I love that GOG is DRM free, but now it's way harder to get and run my games DRM free. Perhaps it's because I've become accustomed to the convience of storefronts like Galaxy, but the system of downloading 6 4GB sections and then 8 patches with wierd naming conventions (do I install one after the other, do I skip some, is "1.001 to 1.004" mean I should not install "1.002 to 1.005?"), etc.

Your galaxy system clearly has the ability to auto-find and install all those patches. Have a single, full-fat file, that I can download, with a completely stripped-down downloader that I can pause and restart in case of internet timeouts (happens more often than you think), and ends with a single EXE (or DMG, or ISO, or whatever) file on my hard drive. Single-click install, something I can put on a backup hard drive and forget about.

Yeah, it's a convenience change, rather, than a 'need,' but this single thing would make me use GOG significantly more. At the moment I buy on Steam first, because I essentally have to have a DRM store up, because of how onerous the non-Galaxy files are.

Please, GOG, make a simple unified system. This would make all the difference in the world.

Typically for updates they sometimes include patches and hot patches from an older to a more current version. Though that patch will go away and soon you'll only be left with the latest patch.

I haven't seen many games get too many updates after coming here, so don't expect patching much.

Also the 4Gb file limits are partially for Fat32 limits as well as to be able to burn to DVD if you wanted to.

Making a singular say 20Gb or 60Gb exe file sounds like a pain, namely if any part of it becomes corrupt good luck replacing the part that may be an issue and instead have to work a 20Gb or 60Gb file all over.

You don't need any of the patches as long as you have the latest version of the base game.
An example (I'm using offline installers only):
Grim Dawn (check attachment) is currently at version 1.1.9.4 (two parts: one exe and one bin file). There are also 4 patches (1.1.9.4 being the most recent one and 1.1.9.1 the oldest). In this situation you won't need any of the patches since the game is at the latest version. If you were using v 1.1.9.3, then you'd have to apply patch 1.1.9.4, thus bringing it up to date.

Also,
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/drm_on_gog_list_of_singleplayer_games_with_drm/page1

It's trivial to divide larger files into parts for the two people who actually want to burn stuff to piles of DVDs. This is 2022, not 2002, and holding downloads hostage to dangerously outdated tech doesn't actually make any real-world sense. If you must use a terrible file system, at least use exFAT. It's not; Mac and Linux installers have always been one part. There's simply no realistic excuse for dividing files into 4GB parts, and GOG is the only site that does this. Nowhere else on the entire internet as far as I've seen. That's never happened once in the decade+ that I've been here, nor has it happened on any other site. What's wrong with just using a normal web browser? I have to pause/resume GOG downloads sometimes (yeah, internet timeouts are indeed a thing); any web browser does this fine. HTTP resume has existed for decades now. Yep, as I mentioned the Mac/Linux downloads are like this, and it's the way it should be. I have a few Windows games that I use with Wine and the 4GB thing is pretty obnoxious. Sorry you have to deal with that for everything here.

This comes up once in a while. It’s not going to change though. In fairness it’s really quite simple though, most older games are one exe or one exe plus a bin. Even large games are not that many files. You only need patches if you have an older version. It is far simpler to download smaller files as you get less issues and can download bits as and when, torrents for instance download packages. I would be ok if they provided torrents to the files, would then allow you to use whichever me you liked. There are lots of issues with feline installers though, none of which have been addressed, compression ratio, change logs, old versions etc:
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/provide_a_full_and_complete_changelogged_download_system

Oh, and in terms of browser, I haven’t had a download break in years, they are normally much better.

You want one 100 gig file for something like 2077? Also, how are patch numbers confusing? If you're using version 1.1 then you install patch 1.1 to whatever. Why would you try 1.2 or 1.3 to x if you're not using either of those versions? It's not hard.

There's probably no real technical reason why they couldn't. They already do exactly that for Linux and Mac (and no-one complains about broken downloads there), it'd only the Windows one that's messy. Windows XP was the last version of Windows that you could install Windows to a FAT32 partition (and even then you had to override the default NTFS), from Vista onwards NTFS is compulsory. For optical media, most DVD-Burning software can usually split files and ISO9660 has long been replaced with UDF (supported since XP SP3), so you could burn a single piece 23GB sized file to BD-R easily without needing to split it up into 6x 4GB files. GOG doesn't support platforms that might use FAT32 like Raspberry Pi or Android (and that's solved using ExFAT / FAT64 instead of FAT32), so overall there is no real 4GB technical limit on any platform anymore.

As with most things it simply requires an attitude shift to making offline installers better (vs making them as least functional as possible as a subtle "advert" to use Galaxy), and nowhere is that more visible than in above screenshots where Windows & Mac they are called "Offline Backup Game Installers" whilst Linux they are simply called "Game Installers" (as if to say for platforms where there is no Galaxy then we'll give then a normal name but for platforms where Galaxy exists we'll name them in a way that suggests they are 'purely' for backup purposes...) Cyberpunk 2077's offline installer is mostly ridiculous by packaging a +106GB sized installer into 28x files to install a 60-70GB sized game by including every single language, thus wasting 35-45GB of everyone's space. It's easily technically possible to offer different languages and it's done for other games here, hence why there's a language drop-down menu for offline installers, or pack just the base game with English then offer language installers (that's how Microsoft handles Windows / Office via language packs). Either way it significantly reduces the size of the file and number of parts from 28x to 16-18x even keeping the 4GB split.

i want a 5tb for all my games in one file , then i should be able to chose which games to install in what versions

ZoomPlatform use 2GB files (Innosetup uses this as a maximum file capacity unless you dev it further yourself)

Personally, I have no problem with downloading 4gb files - it makes sense for maximum portability and you can just set the downloads going and leave it.

they should have made their own installer , which could maintain more than one version and would require only download the difference and that would just added into your already downloaded installer

Indeed, better installers are more important than how many parts. As you simply separating out language packs saves huge amount of the size (something pirate sites have done for quite some time). Also, use decent compression can save another up to 50 or 60% size. Separating out redistributables/emulators and such like may cause more issues, but would save some space. Web download is ok, I know other users liked downloader though I never used it. There is lots around this that has been raised, nothing has ever been acknowledged though so I don’t hold out any hope.

If only we all had great reliable high speed connections.

But to be honest, I have never understood this love affair that some have with huge files. And there are many good sound reasons to avoid them.

It is also very akin to putting all your eggs in one basket, never wise to do.

Sure, some are just so lucky and never have any trouble downloading etc.
Well much of the world is not like that, so give some thought and consideration for the unlucky.

Huge files are a pain to move around, they also make your drive work harder, heat up more.

With smaller files you have the option of doing things piecemeal ... in stages. Which is great for lots of reasons.

Despite the propaganda about how great drives are now, how rugged and tolerant they are, you still need to be wise with them and take care of them. Hard drives die all the time, usually from heat abuse. And not everyone can afford expensive new ones that cope better.

If you are doing the right thing with your backups, then they will be on multiple hard drives. If one 4 GB file gets corrupted, you just replace it fairly quickly with the same file from another backup. Having to replace a 100 Gb file is another matter, it isn't quick and your source or destination drive could die from overheating during the process. The larger the file, the more chance of that.

Archiving is more reliable and safer to use with smaller files. And GOG is very much about archiving, despite the existence of Galaxy ... at least for many of us.

For GOG to provide complete large downloads, it would mean keeping an additional copy of many games on their servers, or give up supporting those who require smaller download segments, which would just not be on and cause a huge uproar. Many folk take days to download some games, due to the speed and or flakiness of their connection.

P.S. I'm not sure why the OP decided to compare Steam to GOG, because Steam don't offer offline installers. I think they might be here with the wrong mindset.

Alas many here now seem to have the GOG or Steam mindset, rather than the DRM or DRM-Free mindset. Galaxy hasn't helped with that.

That would still be 2 files for me, so ... no, that's no good.


Actually I wished that GOG would split more.
The offline installer for Cyberpunk has a size of 130GB, while the installed game only has about 70GB. That's because the installer includes all languages. It would be better if it was split into base game and language packs.

Btw, I'm using gogrepo to download installers, works like a charm. The only thing I miss is to actually exclude patches from teh download, but maybe someone has made a modification of it already to allow that, have to check.
Also some devs don't know how to handle DLCs very well.Check the dlcs for Succubus for example. it's about 2 x 30GB download for two files which together have a size of only 280MB. and can also be downloaded separatly. So after having gogrepo download the whole thing I delete the patches and dlc installers again,

It's true that Mac and Linux installers come as one file, but what if the download gets corrupted somehow?
For example, Wasteland 2 Director's Cut:
Mac - a single file of 9.2GB
Linux - a single file of 9.1GB
Windows - 4 files that amount to approximately 9.3GB (1 exe X 1MB, 2 bin X 4GB, 1 bin X 1.3GB)
There's also another aspect to consider: some people use services with capped data, so they have to pick and choose what and when to download. Wouldn't then having multiple smaller files make more sense?

My main concern when it comes to the offline installers is that one day they might no longer be considered of interest.
This only reinforces that thought:
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/games_that_gog_has_left_the_offline_installers_outdated_for/post1

I'm afraid that's exactly the point, convenience above everything else.

then use a downloader which can fix wrong parts of a file