Why the huge difference in casino size in memory?

KasinoKing

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A question for Vinyl or any other computers buffs!

With my hard-drive 3/4 full I decided it was time to clear out some dross.
But when I went to add/remove programs I got the unbelievable screen below.

Can anyone explain the vast difference in memory used by the various casinos - especially those with the same software?

Why is Grand Bay (which I haven't used for months) nearly 3 times larger than Ruby Fortune (which I played yesterday & is bang up to date with the latest games)?

Why is Prime nearly double Splendido?

How come Will Hills Crypto casino is nearly double the biggest MG? :what:

Why is it that every time I try to uninstall the now defunct Harrods casino my PC tries to start up the defunct 49er casino...:confused:

Actually, I think the size problem could be with the Microsoft software not displaying the memory usage correctly. Nothing else makes any sense.

Views?
KK
 
Sorry I can't help you KK, only add to the confusion. Roxy and Ruby are fully installed on my puter and look at Ruby, one fifth the size :confused:

1549j0p.jpg
 
.... you mean harddisk, not memory! They're completely different really (but who cares what u call it at the end of the day!).

I guess it depends on the software. If it's well written it will be efficient and take up less space. If they're lazy and go for easy options it will take up more room. Similar for pictures.

But 2 casinos, same software, massively different sizes.... that is weird. maybe you played/downloaded a lot more games in one? Maybe uve had one installed a lot longer, and each auto-update somehow increased the size instead of overwriting it?

Possibly ur computer is mis-reporting the size... go check it out on the hard disk to get an accurate size!

My WH is 46 Meg :p
 
I know what you mean, KK; the first time I was at the Rio it seemed really big and I almost got lost... last time I was there it seemed much smaller.

My girlfriend mentioned something similar:eek2:
 
Ruby is fully installed, I let it run overnight just last week. Properties from hard drive:

aaf150.jpg
 
Well Mr Swede, theres no surprise there then!
Your hard disk is formatted in an inredibly unefficient way.

Hence the real size: 30 Meg
Actual space used: 66 Meg.

I guess you're on FAT 32 instead of NTFS?

Basically (in a nutshell for those who prefer simple!) a harddisk has to be formatted. There are various ways of doing this. (Think of a book - you gotta draw in some lines before you can write on it). Some use thick lines and some use thin lines. Each file must take up at least a complete line.

So.... many small files, all smaller than "one line in the notebook" will all have to be extended to take up the complete line. ie wasting the rest of that line.

So a casino with many many small images and files will end up taking up a LOT more room on an inefficiently formatted HDD than it should. Why? Because there is a specified minimum file size that is allowed (has to be in incrememnts of some number) and if a file is smaller than this, the rest of the space is wasted.



So, that could be an answer! It more than doubled the space that casino took up. But I wouldnt have thort it would account for KK's 2 gig!
 
Basically (in a nutshell for those who prefer simple!) a harddisk has to be formatted. There are various ways of doing this. (Think of a book - you gotta draw in some lines before you can write on it). Some use thick lines and some use thin lines. Each file must take up at least a complete line.

So.... many small files, all smaller than "one line in the notebook" will all have to be extended to take up the complete line. ie wasting the rest of that line.
Well this nutcase prefers it simple! ;) That makes total sense to me now.
Thanks for explaining it so well. :thumbsup:

But how do I cure it?
If I uninstall the huge HD users and then re-install, will they be much more efficient in the space they use up next time?

Cheers!
 
Part of the difference is number of games downloaded, but there is more to it.

I have the full suite of games downloaded at both River Belle and Villento. River Belle takes up more than 1GB of space. Villento uses less than 100MB.

The smallest downloadable software on my computer is Kismet. One Kismet casino uses 8MB space on my hard drive The other uses 15MB.
 
Part of the difference is number of games downloaded, but there is more to it.

I have the full suite of games downloaded at both River Belle and Villento. River Belle takes up more than 1GB of space. Villento uses less than 100MB.

The smallest downloadable software on my computer is Kismet. One Kismet casino uses 8MB space on my hard drive The other uses 15MB.

could it be the larger files have made room for their spyware programs
we all know lucky Nugget has it on their just by do a spyware search

just a thought

Cindy
 
After looking in more detail, the program sizes listed in my programs and features menu (Windows Vista) are not accurate for some of my Microgamings: The actual data is:

River Belle -- 1.05GB
Villento -- 1.07GB

These values make sense, as the two casinos have approximately the same number of games downloaded. The ones with fewer games downloaded have a smaller size.
 
KK, it is possible to reformat your harddisk to a more efficient style, but this would delete everything present on it.

Unless you are comfortable with such wizidaries as partition magic and fdisk then I would NOT do this! If you are having real problems then it may be worth it, bearing in mind you will have to back anything up that you want to save first. If not... if it aint broke dont fix it! It could well be more trouble than it's worth.

If you right click on your C drive, then File system will be the third option down. I'm guessing it will say FAT32?

Just find where the casino is on your harddisk, right click the folder, click properties, and it will be you the actual size there, as well as the "size on disc".

Incidentally, with all so called "file systems", the larger your hard disk, the large the "smallest line length" is. So many small files on a huge harddisk will effectively take up more room than if they were on a smaller harddisk. Ah, but the huge disk has wayy more room, so this problem is counterbalanced, in general! But just another side note as to how these things work.

Ever noticed how some people have a C Drive, but also a D, E, possibly F and G? This is precisely the reason (or possibly to keep things tidier as well); it helps to stay more efficient. But as I say, unless you are very comfotable with what you are doing this is more trouble than it's worth!

Unless it messes your computer, stops you getting into casinos.... aha! You no longer lose anything, so ur ahead straight away! Although that doesn't appear to be your problem KK ;)
 
I personaly regularly uninstall and reinstall the casinos i use the most because they DO grow over time in size, some to quite a considerable size. i recebtly took off spin palace which had grown to almost 2 and a half gig in size, after reinstall it was back to a few hundred meg.
 
if it ain't broke don't fix it! It could well be more trouble than it's worth.
My sentiment exactly! :thumbsup:
No way am I going to start formatting anything or playing with my FAT :rolleyes:

I was just curious as to why I was seeing such strange figures.
I might give AMB's idea a try & see if it works for me too.

Thanks for all the replies :thumbsup:
 
lol, well in theory, uninstalling and reinstalling should make no difference - once you have installed all the games you play again.

Of course theory and practice are sometimes very different! So this could well work - give it a bash!

No reason why it should work, unless they store all the uncompressed updates and never delete them? Or maybe it's massive log files? Or maybe everytime you win big the casino instructs the software to eat several meg of your harddisk in retaliation! :D
 
There is a chance that Windows's size estimates just get broken when dealing with vast numbers of tiny files.

Like... if you've ever tried to copy many thousands of files on a hard disk, after a while you'll get a time estimate saying that it will take negative 1 million seconds to complete!

Anyway, a while back I swapped hard disks, and in the process I didn't bother copying any installed casinos, and it's really nice having so much less clutter on the disk.
 
The reason why some casino downloads are larger than others:

With most online casino software you don't download all the games in the casino at once, you only download the games you want to play when you want to play them.

So the casinos where you downloaded more games from will take up more space on your hard drive.
 
I agree with just removing the software when not in use and reinstall when I want to play. "Including cleaning registry, Microgaming and others have way to much spyware"

For those with slow computers it may be time consuming but it will make your computer and other programs run faster if you do.

Or you could just go to walmart spend $70 and get a 40gb External hardrive and strore your casinos on that, just a thought!

As far as to why there is a difference between mbs in casino software I agree with Avatar73
 
The reason why some casino downloads are larger than others:

With most online casino software you don't download all the games in the casino at once, you only download the games you want to play when you want to play them.

So the casinos where you downloaded more games from will take up more space on your hard drive.
That would be true... if most of mine weren't Microgaming casinos.
These bastards FORCE you to download the whole package including 80% of crap games you don't want! :mad:

In theory they should all be exactly the same size, give or take less than 100Kb.
 

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