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General discussion"Galaxy and GOG are separate"...stop, you're embarrassing yourselves.(52 posts)(52 posts)
(52 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted October 02, 2020
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Olauron: So, yes, GOG.com promotes GOG Galaxy, but it is not because GOG Galaxy is part of GOG.com. It is because the goal of GOG Galaxy is to be bigger than GOG.com and to include GOG.com.
That's a good way to put it. And now the wait for the first game sold on GOG/GOG Galaxy 2.0 to not include a standalone installer can begin. Why would you need an installer when you can just back up the installed files?
Posted October 03, 2020
high rated
If GOG takes away browser purchase/download support, I'm out. None of the games I own require internet after the initial download.
Post edited October 03, 2020 by jamesplayinggames
Posted October 03, 2020
Goodbye Old Gog
Posted October 03, 2020
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jamesplayinggames: If GOG takes away browser purchase/download support, I'm out. None of the games I own require internet after the initial download.
non of the games you get via galaxy need internt after download either. nor all the drm free games from Epic, or even from Steam. if this is the requirement (which I agree with, by the way) then you are golden
Posted October 03, 2020
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amok: non of the games you get via galaxy need internt after download either.
Not actually true, since you'd need to re-download if you uninstall the game, since you don't have an offline installer you can use. It's not necessarily as easy as just zipping the game for archiving. That would work for Mac games (not sure about Linux), but some Windows games have other components that the installer puts in the system. And on all platforms, you typically need installers for DLC. Even if that wasn't an issue, for all your games you'd still have to add the step of installing via Galaxy, making an archive, and then uninstalling, instead of just downloading and storing the offline installers.
Posted October 03, 2020
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amok: non of the games you get via galaxy need internt after download either.
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eric5h5: Not actually true, since you'd need to re-download if you uninstall the game, since you don't have an offline installer you can use. It's not necessarily as easy as just zipping the game for archiving. That would work for Mac games (not sure about Linux), but some Windows games have other components that the installer puts in the system. And on all platforms, you typically need installers for DLC. Even if that wasn't an issue, for all your games you'd still have to add the step of installing via Galaxy, making an archive, and then uninstalling, instead of just downloading and storing the offline installers.
no, you just zip the folder, no need to re-download. The games that have those extra components are within the folder. Steam games, for example, even comes with a list of what needs to be installed elsewhere, and if there needs to be any registry keys added. But for the most part, both the Epic and Steam DRM free games can be just zipped and moved. I have not had any problems at all yet. The rest is convenience.

edit - anyway, this is shifting the goalposts of what jamesplayinggames was saying, neither him not me mentioned anything about archiving, just that you do not need internet to play the games, which, quite frankly, your post really has nothing to do with

and a very late edit regarding archiving, and a point I have made before - if archiving is the main thing, then installers are not the best way, what is best is to get all the software files 'as is'. If they come with an installers, the software files are hidden behind an extra layer, and in the future there may be problems with that extra layer. so the 'purer' the software files are, the better they are for archiving.
Post edited October 03, 2020 by amok
Posted October 03, 2020
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amok: non of the games you get via galaxy need internt after download either.
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eric5h5: Not actually true, since you'd need to re-download if you uninstall the game, since you don't have an offline installer you can use. It's not necessarily as easy as just zipping the game for archiving. That would work for Mac games (not sure about Linux), but some Windows games have other components that the installer puts in the system. And on all platforms, you typically need installers for DLC. Even if that wasn't an issue, for all your games you'd still have to add the step of installing via Galaxy, making an archive, and then uninstalling, instead of just downloading and storing the offline installers.
Like amok said, you can simply move the folder elsewhere and keep it. Even most games on Steam, Origin, etc. work the same way, you simply need the crack to bypass the account validation. Feels good to be a paying customer, eh?
Posted October 03, 2020
high rated
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real.geizterfahr: Launchers to download games aren't necessarily DRM (otherwise a browser, or even an internet connection to download stuff would be DRM, too).
I disagree. You are free to choose which browser to use, hell, even a python script can download your games here.

My litmus test is: can I go to to public computer, or a friend's, or work, download the game there and carry it home to a completely offline computer and install and play it there?
Because, let's be honest: Browsers are here to stay. Scripts can be coded by anyone with expertise. A mandatory client means if they drop support for your OS, you're essentially screwed. If the only computer with internet doesn't allow you install anything, you're screwed. Even if the client is simply buggy and can't download the stuff, you're screwed. And there's nothing you can do to fix it.
Posted October 03, 2020
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real.geizterfahr: Launchers to download games aren't necessarily DRM (otherwise a browser, or even an internet connection to download stuff would be DRM, too).
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toxicTom: I disagree. You are free to choose which browser to use, hell, even a python script can download your games here.
And the web is still based on open standards so anyone is, in principle, free to implement a browser (or a HTTP client sufficient to download the files we want).

Not that I think it matters too much when those standards have grown too large even for Microsoft to maintain their own browser engine.. not much choice if you don't like the direction Google (and Mozilla) have taken things. But it's still better than some de-facto proprietary API built by a company for their proprietary launcher (even if we can reverse-engineer it and build our custom downloaders).

That said, to me the question whether a game has DRM or not is something that concerns only the time after you have obtained the game somehow, whether that's via a physical floppy/CD/DVD/Bluray or email attachment or FTP or torrent or web download or something else..

It's just that some ways of distributing games are unacceptable for me. I wouldn't want the witcher 3 on a truckful of floppies, and I don't want to install galaxy in order to download games. I wouldn't call it DRM, just shitty distribution.
Post edited October 03, 2020 by clarry
Posted October 03, 2020
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jamesplayinggames: If GOG takes away browser purchase/download support, I'm out. None of the games I own require internet after the initial download.
Sounds like you aren't interested in multiplayer. If so, I'm basically there with you.
Posted October 03, 2020
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clarry: And the web is still based on open standards so anyone is, in principle, free to implement a browser (or a HTTP client sufficient to download the files we want).
Exactly.
Posted October 03, 2020
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amok: and a very late edit regarding archiving, and a point I have made before - if archiving is the main thing, then installers are not the best way, what is best is to get all the software files 'as is'. If they come with an installers, the software files are hidden behind an extra layer, and in the future there may be problems with that extra layer. so the 'purer' the software files are, the better they are for archiving.
GOG offline installers install the necessary dependencies, like Visual C. I still haven't seen an overview of which game needs which version of Visual C. If you just zip up folders, you'd need to download and install them (visual C versions) all manually. Not that I consider that a big thing, but it sure is nice not to worry about it.
Ideally (to me), GOG would distribute zipped up folders with a bat file in it. On the other hand, I have a lot of games here - they're starting to take up a lot of space - so the extra compression is nice.

Now that I think of it - it would be nice to archive all (relevant) Visual C versions. Does anyone know a good website that offers them all in one big download?
Edit: I found this one - is it missing anything? https://www.techpowerup.com/download/visual-c-redistributable-runtime-package-all-in-one/
Post edited October 03, 2020 by teceem
Posted October 04, 2020
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teceem: Does anyone know a good website that offers them all in one big download?
That's all of them on the TechPowerUp site (and it's a clean reliable source). As for what additional dependencies to backup, the most common ones are:-

- DirectX_Jun2010
- .NET 3.5 (included on W10 install ISO)
- .NET 4.8 (included with W10 but download for W7)
- Visual C++ versions.
- OpenAL (used by NeverWinter Nights and others)
- MSXML4 (used by Microsoft games, eg, Age of Mythology, Rise of Nations)
- XNAFX4 (used by some games like Escape Goat / Adventures of Shuggy)
- Flash Player (needed for some older Flash Games)
- PhysX (usually included in GPU driver)
- Vulkan (usually included in GPU driver)
- UE3Redist (Unreal 3)
- UE4Redist (Unreal 4)

If you can't find any, you could always use InnoExtract to extract file from the GOG installers.
Post edited October 04, 2020 by AB2012
Posted October 04, 2020
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AB2012: - UE3Redist (Unreal 3)
- UE4Redist (Unreal 4)
I've never heard of those... are they really external dependencies? If you move an installed UE3 or 4 game folder to a clean PC, do you need to install them?

Anyway, thanks a lot for that list. I guess I don't need most of them (having an Nvidia and Creative card, and W10). Maybe only that MSXML4, though I assume they're included in the installation of those Microsoft games?
Post edited October 04, 2020 by teceem
Posted October 04, 2020
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teceem: I've never heard of those... are they really external dependencies? If you move an installed UE3 or 4 game folder to a clean PC, do you need to install them?
I'm not sure if some games will run without them or not. gogdb.org lists them as dependencies for some games like QUBE2 and Supraland:-

https://www.gogdb.org/product/1199381642/build/52707013356387846
https://www.gogdb.org/product/1451970551/build/52991954975106374

And they are included in the installers. Dishonored may have UE3Redist. In any case I just grabbed them as a backup anyway. They're fairly small in size (20-40MB each). You can see what Dependencies each game needs on gogdb by clicking "Builds", then clicking on one of the "Build ID's".

Edit: Another source is the steamdb.org website. Search for a game and click on Configuration / Depots. Example for Styx.
Post edited October 04, 2020 by AB2012
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussion"Galaxy and GOG are separate"...stop, you're embarrassing yourselves.(52 posts)(52 posts)
(52 posts)