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2.3 GB size difference between installation sources.

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Edge.4180
#1 - Sept. 5, 2012, 7:57 a.m.
Blizzard Post

The GW2 folder for a beta-updated-to-retail client is 16.4 GB in size. For a retail DVD purchase, the installation is only 14.1 GB in size, which is quite a bit smaller. Both of these installations are fully patched up.

Why the significant size difference? Is something missing (higher resolution textures, for example) from one install compared to the other? Or is that just bulk in the beta client that is obsolete and no longer being used? If so, why not trim it through the updates?

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PaulMarden
#4 - Sept. 5, 2012, 11:47 a.m.
Blizzard Post

There’s a certain amount of fragmentation that can happen within the .dat file. If you’ve played all of the beta weekends, you’ve probably updated most of the individual files inside of Gw2.dat many times as we’ve made changes to those files.

The data stored on the DVDs was downloaded internally from scratch, so it’s free of fragmentation (and thus is smaller). At this time we do not have any mechanism for defragmenting Gw2.dat.