Please keep files stored locally

[intender]

Please give us the option to keep installation files for the vive software stored locally.  In the modern world where everything is cloud based or streamed I think companies have completely forgotten that not everyone in the world has fast internet. I have horribly slow internet (3mb/s) and I have 2 different computers that I play VR on.  One in the family room where I set it up for the kids to play games and one in my office that is my main gaming PC that I usually keep up to date. If there is an update it takes me in excess of an hour to download the update, then I have to go to the other PC and spend another hour to update it whenever the kids want to play.  A new beta launches and I spend an hour updating (more if the wife or kids are using the internet). Find out that the new beta has bugs that make it worse than the old version and need to roll back to the old version, well then lets spend another hour redownloading the version I already had installed previously. it would be nice if I could just put the updated installer that I already have on one computer on a usb drive and update the other computer instead of having to listen to my kids ask me if its done yet 1000 times, or spend 2 hours downloading files when a new beta sucks and by the time its done I dont have time to even play a game.

 

I don't even care about being able to transfer game files between pc's although that would be nice.  I just want an offline installer or that the files that the Vive software manager downloads to be kept locally and to be able to put on a drive to move between computers or for rolling back to non beta or installing on another pc.

[HackPerception]

Hello @intender,

What beta are you specifically referring to? We occasionally push updates and betas to the Vive console but we follow a specific schedule which means that you'll see a potential update around once a month or less. SteamVR main and beta branch updates are handled by Valve, not HTC and we have no control over that. Valve only pushes a main branch update once a month usually. Same with Viveport - we try to update that one every two weeks at an absolute max. We have no influence over determining the update rate that individual developers employ - some reliably push multiple updates a month. We only control the Viveport client, and the Vive Console (Vive Cosmos runtime) and we don't push updates all that often.

Companies utilize server side managed distribution because it dramatically reduces complexity. If you had a public installer package for each and every single version of your runtime/software, it rapidly becomes unmanageable when you scale across an entire userbase and it creates customer service nightmares. Server managed setups enable version lock where all of the userbase is using a common version. When you maintain a platform or a game, you may add/remove features and supporting older versions becomes extremely complex and expensive and slows your progress dramatically. Using server managed systems also enables a whole host of automation and security features. While it's not perfect, the current system is dramatically better than you'd see with version fractured ecosystems/platforms.  Imagine trying to maintain a multiplayer game where your userbase is split across 5 different version numbers - it's a nightmare scenario. The same is true for the platform and the VR runtime itself.

Modern gaming overall is not really suited for low bandwidth connections but the industry is pretty committed to the current digital distribution models because they work at scale. The best thing to do in low bandwidth situations is to avoid beta branches, stick to main branch updates, and boot the Steam client in offline mode to prevent the client from checking your software against the server's version and forcing automatic updates. Swapping between beta/non beta software is a PITA even with fast internet and it's better to just stick with what's stable unless you have time to tinker.