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Note plenty FitGirl repacks are lossless; as in, she isn't taking less important files out of the game, she's compressing it better. 90GB→35GB seems accurate; you often see ~1/3 of the original size, like this. And it shows plenty game devs
And then those same developers get amazed at the fact FitGirl is so popular. "Maybe we're doing something wrong? ...nah."
It's more likely that the devs are not being given the time or resources to do this kind of thing properly. Their bosses are too concerned with what will save money and generate shareholder value.
Fair point. I guess it would be more accurate to say "development studios" (you know, the organisation... including the bloody boss) instead of "game devs".
I wouldn't really say that. The kind of extreme compression Fitgirl does comes with the tradeoff of really long decompression times. Depending on which games, nearly 45 minutes (with a 7800x3D)
Some games lack compression but I would not want those long install times by default, if you have a speedy internet connection they usually take longer to install than to download. Don't get me wrong, for people with really slow internet those repacks are a godsend but they are not "better" on every aspect.
Steam gets around this problem by doing the decompressing on the fly as you download. Go check out your CPU usage next time you install a game.
Edit: I think this is also why it defaults to not downloading while you game. Steam doesn't want you to have a bad experience from the decompression.
More like check your hdd. Steam goes like this for me download, download, download, pause downloading to extract and smash my hdd, download, download, downloand.
The thing about compression is you have to process it to decompress it. It may be benificial to people with limited bandwidth, or for peer-to-peer sharing, but it's probably better for most users for someone like Valve to share the uncompressed version. Bandwidth isn't the issue it used to be.
It also makes progressive updates harder. The best you can do is compress each update individually, not the whole package.
I'm aware that compression rates are a trade-off between space and processing time, and that there's some balance to be had. However, I don't see this balance from plenty commercial games; what I see instead is disregard.
Here's a made up example. Suppose you have a choice between compressing a game:
FitGirl will consistently pick the later option. And it would be fine if devs picked the former, or a middle ground... but they don't. Instead, often you get a 10 GiB file that takes 10 min to unpack, the worst of both worlds.
And it isn't just a matter of the compression algorithm. The developers also have the freedom to choose how they split files; but they often create 9001 files the size of an ant, that is going to hurt decompression times. (Paradox Interactive, I'm looking at you.)
Tagging @fiestorra@discuss.tchncs.de, as it addresses what they said too.
do an extremely bad job at basic tasks like compression
I've installed one game from FitGirl so far. It took three hours to unpack while hammering all the cpu cores, failed, and required another three-hour go to install properly.
So you're saying that all games should install like this?
Yesterday I tried to mod persona 4 golden on Linux. After a couple hours of headaches and some help from the developer, I finally managed to fix the problem and launch persona aaaaand denuvo shut it down.
Denuvo literally shut down my legal version of P4G because I used one too many versions of proton. This is why I support fitgirl
Yeah, Denuvo registers every version of Proton as a different computer. So when you cycle through a bunch of different versions, Denuvo sees you booting it on a bunch of different computers back-to-back. IIRC Denuvo’s ToS allows for 5 different computers to boot a game within 24 hours. So it locks you out for 24h, as an anti-account-sharing measure. It has hit the spotlight a few times recently, because of the Steam Deck users needing to cycle through Proton versions.
Same thing happened to me with Street fighter 6. I was just trying to get it to run and kept switching proton versions and it got locked.
it's consistent, quick, and dependable. There's no reason to use anything else. I get the original purpose was for people in countries with slow internet connections but now everyone just uses it.
Which is kinda positive because that mean faster torrents
It's harder to use on Linux, and lower-performance devices. I would prefer prefer having dumps of the pre-installed game folder to use on a steam deck, for example.
I use it all the time on linux, what problems did you have?
What's your process for running the unpacker executable? Maybe it depends on the game, but I set up a wineprefix through Lutris and always seem to run into issues getting it to complete properly without any unpacking errors.
Folks here are like "everyone uses it. Eventually all gamers realize it's better"
Me, having never even heard of this in my 30 years of gaming: 🫣
It's a catch 22. If everyone uses it, game companies get it shut down, and then it doesn't exist, and then nobody uses it. The only existing methods of piracy are little known. That you've never heard of it is expected.
I mean, do you pirate games? If you've never gone to a torrent site in your life it's not surprising, but FitGirl's repacks are so numerous that it's hard not to notice them if you do pirate.
If you can afford it
Might be a better option, or least send the devs some support while using repacks. It's sort of like a thrift store when you find something you really wanted maybe a game you didn't even know of, and it means a lot more because it feels like finding a treasure.
I actually didn't know that the whole point of fitgirl was for compression, I've been blessed with massive hard drives. I think I took my 4tb ssd for granted. Not everyone has even an extra $5 .
I actually didn’t know that the whole point of fitgirl was for compression
The whole point of view of the article is about people from countries that can't afford the modern AAA price, internet bandwidth... and even PC capable to run the game decently (AAA the full price always take in account hardware that runs on "Ultra settings"; not the customers running it at very low).
As aside note, piracy isn't even about piracy itself anymore: someone who buy an AAA videogame on "exclusivity store" (such as Epic)... soon or later will discover that's easier to store a fitgirl copy of his purchase to run the same game seamelessly across all the PC in their household (good old: Install > Next > Next > Finish) ... rather having set up those 2+3 launcher per PC.
If you can afford it. Might be a better option, or least send the devs some support while using repacks.
Honestly, I think this is a case-by-case basis. I don't weep for EA losing money when people acquire The Sims for example. The people that did the heavy lifting already got paid, and the less money that's going into the Trump Empire and Saudi Arabian pockets the better.
That's almost besides the point, though. We're living in a time where if you buy something you for the most part don't own it. Buy an EV? Then the battery is rented. Buy an iPhone? You don't get to choose what software or hardware to put in it, only Apple batteries are acceptable else your screen/camera/faceID array will magically stop working. Android phones are barking down the same route.
Buy an eBook/Audiobook from Amazon? Well they can edit and redact it whenever they please. A film from iTunes? DRMed, bound to die whenever Apple decides to no longer support your platform. Video game? You get a license to run the software, nothing more.
There are studios I feel happy supporting, ones that treat their customers and their workers right. Don't think a single one of them is a AAA studio though. Like, why should I pay Bethesda when they don't pay their musicians?
It probably has the same deals as your website, but I use https://gg.deals/. It shows keyshops with the various risks that might be associated with them, too
I suspect FitGirl is a morbidly obese 58 year old man with a twisted sense of humor.
I used fit girl for a game I didn't know if my first pc build would run a game I wanted to buy. It didn't work, I upgraded my pc and tried it again and then it worked.
I'm glad they are around now that I'm trying to learn about pc gaming.
Piracy is the response when companies refuse to serve market needs.
I mean, there will always be people trying to get something for free when they normally have no problem affording it or obtaining it personally. It’s why the Parasite Class continue to drive down wages while raising prices for that sweet labour-free profit margin, even though they already have obscene amounts of wealth. Their boundless greed demands they squeeze even more out of the Working Class whose labour is the source of all wealth.
So yeah, there we’ll always be some people who will pirate purely for the fish.
But in the end, any significant piracy is 100% the fault of those very companies that complain about it.
The repacker* is great but there’s also ElAmigos and DODI.
They crack, she repacks
They crack, she repacks
This is just not true. Both DODI and ElAmigos are Repackers.
I only use DODI when there is no Fitgirl release. DODI torrents are always behind spam/scam link gates and the installer is horrible. In the DODI installer to start it for some reason you have to press the up arrow or something. Just... why? It's like he saw that feature on his phone lock screen and decided to add it without asking himself what purpose it serves. The installer is also totally broken if you have changed windows scaling so every time I want to use it I have to go into the properties and disable scaling.
God bless Fitgirl
As a Loonix enjoyer I prefer a pre-installed game folder compressed in a 7z archive or whatever instead from cs.rin.ru, it just werks. In Lutris.
Back in my day, we had RELOADED, Razor1911, DEViANCE! Haven't pirated games in forever though, I mostly buy "indies" today and steam + gog facilitate that nicely.
i'm surprised, i just thought if you couldn't afford a game these days you waited till it was 90% off on steam
I thought there was something like patient gamers who only played games a year after release or something like this but I can't find it
Steam doesn’t release every game in every market, do they?
Maybe fitgirl is the bbw porn actress named fitsidney or fitsid for short.
Both are girls.
One fucks on camera. One repackage games. Same thing probably.
Think about it.
Edit: I'm doing a thorough and deep investigation of her videos for any clues and I'll report back on any findings.
Edit2: the results are inconclusive and I'll need to perform more research. It's worth mentioning that fitsid is adorable and very enthusiastic in what she does, and is also kind of adorable much like fitgirl's photo of Amelie. But, like, with cum involved.
I've had a lot less of a desire to pirate games after moving to Linux full time a few years ago. But FitGirl has been the one reliable place for public torrents, compaed to chancing it on the third Google Link or scrolling through the Russian CS-Rin-Rulette forum to find links.
Wait fitgirl is actually a female? Been using those repacks for a very long time. A legend among the scene.
Yep, she was super happy when another girl came upon the scene, Empress. They collabed on a big release one time and I remember her saying "Girl power!", then not long after Empress had a big ego trip and falling out with the repackers.
That's some lore I didn't know. Pirates and egos, an iconic duo.