I apologize if this is already answered somewhere but I’m curious what exactly a fitgirl repack is? I know it’s a pirated version of a game but like is it just an installer or something? And if you imported the game into steam for example can you be “banned” or VAT (idr the term)

  • Neshura@bookwormstory.social
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    10 months ago

    is it just an installer or something?

    It’s a compressed installer to be precise. Usually crackers only put up the patch files, which is pretty useless for anybody wanting to pirate a game. Fitgirl repackages (and compresses) the game files together with the crack patches into a cracked installer, hence “repack”.

    And if you imported the game into steam for example can you be “banned” or VAT (idr the term)

    Nope, though it will look funny in your Steam Status there is nothing to worry about. After all for all Valve knows you could be using a renamed version of a legitimate App, for non-steam entries in steam only the .exe name is known, nothing else.

    Just a word of warning: be careful when torrenting the games, while Valve will not ban you for using them game publishers are known to sue when catching you torrenting them (usually the upload part in the torrent is what gets people but the downloading is not 100% safe either). You should definitely look into how to safely torrent stuff before committing to it in order to avoid any nasty cease-and-desist letters flying in your door.

    • cryptix@discuss.tchncs.de
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      10 months ago

      The warning part totally Depends on where you are . I’m not American nor Europeans. I’ll continue sailing the high seas 😎

  • Yote.zip@pawb.social
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    10 months ago

    I’ll add that if you want to archive games forever, storing repacks is a good idea because of their extreme compression. From what I’ve observed, Fitgirl trends towards heavier compression while DODI trends towards faster install times.

    KaOsKrew is another respected repacking group that you can trust.

    • ColdWater@lemmy.ca
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      10 months ago

      Idk man dodi’s releasees seem to have the same size as fitgirl while also install faster and less CPU intensive when installing

      • cyanarchy@sh.itjust.works
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        10 months ago

        No way we’re downloading the same repacks, it’s rare to see anything as small as fitgirl’s releases in my experience. Your CPU had better be ready to step up to the plate though.

      • Yote.zip@pawb.social
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        10 months ago

        They’re available as an option. You can source from any of Fitgirl, DODI, or KaOs if they have the game you want. Other repackers do exist and they’re all generally trustworthy, but those 3 put out a lot of content and have a good track record. ElAmigos is another good one that puts out a lot of releases.

          • Yote.zip@pawb.social
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            10 months ago

            Yeah. What repackers do is they source the game, source all the updates, source the DLC, and source the cracks, then put it all together, make sure it works, compress it into an installer, and distribute it. As an end-user you run the installer to decompress the game and then click play. Repackers don’t actually do any of the cracking themselves, they just put it all in one package and make it easy. The installer will run CPU-heavy while it decompresses their heavy compression so don’t be alarmed by that.

  • BrownianMotion@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    10 months ago

    Do you want a simple answer?

    fitgirl repacks attempt to stress your cpu/gpu to the maximum and try to overheat your beloved PC, by making the data for the game astronomically compressed to the point where the decompression time can actually take longer than the time to download the original crack on USENET by as much as 4-8x.

    If you have USENET, don’t even bother. If you have unlimited Data on your ISP, just torrent the un-“packed” version. You will thank me in the longer time. Its not worth it in most cases.

    Here is an example of a 75GB repack that makes it 56GB:

    Did the time it took you to save <20GB download save you the additional 1.5 hrs to decompress?!

    Okay, if the repack is under 20-30GB, its probably worth a shot. But even then…

      • Mixel@feddit.de
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        10 months ago

        Well to be fair compression/decompression is EXTREMELY CPU intensive even on newest hardware. It was always that way and will always stay that way probably. The more you compress the longer and more CPU intensive it is to decompress No matter if your pc is 10 years old or if it’s a rack server with newest hardware

    • heckypecky@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      10 months ago

      Fair point if you have a high speed connection. But if your system overheats during decompression, the fault lies with your shitty technical skills instead of the repack. Clean your rig, man.

    • Neshura@bookwormstory.social
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      10 months ago

      According to your example anyone with a Download rate below 3.5MB/s would still benefit from the compression. The 4-8x is also a lot of BS, assuming 10MB/s you’d be looking at 3x. For 4-8x you’d need 12-24MB/s. It’s pretty ignorant to assume those speeds are common, let alone the standard for most people.

      Besides what kind of potato CPU do you have that it takes 1.5hrs to decompress a 56GB repack? A quad core from 2013? That’s about how long it takes to compress that amount of data to that extent, decompression is usually a lot faster.

      Edit: looking at your screenshot instead of just the text, my quad core assumption was right on the mark.

      Pretty, hypocritical to assume metropolitan internet speeds paired with a potato PC to make your point seem better than it is no?

      • BrownianMotion@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        10 months ago

        I couldn’t find the example I had in mind, but it was something that was over 120GB. and the unpack was 8+hrs on what is arguably a reasonable PC.

        You forget most people do not have a CPU that has 24 threads, 12 cores. And on top of that, the amount of RAM required can be questioned. If you think your 64GB RAM and 16/32 CPU are “normal” then you are just kidding yourself, and its probably not your money you are spending on it to but it.

        Then on top of that, most people have an ISP that can reach far higher speeds than you propose. Mine is a basic minimum of 25MB/s as a basic minimum. I’m sorry to hear that you cannot get even that, but that is as common as muck in most western civilised worlds.

        • Neshura@bookwormstory.social
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          10 months ago

          Hoo boy. let’s unpack this.

          I’m not arguing high-specs are the norm, I’m arguing a quad core paired with fiver speeds is not the norm, even less so a quad core with a slow hdd and fiber speeds.

          Most people will not see the 30 minute decompress time, neither will they see 1h 30m of it. No, most people will sot somewhere around 1h of decompression.

          Regarding your comment on internet speeds:

          The US Median in 2023 was 190~ MBps according to Ookla. Keyword being median. Median means that this is the average excluding the top and bottom 1th percentile 50th percentile, so exactly the middle of all measured speeds (thanks for the correction apotheotic). Meaning roughly half of the US gets slower speeds than that. Besides the rest of the “civilized” world (I can only assume you’re american given the idiocy of that statement) has average speeds ranging from 100 to 200 MBps, the US is on the higher end there. Assuming everyone gets your “baseline” of 25MB/s is, again, pretty ignorant given that it is above average in a country with pretty high average speeds to begin with.

          I’m not saying that 3.5MB/s is a common download speed to have, I was stating that it’s the cutoff where it makes sense for a potato pc to use the repack. That number will be higher for a more average PC (Steam hardware survey has most people using 6-cores, with only a few percent using a 4-core over an 8-core for example). With a more “average” PC the cutoff speed would likely be around 6MB/s, which is ~1/3 of the Average US speed. It’s easy to get there with other traffic congesting the line (like YouTube because what else are you going to do while that crack downloads) especially if you are not living alone and are sharing the connection with one or more other people.