Shack PSA: don't install GTA 5's 'Play' disc on Xbox 360

"I don't want to post more stories about Grand Theft Auto V today," I mutter, "but it is the biggest launch in yonks, and this is relevant." Fine. Right then. More GTA 5 stories. Because no publisher wants to talk about anything else today anyway. It's a simple PSA: if you buy it on Xbox 360, don't, in your excitement, install the second disc. Because reasons, that's why.

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"I don't want to post more stories about Grand Theft Auto 5 today," I mutter, "but it is the biggest launch in yonks, and this is relevant." Fine. Right then. More GTA 5 stories. Because no publisher wants to talk about anything else today anyway. It's a simple PSA: if you buy it on Xbox 360, don't, in your excitement, install the second disc. Because reasons, that's why.

The Xbox 360 edition comes on two discs, one labelled 'Install' and the other 'Play.' Install the install disc, as installation's mandatory (on PS3 too, though that only uses one single Blu-ray disc). Play with the play disc, but don't install it.

"For optimal performance, we recommend not installing that disc," Rockstar's support said on Twitter (via IGN). "We will have more info on our Support Site at launch."

As GTA 5 has been out Down Under for, oh, hours, it's a shame Rockstar hasn't updated that yet.

From The Chatty
  • reply
    September 16, 2013 10:00 AM

    Alice O'Connor posted a new article, Shack PSA: don't install GTA 5's 'Play' disc on Xbox 360.

    "I don't want to post more stories about Grand Theft Auto V today," I mutter, "but it is the biggest launch in yonks, and this is relevant." Fine. Right then. More GTA 5 stories. Because no publisher wants to talk about anything else today anyway. It's a simple PSA: if you buy it on Xbox 360, don't, in your excitement, install the second disc. Because reasons, that's why.

    • reply
      September 16, 2013 10:11 AM

      Thanks for the heads up Alice

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      September 16, 2013 10:12 AM

      I was wondering about that the other day. Makes sense, will just have to deal with the noise.

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        September 16, 2013 10:50 AM

        Get a usb stick and install it onto that. Should be ideal performance scenario.

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          September 16, 2013 1:28 PM

          Unless you paid $$$ for a high-speed USB stick, it's actually better to get a USB SD Card reader and install it onto a class 10 SD card.

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          September 16, 2013 3:56 PM

          if it'll let you. BF3 wouldn't let you install the stupid texture pack on USB storage.

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          September 16, 2013 8:28 PM

          I'm picking up an extra USB stick today for this reason.

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      September 16, 2013 10:40 AM

      I really hope it's a very minimal performance difference, because playing without installing is not an option really.

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      September 16, 2013 10:58 AM

      can anyone explain how this happened, arent most games that install better than playing from the disc?

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        September 16, 2013 11:00 AM

        ok I suppose they are accessing the install disc on the hdd, and the play disc from the disc drive, so theyre using both bandwidths

        im just going to get the digital version blah

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          September 16, 2013 12:00 PM

          Any idea when the digital version is coming out on 360?

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        September 16, 2013 12:41 PM

        Most, yes. But not all.

        It can depend on how the game is programmed to handle caching/memory flow.

        I know that when Halo 3 was made, Bungie had to develop a particularly unusual caching system to get their engine to run on the 360 (their engine was designed around using a hard drive, but the 360 of course was hard drive optional). So this lead to an odd situation where Halo 3 actually performs worse after installing it than it does reading off the disc.

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        September 16, 2013 12:44 PM

        I'm guessing here, but I suspect they've designed to take advantage of both bus paths. So all the low-latency (textures, animations, cache data, barks and incidental sounds) is on the install disc. The high-latency items (models, game data, cutscene animations and custom animations) is on the Play disc.

        Probably what's happening is that when you install both, the game thrashes between the two locations as it seeks the low-latency then high-latency areas instead of having increased bandwidth across the two buses. That's what I'd guess.

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      September 16, 2013 10:59 AM

      They have to tell you to not install something but they have no way to stop you from doing it? Consoles are such an abortion.

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      September 16, 2013 11:20 AM

      GTA IV played like crap for me when the disc was installed. It couldn't draw / texture the roads fast enough. Made it really hard to drive.

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      September 16, 2013 1:09 PM

      Seems like the Euro gamers are far more into GTA than even players over here are. They've always seemed obsessed with US Ganster culture for some odd reason.

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        September 16, 2013 2:08 PM

        what

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          September 17, 2013 3:02 PM

          The post is fairly self-explanatory. Or is English not your native tongue? ??

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      September 16, 2013 1:21 PM

      [deleted]

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        September 16, 2013 1:30 PM

        Just install it onto a Class 10 SD Card via a USB SD Card reader. Super fast load times!

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        September 16, 2013 1:37 PM

        The game will still work with both discs installed, you'll just have some additional pop-in as seen in the videos linked above. Undesirable, but lod issues are not anything out of the ordinary for this series. Rockstar is being up front about it to cut back the support issues and complaints they're bound to receive as most folks would obviously install everything as usual.

        Or, like visah said, you can install the play disc to a usb drive if you don't want to disc spinning. The only catch is that it needs to be separate from the required HDD data. So dvd or fast usb device.

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          September 16, 2013 1:47 PM

          Thank goodness we have consoles to keep things from being complicated.

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            September 16, 2013 2:42 PM

            'We recommend not installing one of two discs.' This is too complicated for you?

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              September 16, 2013 3:03 PM

              You can install from disc but you shouldn't install from a disc and we can't stop you from installing from a disc but if you do want to stop your disc from spinning then you can finagle a USB drive which should be faster than a disc and is the same thing as installing to a hard drive but not the same thing as installing to a hard drive.

              I know that the USB thing is a power user workaround that the average person would never do but can you see why we start veering into the territory of levels of complication that turned people off of PC's and onto consoles in the first place?

              I mean yeah ultimately this is Microsoft's fault for making this feature which can't be disabled and in instances like this completely reliant on a snippet of data that casual gamers will never see (and yes there are "casual" gamers that play GTA5)

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        September 16, 2013 1:50 PM

        [deleted]

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        September 16, 2013 1:51 PM

        You guys really need to put some money into getting decent sound for your TV.

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        September 16, 2013 9:54 PM

        I have my consoles in my TV stand so I can't hear them anymore.

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      September 16, 2013 3:15 PM

      So are the fully downloaded versions gimped? Like if I get it from PSN and don't have any disk?

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        September 16, 2013 3:33 PM

        Curious about that myself. Guess we'll see tomorrow.

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          September 16, 2013 4:13 PM

          Though with how slow ps3 bluray drive is I'm not sure if it would be the same as Xbox.

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      September 16, 2013 7:10 PM

      Yonks?

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      September 16, 2013 9:05 PM

      [deleted]

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      September 16, 2013 9:58 PM

      I have both discs installed on 32gb USB stick. Game runs great and no pop-ins like described in some of the articles. I'd say go for it because it loads character switches and such much faster.

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        September 17, 2013 12:27 AM

        I wonder if it's better to do USB play disc HDD install disc or all USB?

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          September 17, 2013 12:40 AM

          Might be. Digital Foundry's 3rd update on the matter only tested Install disc on HDD + Play disc on USB, said no issues with that setup. The big problem with having both discs on the HDD appears to be that it wants to pull certain data from two different locations at the same time as the game wasn't designed and packed to be a singular hard disk install.

          Perhaps a fast flash drive powers through that issue entirely if both DVDs are on there, but it could still be a problem in certain situations. Probably depends on the read speed of the flash drive more than anything.

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      September 20, 2013 7:21 AM

      Now why is it possible to install from the Play disc?

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