Why FitGirl won't die: The repacker millions of gamers depend on in an age of surveillance
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Proton can handle the game files but not the installer. So you have to install in wine and it’s a hassle. I install the games on my windows pc, zip them and then transfer them to my deck.
Since Fitgirl’s installer just unpacks stuff, I just use the same prefix for all installers. Protontricks/wine lets you specify a path in the Z:/ drive as well (the linux base system), so no need to move stuff.
I even made a dummy exe file that does nothing and added that as a non steam game that works as a catch-all prefix for whatever I need to run without adding it as a non steam game first.
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It’s harder to use on Linux, and lower-performance devices. I would prefer prefer having dumps of the pre-installed game folder to use on a steam deck, for example.
I’d suggest having a look into LinuxRuleZ! repacks, maybe not for lower performance devices but at least it’s like 2 clicks and you’re up and running for basically any game.
Even games that are notoriously difficult to make work pirated, like Forza Horizon 4 and 5.
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Note plenty FitGirl repacks are lossless; as in, she isn’t taking less important files out of the game, she’s compressing it better. 90GB→35GB seems accurate; you often see ~1/3 of the original size, like this. And it shows plenty game devs
- do an extremely bad job at basic tasks like compression.
- give no flying fucks about players, who might have really slow connections.
And then those same developers get amazed at the fact FitGirl is so popular. “Maybe we’re doing something wrong? …nah.”
I wouldn’t really say that. The kind of extreme compression Fitgirl does comes with the tradeoff of really long decompression times. Depending on which games, nearly 45 minutes (with a 7800x3D)
Some games lack compression but I would not want those long install times by default, if you have a speedy internet connection they usually take longer to install than to download. Don’t get me wrong, for people with really slow internet those repacks are a godsend but they are not “better” on every aspect.
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I have zero trust installing pirated software, especially when they go out of their way to break it when using wine on Linux or running it in a vm.
They don’t go out of their way to break it, they just don’t pay attention to it (yet). There was an interesting interview here a few months ago: https://lemmy.world/post/32441387
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Proton can handle the game files but not the installer. So you have to install in wine and it’s a hassle. I install the games on my windows pc, zip them and then transfer them to my deck.
Huh? I add the installer to steam, use proton and install. No problem.
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I wouldn’t really say that. The kind of extreme compression Fitgirl does comes with the tradeoff of really long decompression times. Depending on which games, nearly 45 minutes (with a 7800x3D)
Some games lack compression but I would not want those long install times by default, if you have a speedy internet connection they usually take longer to install than to download. Don’t get me wrong, for people with really slow internet those repacks are a godsend but they are not “better” on every aspect.
Steam gets around this problem by doing the decompressing on the fly as you download. Go check out your CPU usage next time you install a game.
Edit: I think this is also why it defaults to not downloading while you game. Steam doesn’t want you to have a bad experience from the decompression.
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What’s your process for running the unpacker executable? Maybe it depends on the game, but I set up a wineprefix through Lutris and always seem to run into issues getting it to complete properly without any unpacking errors.
The last time I used one, I had to edit some paths in a .md5 file to get the hash verification to work.
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I’ve had a lot less of a desire to pirate games after moving to Linux full time a few years ago. But FitGirl has been the one reliable place for public torrents, compaed to chancing it on the third Google Link or scrolling through the Russian CS-Rin-Rulette forum to find links.
Why would you ever use google to find torrents?
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Huh? I add the installer to steam, use proton and install. No problem.
The fitgirl unpacker and installer? Tbh I never tried, everyone on the web simply said it didn’t work.
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Why would you ever use google to find torrents?
It was 5-10 years ago, not too hard to find and a little before Google intentionally made things harder to find. I’ve used many public and private trackers, but it’s just that these days my interest in movies has disappeared almost completely, and I’m happy with most of the games I have.
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It’s harder to use on Linux, and lower-performance devices. I would prefer prefer having dumps of the pre-installed game folder to use on a steam deck, for example.
I also have problems on Linux. I’ve tried a few different methods, but ultimately, they always end up seeming to freeze and make no further progress after a certain point.
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If you can afford it
Might be a better option, or least send the devs some support while using repacks. It’s sort of like a thrift store when you find something you really wanted maybe a game you didn’t even know of, and it means a lot more because it feels like finding a treasure.
I actually didn’t know that the whole point of fitgirl was for compression, I’ve been blessed with massive hard drives. I think I took my 4tb ssd for granted. Not everyone has even an extra $5 .
The best option is piracy. Do not engage in capitalism where you can avoid it.
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Steam gets around this problem by doing the decompressing on the fly as you download. Go check out your CPU usage next time you install a game.
Edit: I think this is also why it defaults to not downloading while you game. Steam doesn’t want you to have a bad experience from the decompression.
More like check your hdd. Steam goes like this for me download, download, download, pause downloading to extract and smash my hdd, download, download, downloand.
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Why FitGirl won't die: The repacker millions of gamers depend on in an age of surveillance
Ask almost any PC gamer from Asia to South America, and they will tell you the same thing: FitGirl is the one name in piracy that everyone recognises
The Business Standard (www.tbsnews.net)
God bless Fitgirl
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It was 5-10 years ago, not too hard to find and a little before Google intentionally made things harder to find. I’ve used many public and private trackers, but it’s just that these days my interest in movies has disappeared almost completely, and I’m happy with most of the games I have.
If you ever get back into it, look into jackett. Consolidates a large number of trackers (some some setup) which makes life so much easier.
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Note plenty FitGirl repacks are lossless; as in, she isn’t taking less important files out of the game, she’s compressing it better. 90GB→35GB seems accurate; you often see ~1/3 of the original size, like this. And it shows plenty game devs
- do an extremely bad job at basic tasks like compression.
- give no flying fucks about players, who might have really slow connections.
And then those same developers get amazed at the fact FitGirl is so popular. “Maybe we’re doing something wrong? …nah.”
No it’s making a choice. Faster decompress times. Considering a lot of their customers have fast speeds it doesn’t really matter.
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More like check your hdd. Steam goes like this for me download, download, download, pause downloading to extract and smash my hdd, download, download, downloand.
Is this why steam is so insanely slow to download games.
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It’s more likely that the devs are not being given the time or resources to do this kind of thing properly. Their bosses are too concerned with what will save money and generate shareholder value.
This implies fitgirl is doing it properly. Which it’s trade off faster download longer install times or vice versa.
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If you can afford it
Might be a better option, or least send the devs some support while using repacks. It’s sort of like a thrift store when you find something you really wanted maybe a game you didn’t even know of, and it means a lot more because it feels like finding a treasure.
I actually didn’t know that the whole point of fitgirl was for compression, I’ve been blessed with massive hard drives. I think I took my 4tb ssd for granted. Not everyone has even an extra $5 .
I actually didn’t know that the whole point of fitgirl was for compression
The whole point of view of the article is about people from countries that can’t afford the modern AAA price, internet bandwidth… and even PC capable to run the game decently (AAA the full price always take in account hardware that runs on “Ultra settings”; not the customers running it at very low).
As aside note, piracy isn’t even about piracy itself anymore: someone who buy an AAA videogame on “exclusivity store” (such as Epic)… soon or later will discover that’s easier to store a fitgirl copy of his purchase to run the same game seamelessly across all the PC in their household (good old: Install > Next > Next > Finish) … rather having set up those 2+3 launcher per PC.
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Is this why steam is so insanely slow to download games.
It can be, spinning iron has pretty bad throughput.
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