Download of the update is not possible.
The second time I come across this.
Today there was an update to 3.1GB.
Launcher writes - requires free space 26.6 GB.
The disk is free 18.6 GB.
What is this 3GB - which does not fit in 18GB, and requires 26GB?
Hello,
game updates are handled solely by Steam client, please contact their support team for any question related to Steam client: https://help.steampowered.com/en/
Response from the Steam support service.
Support service message from Aug 10 at 11:53 pm | 1 hour and 4 minutes. Backward Unfortunately, when updating many games, you need as much free space as you would with their initial download. If you have any clarifying questions, we recommend that you address them to the developer support. You need to free up the necessary space on the logical drive or move the game to another logical drive. Best Regards, Andriy
The day before yesterday I updated Arma3 from version 1.74 to the DEV version. It was necessary to download 7GB of updates.
When upgrading to the disk, a 26GB cache appears.
If Steam support can not help in this matter, who should do it.
This is absolutely not normal, when the update requires the amount of free space on the HDD, 3-4 times greater than the amount of the update itself.
The day before yesterday I updated Arma3 from ver DEV v1.75 to the ver1.74 . It was necessary to download 7.4GB of updates.
When upgrading to the disk, a 20GB cache appears.
This is absolutely not normal, when the update requires the amount of free space on the HDD, 3-4 times greater than the amount of the update itself.
After the update is completed, the folder Arma3 v1.74 has a capacity of = 26.2GB
Prior to the update, the volume of the Arma3DEV folder v1.75 = 27.5GB. The folder became smaller - by 1.3GB.
Why do I need a cache with a capacity of 20GB?
https://youtu.be/DPkVs2ME9WU
It's because how Steam distributes the updates. To reduce amount of data that has to be downloaded, Steam client only download the changes in those files. To update the game files it creates a copy of the each updated game file, apply the changes thus it gets the new version of that file.
If that raises the question why Steam creates a copy instead of applying changes directly to the game files, then you have to look at the possibility of a failure. In the current system, when - for any reason - the update fails, then Steam can simply delete the copy and you will be left with the old version of the game intact and playable. If the changes would be done directly on the installed files, then in case of a failure there would be no backup files to return to and they would have to be re-downloaded from Steam servers from scratch (which may either fail or simply be impractical due to the slow connection) and the game wouldn't be playable until then.
So TLDR : The Update size is what you actually have to download and the needed space on your harddrive is what you are actually updating in terms of filesizes.
So a 1GB update that patches 1 file with size of 1GB it needs 1 GB of free space.
If the same update is including 100 files á 1GB in wich every file recieves a 10mb patch you will need 100GB of free space.
am i correct?