system. I don’t doubt that modern computers could easily play Age of Empires 1 or 2 directly from the CD, it’s just that the disc wasn’t designed for that. Last, during installation a program configures itself for performance on that computer’s hardware, and I imagine it’s better to do that configuring once than every time the game is run. Consoles on the other hand have only one configuration, so developers don’t need a program that can adapt to millions of different possible hardware setups. I hope my musings help a little.

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