I was messing with a game that has a single 3.2MB data file inside the container and I noticed when I replaced said file after editing, the container doubled in size. Yet, the save works perfectly, still reports the file inside the container as 3.2MB, etc. Thought I’d mention it, since it’s not something a lot of people would notice. My version is 2.8.5.0. I believe that’s current. I don’t have time to upload a before and after copy of the save right now.
due to file compression most likely, depending on what was doing the editing hex editing or program ect if the program was written to compress the save file after edit or not, but most of the time saves are compressed to save space on the hard drive or where ever it’s stored and are decompressed when edited and not recompressed.
I don’t see how the file was compressed, much less compressed to exactly half its size. If I Zip the original 3.2 meg save, it goes down to 300KB. I make backups that way before I edit.
Like I said, it’s not just compression. I’m only seeing this on CONs with a single DAT inside. It says the size of the DAT in Horizon. I extract it. It’s still that size. I replace the DAT with the same one after editing. Horizon still says the DAT is the same size, BUT the CON doubles. I just tried doing the same thing with the same save in Modio and the CON does NOT double in size. It’s a problem with Horizon, and it needs fixed. I hate the Modio interface.
Wouldn’t saving your progress to a new slot fix it?
The reason the file size doubles is because Horizon correctly mimics how the Xbox 360 container format works. When you save a game on your console, a new file is created inside the container. When the file is finished being created/written to, that file is marked as active. The original file remains as the backup in case something went wrong with the save operation, hence why the CON size effectively doubles in your case. The console does this in case of a power outage or other similar event where the save operation is forced to stop. If the save fails, it would have the original file to go back to. If it was overwriting the original file, your save would have been lost.
In summary, not a bug, it’s the correct behavior and I suggest you don’t worry about it. Horizon doesn’t have to do it this way, but it’s a choice the developers have made and if you want it changed, you should ask them. As a workaround, if you want to get rid of the backup files hidden inside the container, open the package in safe mode and it will rebuild it so that only the most recent file remains.
I was wondering about this also so thanks for the technical answer. may be eventually they could add a setting where it could show the before and after size of the data files inside a con file.