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nrron t1_iye3j12 wrote

Because when you download the file you’re not doing anything with it once the download is done. For an update file you’re downloading the update and then applying the update to existing files on the system which takes more time than just downloading a larger file and doing nothing with it.

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frakc t1_iye3yxf wrote

Often updates co e with single archive file and antivirus become really mad about it when it update multiple files.

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homeboi808 t1_iye4kbf wrote

Also, the internet speed of where you are downloading the files from matter. Your internet speed is likely always higher than the places you are downloading from.

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tezoatlipoca t1_iye3ztd wrote

Its not downloading a billion bytes of data all in one go. Its downloading a patch. Then it has to uncompress the patch. This patch updates "cool_Level_12.dat" and replaces several textures and fixes a glitch where if you stand on a box in the corner you glitch through the floor. The patch has to copy the file, allocate new room for the updated stuff, then repackage/flow/defrag the file (maybe). So the individual patch for cool_level_12.dat was only 2.7MB, but the whole cool_level_12.dat is like 217MB. So that's a lot of file copying, decompression, compression going on. Now repeat that for all six thousand files that make up the game.

Now add in that perhaps some of the files being patched are operating system files, or are programs that are running. So, you update/patch the file. You stop the process that IS that file. You restart it (using the new version of itself). You check that it started/is working ok. You delete the old copy of itself (if you kept it.) If the new version doesn't start, you have to restore the old copy and restart the old version of itself.

All the 1 GB file depends on is a) how fast you internet connection can download the bits b) how fast your drive can store the bits that are received.

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Phage0070 t1_iye4me9 wrote

Download speed depends on a lot of factors, not just the speed of your connection. It also matters how quickly the server can send the file to you, and the speed of intervening links in its path to you.

Think about it like a big road network. Your computer is like a warehouse with a big loading dock and several lane road coming to it. Even if you can accept and unload 10 trucks an hour, if the supplier can only send 5 trucks an hour that is how much you will get. Different suppliers can send different numbers of trucks but it would max out at however many your road and docks can handle. It might also be the case that road work between you and one of the suppliers slows traffic so only 3 trucks an hour get through, so neither you or the supplier is the real limiting factor.

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fierohink t1_iyeb386 wrote

A better analogy would be, why is it so easy and quick to buy a 55gal drum of oil, but it takes an hour to change your own oil?

With an update, it isn’t just raw data being downloaded. If that were the case 150MB would beat 1GB every time. Instead you are downloading data and then doing something with that data (replacing files with new ones, possibly shutting down and restarting programs, making settings changes, etc). And that “doing something” is what takes time.

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