Topic: General PlayStation 4 Thread

Pardon my ignorance, but there's one thing I've been wondering about regarding the PS4 for a long time and that's the way it installs games now. I remember when I bought mine back in 2014 and whenever I put in a game disc, I would have to spend like an hour or so for the game to be installed before being able to play it. But that seems to have been changed now because as I've been playing more games on PS4, I've realised that I don't need to install anything anymore. I only need to download any potential patches. For example, I just put in my disc of Resident Evil 4 and after a second or so I could start up the game immediately. That's absolutely incredible! On the other hand, I started up Forza Motorsport 5 on my original Xbox One the other day and had to wait an hour for it to be installed, just like how it was on the PS4 back in the day. So I'm guessing Sony managed to change this with a system update or something? I'm just impressed that they've found a way for users to access physical games much quicker. It honestly feels like I've gone back in time to when you would just put in a disc and the game would start up right away.

@LtSarge I never remember older games having to be installed on the PS4 as I thought it was mostly read off the disc. I only really remember any significant installation being for RDR2.

I was surprised when I first got the PS5 how long it would take to install a game before I can play it.

@Thrillho Oh really? I swear I remember having to wait a long time before being able to play any of my physical games on PS4. Maybe I'm mixing it up with games that got huge patches.

Either way, it's still cool that PS4 is able to do that even if it's that's been a thing since the beginning, lol.

@LtSarge I’ve not played many PS4 discs lately but it seems like it’s highly variable depending on the game as to whether it loads up right away or has to upload an hours worth of information to the HDD. It may be that the firmware has better ability to queue up the right files in order of priority so the essentials get loaded quickly.

@Keith_Zissou As far as I know, it pretty much was a total secret until it dropped yesterday. Not sure why, but I will definitely be playing it whenever the next gen version releases. Not sure if it will be much better, but since I have plenty of other stuff to play right now, it can wait.

I'm glad they went the extra mile and even included new content.

@LtSarge @Th3solution I think it might be related to file size? 🤔 I can’t imagine that Resident Evil 4 takes up much space compared to something like Death Stranding.

@Th3solution @Bentleyma- I haven't noticed any PS4 game needing to be installed ever since this change. I started playing Wolfenstein 2 on PS4 a few weeks ago and when I put the disc in the only thing I needed to do was download the game's patches before I could start playing. And that game's size is around 50 GB, so it's not the difference in size.

I actually looked up videos from how it was back when the PS4 came out and it looked like this:

So back then, you had to wait for the game to be installed (up to a certain amount apparently) before you could even start it up. I never see that anymore.

@LtSarge Interesting. I’d expect the PS5 to be doing this, but it still has a delay when you put the first disc in, I think it took about 20-30 min to download the file from my Returnal disc before I could play.

@LtSarge The PS4 definitely still has to install games, but some games let you start before the game is fully installed.

@Bentleyma- Yeah that seems to be the case, but the thing is that you can start a game up immediately and the install process seems to be very fast considering you'll never run into a screen where it says "wait 10 minutes for this section to be installed". That's how it was in the early days of PS4 where you had to install a fairly large chunk at first and then the game would tell you that you can only play through the first level or something like that. There's nothing like that now so it's not even relevant that the game is installing in the background because you'll just keep playing like normal and not notice anything different. It doesn't disrupt your experience in any way.

Either way, I just like how you don't need to wait at all now before you can play a game (disregarding patches of course).

So, I was going to start playing God of War (2018) today, but, despite not having had an issue with Horizon Zero Dawn, the moment my system booted the game, the fans started going crazy and, after a few moments, the system itself was hot to the touch.

Might just leave my PS4 alone until I work up the energy to open the case and clean it. Can't imagine why else this would be happening.

@Ralizah Apparently God of War is notorious for making the PS4 into a mini wind tunnel, but honestly I didn’t really notice my machine being any louder or hotter than with any other large game. I cleaned out the PS4 once over the last two years, but now that I think about it, it was probably a few months before I played GoW. I played off a disc, by the way, which I’ve always thought a disc game would run the machine harder and hotter than a digital game but I have no idea if that’s true.

@Ralizah i don't know what model you have , but my pro always does the same thing . i wouldn't worry about it , this aint the xbox360 , haha .

@Th3solution its the game itself ; its a demanding game , especially the graphics. it doesn't matter if its physical or digital .

@nomither6 Base model. Launch-era version from back in 2014.

The system becomes physically warm to the touch when playing God of War? Because, more than the jet turbines, that's what really got me. I've played other "demanding" games on the system and never had it act this way before.

@Th3solution I've never cleaned mine before, but seeing what my computer looks like after a few years without cracking open the case, I wouldn't be surprised if it was choked with dust.

@Ralizah more like physically hot than warm for me , yeah . i never worried about it , i feel as long as i keep it in open space and clean enough , itll be fine .

@Ralizah I’m sure I posted pics of mine when I cleaned it out for the first time last year. It wasn’t pretty! I felt better for doing it but I’m not sure it made a huge difference to the amount of work the fan was doing.

I’ll just post links in case the images are massive;

Before: https://i.ibb.co/VjjvBhF/BD985-C8-B-0-C66-4821-8475-9312557-A...

After: https://i.ibb.co/r049Y8z/18256877-F2-BB-4576-A8-D7-973-A60-E3...

It’s worth noting that on the original models you need a specific type of screwdriver to open the console up. I had to order one online as it wasn’t something I already had in my toolbox.

If I buy a ssd for my ps4 any loading times difference.. Faster? Like call of duty and battlefield games faster spawn into map, etc...?

@RogerRoger @Thrillho So, I'll definitely still be cleaning my PS4 soon, but I decided to just play the game for now and not worry too much about the fan/heat. It hasn't exploded or anything so far (even though it sounds kinda like it's going to), so I guess I'm good for now. I need to order a special screwdriver anyway.

Seeing those before/after pictures is definitely going to motivate me to do it, though, since mine almost certainly looks as bad or worse.

@RogerRoger The sound has been skipping lately when I've been plugging my headphones into the controller, so I'm full stereo speakers with this game for the moment. I'll just... pretend I'm playing it on an airplane that has blown out one of its engines or something...

It'll be fine.

Probably.